Apex Legends pros from Sentinels and Team SoloMid have apologized after being caught cheating.
Suspicious clips of the players from a professional scrimmage were proliferated on Reddit after being clipped from a live stream by competitor Jack “NiceWigg” Martin. After the Counter Logic Gaming pro was eliminated in a scrim, he decided to spectate TSM and quickly called out Phillip “ImperialHal” Dosen, Jordan “Reps” Wolfe, and Mac “Albralelie” Kenzie Beckwith for teaming up with Sentinel’s Nathan “retzi” Telen, Jared “zombs” Gitlin, and Morgan “Payne” Redfield.
“How is this funny?” he commentated. “We have practice before…This isn’t funny.”
NiceWigg seemed flabbergasted by the two squads’ behavior and it’s no wonder why.
TSM has been regarded as one of the best Apex Legends teams in the world since winning the Apex Legends Pre-Season Invitational in September. That tourney earned the team a cool $105,00 reward along and secured them a spot in Apex Legend’s upcoming competitive season.
Team SoloMid, Sentinels pros respond to cheating allegations
After being called out, some of the accused players offered apologies on Twitter.
“Yes, my team and Sentinels teamed up in one scrim because it was funny at the moment. After the fact, we understand that we ruined the practice for that game so we are ALL sorry for our childish behavior,” ImperialHal tweeted to fans.
Reps added that they believed the lobby was “dead,” but admitted that this was no excuse for their behavior.
Albralelie also chimed in, stating that it won’t happen again.
Sentinel’s retzi decided to come forward as well, quoting ImperialHal’s apology and adding that he was sorry to his “fellow players.”
Despite the apology, the Apex Legends community was not amused by their antics. One reply to ImperialHal said that cheating “one day before a tourney” was more “disappointing” than “funny.” ImperialHal responded that he understood people’s frustrations but felt people will hold grudges against them regardless because of the teams they’re affiliated with.
Other fans urged TSM to drop the entire squad, admitting they had unfollowed the roster on Twitch because of their behavior. Fans also called the trio “hypocrites” since they have complained about how bad scrims are in the past. The continued criticism seemingly frustrated ImperialHal, who became less apologetic as time went on.
“We did it for one game as a joke,” ImperialHal replied. “People not showing up, playing stupid, etc. have been a thing since the game had a comp scene, I will say it again, if it was some nobodies doing it, guess what, nobody would be mad.”
CLG affiliated streamer Nokokopuffs tweeted in support of the pros.
“I appreciate the apology,” he said. “Fucking love you boys and this doesn’t effect who you are as competitors and people. You guys are all monsters and sometimes we make mistakes.”
One Reddit user said that their behavior was “stupid,” but felt that the community was overreacting to the situation.
“As far as banning goes, there’s no way that Respawn would ban two of the best pro teams right now over something like this. They provide way too much for the community. And for those of you saying they should be disqualified from the tournament, GLL has nothing to do with EA or the people who organize scrims so that wouldn’t make any sense either,” they stated.
So far, Respawn Entertainment has not made any public statement about the teaming incident.
