Skyesports Masters 2024: Indian Player Accused of ID Spoofing

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.

434242167 1092650288621100 5470660425613095734 n
Counter-Strike Team Marcos Gaming | © Marcos Gaming

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.

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.

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.

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.

Biswarup Sharma
Biswarup Sharma