MIBR versus FURIA round restart ignites CSGO controversy

With FURIA and MIBR duking it out for the title of top Brazilian CSGO team at the BLAST Premier Spring Finals, a technical issue during the matchup had each team fighting in a battle outside the server.

Pegged as the match that would determine the best South American CSGO team today, the series had massive viewership. More than 100,000 people tuned in to Brazilian CSGO streamer and former Counter-Strike pro Alexandre “gAuLeS” Borba’s stream to watch how it would play out.

During the matchup’s first map on Inferno, MIBR found themselves tied 12-12 when disaster struck. In round 25, two players took damage as the round began before MIBR’s Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo disconnected and MIBR called “not live,” asking for the round to be restarted.

In CSGO, there are very specific rules that govern when a round can be replayed, with the general guidelines being that after any damage has been dealt to a player, teams should play out the round. As it turns out, FalleN had experienced some connectivity issues at the start of the round before dropping from the server.

Fans riot on Twitter after mibr’s fer posts inflammatory tweet

What followed was a delay of almost 40 minutes and some of the most heated interactions between CSGO players and fans that the esport has seen in some time.

The delay was caused by server issues, but what came after the game was on the players’ shoulders. Despite FURIA nabbing the first kill of the round when Andrei “arT” Piovezan sniped down Fernando “fer” Alvarenga in an aggressive push up banana, FURIA was given the option to restart the round due to the damage rule. The final decision was FURIA’s call, not MIBR’s, because FURIA’s Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato was the first player to take damage. While it’s unclear what happened behind the scenes, BLAST Premier came back online after an extended break to replay round 25.

MIBR would go on to win the series 2-0, but it didn’t take long for what happened to become a heated debate in the CSGO world. Things quickly devolved into a war of words on Twitter, with MIBR’s fer tweeting the following directly to FURIA’s official Twitter account.

The tweet loosely translates to “You are shit,” and led to an uproar on Brazilian Twitter. Further complicating matters, FURIA had won seven out of eight of the teams’ previous matchups against MIBR. In that context, many FURIA fans streamed into fer’s mentions, and the resulting war of words between fans of both teams caused MIBR, FURIA, and fer himself to trend on Brazilian Twitter. Fer’s tweet received over 20,000 likes in minutes, with fans from both sides chiming in. FURIA fans blamed MIBR for strongarming FURIA into restarting the round, while MIBR fans clapped back by claiming that it was only fair that the round be restarted.

BLAST rules unclear surrounding round restarts

After a careful look at BLAST Premier’s rulebook, round restarts are only mentioned twice: once for misbuys and once for match interruptions. According to BLAST’s official 2020 rulebook, there is no way for a round to be restarted other than by a tournament official’s decision:

Match Interruptions:  
10.6.1. If a Match is interrupted for reasons such as a server crash, network/power outages, player client crash or other reasons beyond the Teams’ control, the Tournament Operations Manager may order a round or map restart.

WIN.gg has reached out to both MIBR and FURIA for comment. A request for clarification regarding round restart rules was also sent to BLAST Entertainment. As of publication, none have responded to the request for comment.

Either way, a tense regional matchup has turned ugly, and it isn’t one that either team or their fans will forget any time soon.