Guild Esports disqualifed for exploit during First Strike

Riot’s First Strike tournament has its first controversy. During the Play-Ins of the EU qualifiers Guild Esports exploited a bug in the game, resulting in their disqualification by Riot.

The European First Strike division is underway since November 9. Last friday Guild Esports went head to head with G2 in the Top 16 for a coveted spot in the finals. During the match Guild abused a boost that involved Sage’s wall on Ascent. Riot only caught wind of it on Saturday and promptly disqualified Guild Esports for the remainder of the qualifier.

Full vision of the opposing team

As can be seen on the Twitter clip below, Guild Esports combined Sage and Killjoy to boost a player for vision near B site on Ascent.

With almost full vision of the tunnels the boost was ruled unfair by Riot and led to a forced forfeit by Guild Esports.

Consequences for Guild Esports

The boost itself has been in the game for several months with multiple content creators even uploading “How-To”s on YouTube. And until Guild used it in an official match Riot did not show any signs of ruling the boost as an exploit. This situation has now led to the first ever disqualification in VALORANT’s young esports scene as G2 was advanced instead of Guild to face Ninjas in Pyjamas.

Guild Esports does have another shot at qualification through the second qualifier starting on November 18.

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Image Credit: Twitter @ValorantUpdates / Liquipedia