Twitch punishes Tfue, others for xQc’s cheating in Twitch Rivals

Fans were surprised to see Félix “xQc” Lengyel banned from Twitch after cheating in an Among Us tournament hosted by the platform, but now Twitch is cracking down on the incident even more.

xQc decided to troll his competitors during a recent Among Us tournament by stream sniping. The cheating resulted in Michael “shroud” Grzesiek’s all-star team being eliminated from the tournament, losing out on the prize pool. 

The former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro immediately questioned how xQc was able to get away with cheating in a tournament, especially one with a prize pool. He called the incident “Twitch history,” clearly bewildered by what was going on. xQc apologized shortly after, but Twitch still decided to ban his account. 

Now, Twitch is openly discussing their decision to punish xQc and other participants for stream sniping in the Among Us tournament. 

Twitch cracks down on xQc, Tfue for cheating in Twitch Rivals tournament

According to an official statement from Twitch, xQc and his teammates, which included Turner “Tfue” Tenney, violated the platform’s Official Tournament Code of Conduct and Game Play Rules. The stream sniping incident went against the tournament’s competitive integrity and sportsmanship, while also not maintaining respect for other teams. The result was disciplinary action from Twitch Rivals. 

Twitch acknowledged that xQc was banned yesterday for his conduct during the tournament. The ruling also found that Nightblue3, Mendo, GrandPooBear, and Tfue also violated the Official Tournament Code of Conduct. Stream sniping went against a rule in Section 7 that stated “cheating of any sort, through any means” is not allowed. 

Effective immediately, xQc, Nightblue3, Mendo, and GrandPooBear were banned from Twitch Rivals for six months. They also were made to forfeit their prize winnings from the event. Tfue was also made to forfeit prize winnings for being “aware of the act” and “failing to inform the admins” about the stream sniping as it was occurring. 

xQc, Nightblue3, Mendo, and GrandPooBear also received temporary Twitch account suspensions “effective immediately.” Twitch didn’t state how long their bans will last. 

“We take Twitch Rivals Player Conduct extremely seriously,” a Twitch Rivals spokesperson stated. “This type of behavior is unacceptable and will not be taken lightly.” 

xQc responds to drama over Among Us cheating scandal

xQc tweeted about the stream sniping once again on his Twitter. For the Canadian variety streamer, he won’t be on Twitch for a week. 

“What I did had no impact on the outcome but it was wrong. Sorry again. I wasn’t trying to cheat out of malice. I was just trying to entertain,” xQc reiterated.

The top Twitch personality also added that he will be giving his winnings to charity. Despite his good deed, many people in the streaming community were disappointed in xQc’s seemingly flippant response to the punishment. xQc still lashed out at criticism of his apology, calling out bigger names who weren’t satisfied with his apology.