Valve has removed Fnatic KRIMZ's VAC ban, Esportal blamed

Fariha Bhatti Published 01/12/2020

Counter Strike: Global Offensive professional Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson has confirmed that he’s once again free to play CSGO after a short VAC ban was rendered by Valve. Fnatic’s ace rifler was mysteriously banned a few days ago, with many speculating that ban was due to third-party platform Esportal.

Fnatic’s Krimz recieves a VAC ban

Im free mfs ????????
— Freddy Johansson (@Krimz) December 1, 2020

Fnatic’s Krimz was handed a ban during an apparent Esportal ban wave on November 28, and it left the entire CSGO community confused. Neither the player nor the organization woul dreveal the cause behind the ban as Krimz himself seemed clueless as to the reason for it.

The news of his ban rocked the CSGO world, as VAC bans are way more severe than an overwatch ban. The rumours of Krimz cheating in-game circulated the internet, while the player himself seemed calm about the whole situation as he requested that CSGO developers look into the matter.

It seems that my account got vac banned. @CSGO can you fix this asap pls ????????
— Freddy Johansson (@Krimz) November 28, 2020

Three days later, the ban has been lifted, and he’s free to play Flashpoint Season 2 and other professional matches. The reason behind the ban has also been revealed, and it seems that the early speculation wasn’t wrong. Fnatic coach Andreas “Samuelsson” Samuelsson has confirmed that the case was related to third-party Swedish portal Esportal, and it appears to have affected many other CSGO players in addition to KRIMZ.

Krimz has been cleared from wrongly being VAC banned.
Ironically, it was from using a 3rd party anti-cheat.
Esportal is currently in talks with Valve to solve all the wrongly VAC bans on their platform.
Krimz will play today vs DIG.
— Andreas Samuelsson (@SamuelssonCSGO) December 1, 2020

The matchmaking portal released a statement in which they confirmed that bans might be attributed to compatibility issues between VAC and the Esportal anti-cheat. After three days, the portal was able to remove VAC ban from all the accounts with support from Valve.

“We are happy to report that all players that received a VAC ban due to the conflict between VAC and Esportal’s anti-cheat have now had their ban removed by Valve. We are aware that some users have received game bans, and Valve will investigate those bans as well,” Esportal said.

This fresh wave of bans has reignited the old discussion over shortcomings in Valve’s anti-cheat system. Valve was quick with the damage control and reversed the bans promptly. However, it is still rather concerning that KRIMZ and other players’ accounts were banned for almost three full days. This ban could have prevented KRIMZ from playing Flashpoint Season 2 and other official matches on his 10-year-old account.

Fariha Bhatti

About Fariha Bhatti

Fariha Bhatti is a long-time gaming writer who loves competitive FPS games and slots with particularly fun themes. She got her start playing classic games developed by SNK, from legendary fighting game series The King of Fighters to challenging platform franchise Metal Slug. She now spends most of her time playing Valorant and Counter-Strike 2 while working her way through new slot releases to find her next favorite. Fariha has been published at PCGamesN, TalkEsport and ONE Esports.

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