Likely cheater caught in DreamHack Rotterdam qualifiers, enraging pros

“This is bullshit. I’ve experienced it firsthand (in a minor qualifier no less). It’s about time the main online qualifier organizers (Faceit & ESEA) have some shared database about cheaters or something to avoid having to ban the same people twice.”

That was a recent tweet from Team Vitality’s Alex “ALEX” McMeekin after Pharsyde player “Holmyz” made an insane head shot during the DreamHack Rotterdam online qualifiers. Holmyz had actually been banned from FACEIT tournaments for cheating already, but many pros became frustrated when he was allowed to participate in the qualifiers, hosted by ESEA.  

One team had even forfeited halfway through their match with Pharsyde. RADNICKI’s Petar “HOLMES” Demitrijevic took to Twitter to explain why they refused to continue the match, a decision that many fans stood behind. 

“We won against number one seed Gambit Esports in the DreamHack Rotterdam Open Qualifier. But we cannot beat completely unknown new upcoming talent with private profiles and barely played pubs on their ESEA/FACEIT matches, so we forfeit our match against them after the first half,” he explained.

The forefeit allowed Pharsyde to move onto the closed qualifiers, where they will face GamerLegion. This squad features Dennis “dennis” Edman, who has called the alleged cheaters out in the past. 

Recently, he tweeted: “ESEA and DreamHack, I’ve played so many of your tournaments and I’ve enjoyed them all but this is just too much. You need to get your shit together and ban these cheaters. Can’t believe you’re actually letting them play.” 

CSGO pros call out ESEA and DreamHack for letting cheaters compete

While Pharsyde members holmyz and mauw1 have been banned from FACEIT tournaments for cheating, the two notorious cheaters are allowed to play in ESEA hosted tournaments because their anti-cheat software hasn’t detected any wrongdoing from them. This includes DreamHack qualifiers, which use ESEA as their anti-cheat system. 

Earlier this year, pro player Kristian “akEz” Kornbakk captured an alleged recording of holmyz admitting to purchasing and using cheats in tournaments. 

“I haven’t played legit in like two weeks. I been playing these shit tournaments and fucking won but someone is trying to expose me and they need to look demos. But they won’t find any cheat, but other things they might expose. It’s not good, but I think it will be fine,” holmyz says on the recording. 

The fact that a finalist was using a cheat had the CSGO community heated. Most of the anger was directed towards ESEA, who didn’t seem to be doing anything to stop the cheaters from taking part in their tournaments despite the strong evidence and outcry from pro players. 

“It’s funny when platforms like ESEA can’t ban cheaters immediately until they write about the players themselves. They don’t even think about ordinary players/teams who want to show their potential, but they can’t, because cheaters sometimes linger on platforms for months,” Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev said. 

That inconsistency is what had spurred ALEX to make the shared database suggestion. That way, players who were caught cheating in one tournament wouldn’t be allowed to play in another. 

As of this writing, Pharsyde are still set to continue on in the event despite the controversy. ESEA has not yet issued a response.