On Jan. 16, Riot Games issued a major competitive ruling for two former VALORANT players who were caught in a scandal while in an official Game Changers event, leading to significant punishments—including a ban for former pro Madelyn “Malibu” Campos.
Rarely are professional players found in a cheating scandal, especially in official tournaments. But this debacle was a major pain point for not just VALORANT fans but competing teams who were beaten by the parties in question. Multiple rules were broken, several arguments in terms of competitive integrity arose, and it was a huge issue for the teammates of the accused as well.
Riot’s decision-making also pushed away other organizations, such as Disguised, which has opted out of competing in Game Changers for 2024 due to the circumstances around the scandal.
Who is Malibu and why was she banned?
Malibu is a former competitive VALORANT player who played for Noot Noot, an amateur GC roster, during VCT Game Changers Series III in 2023.
In its official competitive ruling, Riot said that allegations surfaced around there being a possible cheater on Noot Noot’s active lineup during their match vs. Complexity GX3. After investigating these claims, Riot confirmed “the integrity of the match had been compromised.”
Prior to the match, Malibu had been given multiple punishments from Riot’s anti-cheat team and was even under an active hardware ban due to her actions. To avoid the ban and compete, she participated in the tournament on a new computer with another account.
Additionally, she worked alongside another player, James “Summertime” Edwards, to provide fake information and an AI-generated portrait to AnyKey, which is the program Riot uses to verify a person’s identity for tournaments.
On the other hand, there wasn’t any other evidence suggesting that her fellow Noot Noot teammates were aware of her actions while they were competing in the event, and there was no mention of any possible cheating in-game by Malibu during the tournament, such as the use of wallhacks or aimbot.
What are the full punishments?
Malibu has been given a permanent ban from competing in any Riot-sanctioned competition for the foreseeable future, while Summertime has been banned from all Riot-sanctioned events for one year. The rest of the Noot Noot players were not given any punishments, although the roster disbanded after the scandal.
