Benjyfishy exposes DreamHack Winter cheaters, leads to DQ

Olivia Richman Published 01/12/2019

Fortnite pro Benjy “Benjyfishy” Fish caught two competitors cheating at DreamHack Winter.

While watching VODs of the $250,000 tournament, Benjyfishy came across two players he found to be acting rather sketchy. Shadoxxx and Stele98 appeared to be working together in the Solo tournament, which would be considered collusion.

Benjyfishy decided to expose the alleged cheaters on Twitter, showing a clip of them both working together to eliminate Luminosity Gaming’s Dino “Khuma” Smriko. In the clip, the two can be seen standing within view of each other, seemingly both waiting on opposite sides of a house’s entrance to catch their opponent by surprise.

“WE ARE GONNA GO LOOK FOR THEM AND CONFRONT THEM,” Benjyfishy tweeted about the cheating duo.

It was hard for Benjyfishy’s followers to deny the evidence and many applauded the talented Fortnite player for exposing them.

“Imagine going to a LAN just to do this,” one fan tweeted.

It seemed as though DreamHack officials couldn’t deny it either. The event organizers tweeted directly to Benjyfishy just an hour after he posted the video, stating that they had “investigated the matter” and that Shadoxxx and Stele98 were disqualified for collusion.

“We’ll continue to keep an eye out and investigate suspicious behaviour,” they tweeted.

This is much different from how Epic Games has handled cheating mid-tournment in the past. The Fortnite developer was under fire from the battle royale community during the World Cup qualifiers when they gave Damion “Rise XXiF” Cook a 14-day ban after he was caught colluding.

The ban was so short, in fact, that XXiF managed to qualify for the World Cup some weeks later, despite having been caught cheating not long before. This led to outrage within the Fortnite community, with many pros calling on Epic to be deal with cheating differently.

In the eyes of some, Epic may have taken this advice too far when they decided to permanently ban streamer Frazier “Jarvis” Kaye for using an aimbot on stream for entertainment purposes. Other Fortnite streamers came to Jarvis’ defense, stating that he hadn’t been using the hack in a tournament, or even Arena. Dr Disrespect even told Epic to give Jarvis a two-week ban like they gave XXiF.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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