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TL;DR: Sophia “Slaze'' Ramirez was found to have repeatedly queued together into Competitive with cheaters. In multiple instances, the cheater would be banned mid-game, log into a new account, and proceed to requeue with Slaze, even after she had received a notification of cheater detection. Slaze is banned from any association or affiliation with a team in a Riot-sanctioned competition for 3 months.
Context
All VALORANT players must abide by the Riot Games Terms of Use (“ToS”). Section 7 of the ToS highlights any activity intended to “boost” an account’s status or rank as an activity that may warrant disciplinary measures. The Riot Anti-Cheat team published a Winter Update (https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/dev/valorant-anti-cheat-winter-update/) that laid out solutions to cheating, including a 90-day penalty for “bussing”, an activity associated with boosting. “Bussing” is defined as intentionally queuing with cheaters in order to climb in rank.Timeline
All registered VCT Game Changers competitors are subject to an anti-cheat scan. Slaze’s accounts were flagged for bussing. On September 20th, 2021, Slaze queued with an active cheater for 10 games, winning 8 of them. The cheater was banned for cheating during the 2nd game, sending all players in the game, including Slaze, a red full-screen notification of a cheater detected in their game (the “Red Screen”). Slaze and the cheater logged into different accounts and played 8 more games.
Further investigation revealed Slaze’s consistency in queuing with a cheater and requeuing with them after receiving the Red Screen. In the past 28 days, Slaze received the Red Screen and requeued with cheaters on multiple occasions, with at least 4 new accounts employed by cheaters after the initial ban. During this 28 day period:
- 77% of the Competitive MMR gained on Slaze’s accounts came from games played while duo-queued with an actively cheating player.
- 60% of Slaze’s Competitive matches were played while duo-queued with an actively cheating player.
As part of an actioning wave, automated systems administered a 90-day suspension to the account on which Slaze played the majority of matches while duo-queued with a cheater.
Ruling
Sophia “Slaze” Ramirez queued with actively cheating players and continued to do so even after receiving the Red Screen. This is a violation of Rule 7.5 of the VALORANT Global Competition Policy. Slaze is banned from any association or affiliation with a team in a Riot-sanctioned competition for 3 months, beginning from the date of the latest violation to December 20th, 2021.
Relevant Rules
7.5. Terms of Use
Any conduct that (a) violates the Terms of Use for VALORANT; (b) violates any guidelines, or any policy posted on the official websites or social media accounts for VALORANT; or (c) interferes with use or enjoyment of VALORANT by others is prohibited and a violation of this Global Policy
*Correction made September 29th, 6:43pm: the previous version of this article inaccurately depicted Slaze’s activity on September 20th, 2021. On that date, Slaze played 10 games (1 complete game, 1 broken game, 8 complete games) over two accounts, not 19 games as the previous version of this article had stated. The current copy correctly reflects the events of September 20th, 2021.