If you linger in the official Overwatch forums or r/Overwatch reddit recently you might have seen some threads popped up showing questionable video clips by some of the top players in Overwatch.
Cheating accusations, or hackusations as some may called it, can be something of honour if you look at it the right way- you’re just so good people just can’t believe you’re real!- but the outlook right now is not a positive one.
With the recent backlash of the Summer Games loot boxes, as expected there is a vocal voice that are not happy that seasonal cosmetics are not available for purchase with in-game currency at all, some parts of the community are not too happy with developers Blizzard.
And the recent threads aggressively forcing Blizzard to take any action to pros that were assumed cheating, but got silenced instead as those threads on the official forums breaks its code of conduct, just riles up more angry people.
When the game launched, we saw witch hunts went against Cloud 9’s main DPS Surefour. Recently, team EnVyUs, currently in a winning streak of 52 games, is getting the heat as well, as an old video of DPS Taimou raises suspicions of using aimbot reappears. Internethulk, the main tank of the team, got called out as well in a questionable clip where he plays McCree on stream.
The biggest honor as a pro gamer is to be called a cheater repeatedly without actually having cheated. Pretty sure Blizzard is watching.
— Mike Rufail (@hastr0) August 6, 2016
I invite Blizzard to investigate our Overwatch team so the other pros can go on trying to get better themselves.
— Mike Rufail (@hastr0) August 6, 2016
While EnVyUs’ team owner takes a solid stance in support of his team and willing to co-operate if Blizzard wishes to investigate them (tweets above), Team Solo Mid, or TSM, has a different take.
TSM owner Andy Dinh certainly knew the chequered history of two players in the Overwatch roster TSM were picking up, NicolasTJO and TokTJO, who are banned from CS:GO for cheating. While he gave the team a second chance, hackuastions did came their way once in a while.
Apparently with the rampant cheating accusations coming to the scene as of late, TSM wants no part of it and will be transferring the former Code7 lineup to CompLexity gaming.
TSM were to just drop the two TJOs and offer the rest to stay, but the team insisted in sticking together, for good reason. The team has made their way to the ESL Atlantic Showdown finals, and based on recent results, are likely to proceed to the playoffs for the Overwatch Open. Securing two replacemets for a top 4 NA team is no easy task, and given the time frame, would probably not yield good results.
While it may seem a downgrade of sorts at first glance, CompLexity Gaming is intended to have them all in a team house, which can help them train better and further cement their position as the top 4 NA team.
Best of luck for TSM to find a new team that will live up to their brand. And to the new CompLexity Gaming as well, hopefully their dark history can be outshined by a brighter success in the future, with no hacks required.
You can check out the official press statement from TSM and CompLexity of the team transfer.