Ex-Counter-Strike professional player Joel “emilio” Mako, known for getting VAC-banned in the middle of a CS:GO tournament in 2017, has now been kicked in the middle of a CS2 Major qualifier. The real question: how was he able to register in the first place?
The PGL Copenhagen Major open qualifiers have been ongoing for the past few days as teas across the globe scramble to be a part of the first Major in CS2. Unfortunately, the qualifiers have been riddled with controversies—and they only keep coming. The latest is one ex-CS:GO pro’s attempt to rejoin the global CS scene by participating in the qualifiers.
The only problem here is that he’s banned from playing in Valve’s events and was promptly kicked during a live qualifier match that he streamed to his Twitch audience on Jan. 12, as first reported by coverage site dust2.se.
For those that don’t remember the olden days, when CS:GO was still in its infancy, emilio was a professional upstart trying his luck in the 2014 Fragbite Masters. Playing for Team Property, Emilio and his team seemed to be doing well until disaster struck (if you consider cheaters being banned a disaster). When facing off against HellRaisers, emilio was suddenly VAC-banned in the middle of the match—a moment that garnered worldwide attention.
After failing to provide sufficient evidence that emilio was falsely flagged by VAC, Fragbite Masters disqualified Team Property and banned the player from participating in their events. As it was a VAC ban, emilio can never be allowed to qualify for a Valve-sanctioned event according to the Major rulebook.
It didn’t stop him from attempting to qualify for the European RMR this week, but fortunately, admins put a stop to the match before it really began, closing the server after four rounds. However, it’s another controversy from this season’s Major qualifiers after accusations of bug abuse, a coach was caught interacting with the stream (thanks Escorenews), and many more instances of supposed hacking.
The state of the current qualifiers is disastrous, to say the least, but our reminiscence of emilio’s situation proves that it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows in those days, either. Nevertheless, players have been urging the tournament organizers to act swiftly and get things in order since, after all, we’re talking Major-level importance here.
CS2 apparently can’t catch a break, either due to technical problems with the game itself (allowing for exploits and abuse) or tournament organizers having a very hard time. Whatever the case, I hope the best FPS perseveres and we eventually get a Major without controversy.
