FaceIT and ESEA are considered to be the premier Ladders in Counterstrike. The two services are responsible for the discovery of new talent in the CS: GO Scene. Over the past years, we have seen multiple players emerge as strong professional players such as Ropz, Cerq etc. These players gained visibility due to FPL and ESEA. Their ability to play in a team environment and stay ahead of the curve at all times is what makes them so effective.
However, these organisations are also responsible to ensure the integrity of the system. We do not want players to game the system. FaceIT recently decided to demote a player to FPL-C. Xotic is a player for Cantwinalan and he decided to dodge a LAN event for the team. This news was conveyed on social media by his teammate.
ggwp, we will not be using xotic at MDL Lan because he is dodging! we will be fielding grampz for MDL Finals.
— Jack (@xCeeD_CS) November 22, 2018
Taking note of this, FaceIT Mikey [ the company’s face on Social Media ] announced that FaceIT will be demoting the player to FPL-C. This decision comes after they learnt that he is dodging LAN events and essentially hurting the prospects of his team. The entire team depends on each other and Xotic’c actions do not speak well for the integrity of the player.
Demoted one guy from FPL for the 1st time for outside of FPL reasons (He was already a trial) and i hope we continue doing this.
Going forward, disrespect your collegues or the game in any way thats considered blatantly bad, you lose the privilege to be in FPL or promoted by it.
— Milos Nedeljkovic (@Faceit_Mikey) November 22, 2018
Our thoughts on this matter
This is a great way to preserve the competitive integrity of the circuit. FPL is rapidly emerging as the ladder to professional gameplay. It is essential that a player’s actions outside of FPL which hurt his competitive integrity also be crucial to his FPL success.
This particular LAN match was for a spot at the ESL Pro League. It would have been an opportunity for the players to prove their worth against the best teams int he world. This is also not the first time that xotic has abstained from playing on LAN. With this punishment, it will serve as a deterrent to players hoping to do something similar in the future.
