Members of the VCT Game Changers competitor Team Besties have received an 18-month long ban from any Riot-sanctioned events for violating Riot’s ToS during an official game.
The suspension follows an investigation that revealed Team Besties using unregistered players during VALORANT Game Changers to gain an unfair competitive advantage. The ban was confirmed in a recent competitive ruling released by Riot on 12th July.
According to the ruling, Team Besties has been suspended for 12 months for the ‘ringing’ accusations, and another 6 months for not cooperating with the investigation.
The (now banned) players that were initially registered under Team Besties for the NA VCT Game Changers Qualifiers include:
- Jenna “koi” Tang,
- Katie “kateuuu” Tran,
- Mia “kei” Leong,
- Jasmine “memrice” Huynh
- Jennifer “wetboosy” Li
- Bella “soju” Rierad (coach)
During the tournament, the officials were made aware of a suspicion involving a Team Besties player.
Kei had played Sova in all of Team Besties’ first five games of Game Changers and accumulated a -39 kill/death differential with a stable ping of 52ms. However, in the next three games against Team Invicta and 100emoji, kei played Jett and Reyna with a stable ping of 68 ms, accumulating a kill/death differential of +44.
Furthermore, the Tournament Officials also caught an account named “arentikawaii” in the pre-game lobby against 100emoji, to whom the team tried to pass off as an alternate account for one of the players. Voice communication recordings of Team Besties also picked up the phrase, “what is the password?” from a player.
“We worked with Tournament Officials to confirm that kei’s account had multiple log-ins from across North America during Game Changers,” Riot said in a statement. “Accordingly, Tournament Officials disqualified Team Besties from Game Changers.”
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