The Cloud9 White VALORANT roster forfeited an upper bracket match in the NA VCT Game Changers Series Two qualifier today, due to the team arriving two minutes after the official window to start the match.
According to team captain Melanie “meL” Capone and coach Reid “x0tek” Johnson, C9 White was forced to forfeit the match after the team arrived late to their best-of-one upper bracket match versus Immortals, due to “last minute issues” according to x0tek. MeL said that the late arrival was due to two players having issues with the tournament client.
MeL, x0tek, and other C9 White players publicly thanked Immortals for waiting and even offering to continue playing, as both teams were reportedly in the game lobby ready to play two minutes after the 20 minute allotted tech pause had passed. Multiple players on Immortals including kay and tupperware expressed their desire to play the match after the disqualification decision was made by Nerd Street.
Coach x0tek, while taking blame for the outcome, also expressed that in 18 years of competing, that he had never seen a forfeit loss due to a two minute tardiness with both teams present and willing to play.
Many fans online feel that the decision to disqualify C9 White and make them forfeit the entire match is unfair given that it was supposedly due to the tournament’s client. With C9 White only being late by two minutes and Immortals seemingly willing to play, the ruling has drawn extra ire from fans of Game Changers, given other recent VALORANT tournaments. Just a week prior in the NA VCT Stage Two playoffs, the XSET vs. FaZe Clan match resumed as normal after a power outage at FaZe’s facility caused an hour-and-a-half long delay.
Regardless, C9 White isn’t out of the qualifier yet, but will have to reach the Series Two main event via the lower bracket, against competition that likely wasn’t expecting the reigning GC champs to even be in that portion of the bracket.
Update 6:31pm CT: The VALORANT Esports team issued a competitive ruling on C9 White, relaying their timeline of events of the forfeit. According to them, C9 White’s coach showed up 20 minutes late to map vetoes, no C9 White players showed up before the given match start time, and the players only joined the server two minutes after they were notified of the forfeit. VALORANT Esports also said that a C9 coach only indicated there were tech issues after the forfeit.
The competitive ruling was officially announced during C9 White’s lower bracket match versus Zero MarksMen White.
