G2 Esports’ VALORANT team has received a formal warning for its coach communicating with the players outside of the designated tactical and timeout pauses, Riot Games announced today.
During a match against Team Vitality in the EMEA VALORANT Champions Tour closed qualifier, which took place from Jan. 10 to 16, G2 coach Daniil “pipsoN” Mesheryakov communicated with his team. The communication was for “celebratory purposes,” which was later confirmed by pipsoN on Twitter.
The coach apologized on Twitter following the ruling. “I’d like to clarify that this was unintentional and won’t happen again in the future,” he said.
The team has received a warning because it did not result in a competitive advantage for G2, Riot said in a statement. The communication also wasn’t informative for the team, contrary to the recent instance with T1.
North American team T1 temporarily suspended head coach David “dd8” Denis following the team’s forced forfeit against TSM in the NA VCT Challengers open qualifier, which concluded on Jan. 31.
The coach said he provided “encouraging/supportive statements and general reminders” to his players but one instance included “help sewers,” which was seen as informative and thereby resulted in a harsher punishment compared to G2.
G2 is set to compete in the VCT Stage One: EMEA Challengers, which will begin on Feb. 11. T1 will play tonight for a chance to qualify for the NA Stage One group stage, which is set to begin on Feb. 11.
