To ban, or not to ban?

With the ESL having banned Jerry "xelos" Råberg and suspended Epsilon from RaidCall EMS One, HLTV.org's editor-in-chief Luís "MIRAA" Mira takes a look at the way this case was handled.

This article is solely the opinion of Luís Mira and does not reflect the views of HLTV.org or its affiliates.

It was written in the stars: someday, sooner or later, (at least) one of Epsilon’s players would be caught in the net. Like a bleeding that will not stop with just a Band-Aid, the community would not stop its frantic persecution of the Swedish team at bust movies or organner screenshots. They wanted more, and more here means a ban and the public humiliation that comes with it.

And that is exactly what happened on Wednesday, when Jerry "xelos" Råberg was charged by the ESL with cheating in the grand final of the RaidCall EMS One #1 Cup, against n!faculty. It was the ESL's pompously-called 'anti-cheat team' - and not ESL Wire - to bust him. Twenty-seven days after the match was played, white smoke finally billowed from the ESL's chimney. The verdict? Guilty, by unanimity. The punishment? A two-year ban for the player, and the disqualification of his team from the current EMS One season.

I would like to stress that I am not going to argue whether Råberg cheated or not, but rather look into this worrying trend that tournament organisers still seem to follow, which is to ban players without worrying too much about the consequences.

First of all, it is the ESL's fault that, in case Råberg cheated, its Wire anti-cheating tool did not catch the player red-handed, as much as it is the laboratories' fault that athletes continue to get away with using performance-enhancing drugs. Of course that in both situations wrongdoers are always one step ahead in this cat-and-mouse game, but is it too much to ask that an anti-cheating tool which allegedly cost €500,000 to develop can do its job?

But anti-cheats can be bypassed and if there is a suspicion that Epsilon cheated, then the ESL has every right to analyse the match and every demo. And in the words of Lari Syrota, Product Manager for EMS One, it was proved "beyond doubt" that Råberg cheated against n!faculty.

So, dare I ask, where is the evidence? There was not a single line about what he did, not a report, a screenshot or a video to back up their decision. And let’s face it: Epsilon were the easiest target out there because of their controversial history, so many applauded this move without even questioning it.

You would have thought than an organization like the ESL would have learned by now how to properly present a case in situations like this, especially because some people have complained in the past about being unfairly banned. And while a ban may do little damage to a couple of John Does, we are talking about a competition with players who are either professional or aspire to become one someday. A ban can easily destroy a player's career, so the ESL should have been a lot more careful when dealing with this affair, all the more so because it was a German team who benefited the most from the case.

By acting the way they did, the ESL has left room for debate and, even worse than that, for reasonable doubt. The scary part is that only a few have cared about that, for the verdict on the team had been out for months. With CS:GO being a new game, there will be a lot of up-and-coming players bursting onto the scene, some of whom will be completely unknown to the top teams. Tournament organisers will need to be very careful to keep cheaters at bay, but decisions like the one to ban Råberg simply cannot go unexplained. Otherwise, they risk losing the public's trust.