The Counter-Strike community is in turmoil after allegations of ID spoofing by Marcos Gaming's player. Not only the community, but also professional and former CS players are providing evidence to substantiate the allegation. To know more read along
ID Spoofing: Players may hide their in-game identity to conceal the involvement of a more skilled gamer.
Chintan "BuNTz" Shukla of Marcos Gaming faces ID spoofing allegations during the Skyesports Masters 2024 IND Qualifiers
Everything started with Marcos vs Grayfox and True Rippers where in their first win against Grayfox, BuNTz went 23-19 &13-6 on Overpass & Vertigo, Marcos won 19-15 & 13-2 respectively. In the next match, BuNTz went 12-9 & 17-7 against True Rippers also Marcos manages to win the both matches with 13-3 & 13-11.
This was marked as suspicion as his personal rating compared to his performance in previous tournaments (Skyesports Grand Slam 2024 India Closed Qualifier) were too high. for example, against 2EZ Gaming, BuNTz had 10 and 4 kills, while against Gods Reign he had 6 and 8.
The Allegation of ID Spoof
As the tournament progressed, the decision to allow Marcos Gaming to compete in the lower bracket finals made fans ask about the integrity of the Tournament. The accusation became prominent after Tejas "Ace" Sawant of Grayfox Esports & Agneya "Marzil" Koushik, declared their suspicions of “BuNTz”. Former CS player DeathMakeR also expressed suspicion about the mentioned incident.
Later, that evening, Grayfox Esports' coach Godspeed posted on Twitter to address the issue, although the post avoided direct accusations against any player or team.
Shambolic ruling from one of the top TOs in India. Not expected. So, its okay to cheat as long as you are not caught in the moment. Even if there is undeniable proof that it happened, they get away scot free. Now, we know how forsaken reached this far. Our community only... https://t.co/xJjul029ZY
— GodspeedxD (@GodspeedxD) March 30, 2024
Ex-Reckoning player claims BuNTz spoofed
Later, a former player of Reckoning Esports, surajS, analyzed BuNTz's demos, which included clips from the Skyesports Grand Slam India Qualifiers and Skyesports Masters India Closed Qualifiers in 2024. surajS asserted that the evidence was compelling enough to suggest that the clips involved different players, implying that there was ID spoofing during an official Qualifier.
So I heard the ID spoofing allegations on this player Buntz and thought I'll take a look at the demos. Below I've shared 2 clips of the same player against @grayfox_esports on two different officials. Two clips are from 3rd March and other 2 from today 29th March. (1/n) pic.twitter.com/bllMjMBUyv
— surajS (@surajS_99) March 28, 2024
Skyesports measures to uncover the truth
Skyesports confirmed “BuNTz” was playing from a cafe with his 2 teammates and the cafe owners helped Skyesports to confirm there was no “alien” player.
We are aware of the situation revolving around the player Buntz. Sharing few measures taken by our ops team to address this, - Player cam throughout the series - Mid round video call to confirm he is the one playing the game. - Since he is playing from a cafe along with 2...
— Shiva Nandy (@shivanandysky) March 29, 2024
However, a part of the community also claims it was Russian player GreK. It remains a mystery whether BuNTz was ID spoofing during the first round of matches.Marcos Gaming has confirmed full cooperation with the Sky team in their investigation, demonstrating their commitment to fair play.
During the Upper Bracket Final, Marcos Gaming faced off against Gods Reign. BuNTz struggled to maintain his performance and had a rating of 0.57, placing him at the bottom of the scoreboard which further fueled the fire as pros and community were convinced it was an obvious case of ID Spoofing.