Through a blog post on April 15th, Valve has announced some big changes to their RMR eligibility guidelines and how VAC bans would affect the pros willing to participate in Valve-sponsored events.
Moving forward, CSGO players will only not be able to participate in Valve-affiliated tournaments if they received a VAC ban less than 5 years prior, or if it was received at any point in time after their first participation in a Valve-sponsored event (for instance, after participating in a qualifier for an RMR event).
This update has gotten the CSGO community across the world excited, as the newly-introduced changes pave the way for some popular pros who had received VAC bans in the past to return to the competitive scene of the tactical shooter.
Speaking of pros that can now participate in competitive CSGO once again, the names of Elias “jamppi” Olkkonen and Vinicius “vsm” Moreira first come to mind.
Jamppi is a Finnish CSGO player who received a VAC ban way back in 2013. The 19-year-old had alleged that the ban was on an account that he had purchased for playing with his friends and sold soon afterward. He had also raised a lawsuit against Valve in the past, suing them over damages caused as a result of his VAC ban.
Soon after the RMR guidelines were revised, Jamppi posted a celebratory Tweet thanking the developers.
Brazilian CSGO player Vinicius “vsm” Moreira is another notable player who’s free to return to competitive Counter-Strike once again. Vsm received a VAC ban on his account for using cheats when he was only 13-years-old. In the past few years, vsm fans had resorted to Twitter while using the hashtag #FreeVSM and demanded vsm to be unbanned from the competitive scene.
Today’s update will likely put the hashtag to rest, as vsm has declared himself to be ‘free’ following the update.
