Illegal Cypher cam exploit used by Vivo Keyd going unpunished has Valorant fans riled up

Update: Riot Games has decided to overturn VK's victory, granting Acend a favourable 13-9 outcome. Read more right here.

Original story: 

Brazilian teams have had a strong showing at Valorant Champions, with FURIA Esports making Sentinels sweat, Team Vikings sweeping Crazy Raccoon, and more surprisingly, Vivo Keyd taking down Acend.

The squad who failed to make it out of the group stage at Masters Berlin, losing to Team Envy and KRÜ Esports, is now poised to make it into the final bracket.

Despite their surprising win, many fans are instead opting to talk about a nasty trick VK's Cypher player, Jonathan "JhoW" Glória, pulled on Breeze, considered an exploit by developers, Riot Games, at previous events.

While defending A site, Cypher can place his cam in a near impossible to spot location, providing him full scouting of the Cave and Shop entrance opponents are most certainly going to use while attacking the site.

JhoW initially pulled this trick on Round 13, after VK had pulled ahead on the first half 8-4, making A basically impossible to take for Acend, who ended up losing the round, and eventually, the match. 

As mentioned, the use of this exploit has previously had massive implications, with X10 utilising it in a Challengers Playoffs match looking to qualify for Masters Berlin. 

The SEA representatives were made aware prior to the event by Riot that using such an exploit would result in punishment, however, after ignoring the instructions, X10 was forced to forfeit their map win against Galaxy Racer, which ended up eliminating them from the competition.

“It has been determined that X10 Esports utilized a known banned one-way Cypher cam on A site Breeze. This is considered an exploit as enemies are not able to destroy the camera while being in its sight as the camera can see through a piece of overhanging texture outside the cave/tunnel," Riot said to Upcomer in August. 

Fans, players, and coaches alike were understandably confused by Riot's disinterest in acknowledging VK's usage of a previously forbidden Cypher cam. Former Team Envy coach MikesHD criticised the tournament organiser's inconsistency following the incident. 

1. How hasn't this been fixed yet
2. How are admins so inconsistent
3. Can we have a large meeting with admins/teams at some point to get a new, solidified list of exploits/bugs since clearly there is many issues with the current rulebook/exploit list.
4. Fix bugs out for months pic.twitter.com/66AadVu8oW

— Mikes (@MikesHD_) December 3, 2021

"Can we have a large meeting with admins/teams at some point to get a new, solidified list of exploits/bugs since clearly there is many issues with the current rulebook/exploit list."

At the time of writing, Riot has yet to issue a statement. 

• Read more: Sentinels receive death threats following Valorant Champions tech pause caused by "exploit"

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Featured image courtesy of Riot Games.