The first NA open qualifier for the BLAST.tv Paris Major was thrown into disarray on February 14 after a player was caught cheating live on stream.
As the qualifier’s Round of 16 was about to get underway, the player ‘pawt’ of team Fun MIx was banned by Gamers Club, the platform where the tournament is being held, before the start of the match against Strife Esports.
Confusion ensued before it was revealed that the player had been banned for a cheating offense. The moment was caught live on stream by Dust2.us’ Twitch channel, which was about to stream the match.
Gamers Club disqualified Fun MIx after the incident and overturned the team’s Round of 32 victory against goomba stomp, who went on to lose to Strife by a 16-2 scoreline.
The incident further adds to what was already a rocky qualifier, on a platform with which most North American players are not familiar. Gamers Club, self-described as “the biggest esports platform in Brazil”, partnered with BLAST to host the qualifiers for the upcoming Major in both South America and North America.
Open qualifiers for the vast majority of international competitions are run on FACEIT, which recently merged with ESL, BLAST’s biggest competitor, after the two companies were bought by Saudi Arabian government-backed Savvy Gaming Group in January 2022 for a combined $1.5bn.
The first North American qualifier was marked by low signups, with only 36 teams registering for the tournament. Eight teams will progress from the open qualifiers to the closed stage, in which they will join teams like Complexity, MIBR and Evil Geniuses.
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