Current Monte CS:GO player and former Natus Vincere pro Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev has called out the players currently playing under the sponsorless tag PALOMA for allegedly cheating at the $20,000 online tournament European Pro League season six.
Sdy’s accusation comes right after Monte defeated PALOMA 3-0 in the grand finals of European Pro League season six (16-14 on Mirage, 16-12 on Nuke, and 16-14 on Ancient). The Ukrainian rifler urged tournament organizers to stop inviting PALOMA to events since he claimed it’s “obvious” that they’re using cheats.
“You as a tournament organizer should never invite this PALOMA/Permitta team to your tournament,” sdy said on Twitter. “If you analyze their demos it’s obvious for any reasonable player that they’re cheating. I hope to never play against them. It’s a disgrace to our Counter-Strike scene, and I will not be silenced. You should use any anti-cheat doesn’t matter which tournament it is.”
On top of accusing PALOMA, sdy shared some plays in which he thinks PALOMA used cheats. In one of the clips, Dawid “Layner” Falczyński refrains from throwing a flashbang in Nuke’s A bombsite to switch to his gun and kill one of the Monte players who was about to appear on his screen. In another clip, Mariusz “casey” Jarząb stares at the wall before jumping to the left near A bombsite’s Door and avoids getting killed by an AWPer holding the angle he was in.
The PALOMA quintet of Layner, casey, Patryk “OLIMP” Woźniak, Rafał “sNx” Snopek, and Rafał “iso” Tync played for esports organization Permitta Esports between November 2022 and February 2023, and most notably competed at IEM Katowice 2023’s play-in stage in early February, in which they were eliminated without a single map win versus FURIA and Complexity.
Although it’s unlikely that any tournament organizer will ban the PALOMA players based on the clips above, it’s possible that the players will need to explain the thought process behind these plays to the European Pro League admins and other tournament organizers may review their recent demos before inviting them.
Update March 8 7:43am CT: European Pro League released a statement on the allegations sdy made against PALOMA, in which it claimed no evidence of foul play was found and therefore it can’t take action against the Polish team.
