Wings Up disqualified from ProHouse Wuxi Villa Cup 2

The Chinese team has also been handed a six-month ban from events held by the Wuxi-based company.

Wuxi HeJu Cultural Media Co. Ltd., the entity behind the ongoing ProHouse Wuxi Villa Cup 2 LAN event, has disqualified Wings Up with immediate effect following suspicious behaviour in Thursday's controversial round-robin match against After. The announcement was made live on stream by the organisers, who added that Wings Up have been banned from the company's future events for six months.

According to the organisers, Wings Up did not approach the match seriously to avoid meeting Let's Quit in the playoffs. This way, the team would prevent a conflict of interest with Quanqing "⁠qz⁠" Wu, one of Wings Up's owners and the older brother of Hui "⁠DD⁠" Wu.

"Unfortunately, Wings Up acted negatively by not wanting to play LQ in the elimination round, causing an extremely negative impact," a statement issued by Wuxi HeJu Cultural Media Co. Ltd. read.

"The ProHouse Wuxi Villa Cup tournament series is dedicated to the core value of fairness, and will not condone any behavior that goes against the spirit of esports."

Online outrage began just minutes after the game ended as video clips of questionable actions began circulating. One video seemingly shows Junhao "⁠ChildKing⁠" Peng ignoring an opponent who was entering the A bombsite on Mirage in what turned out to be the final round of the match, which ended with a 16-13 victory for After. Others show Zhengjie "⁠Martin⁠" Zhuo and team coach Ruixuan "⁠xiaoxizi⁠" Ma - who was standing in for DD for this one particular game - failing to control basic close-range spray patterns.

The match between Wings Up and After brought down the curtain on the round-robin stage and was played for seeding only as both teams were out of the running for the top two places, which gave access to the semi-finals. By losing the match, Wings Up finished the group stage in fourth place with a 2-3 record and were slated to meet After (1-4 record) in the quarter-finals.

Headlined by DD, who spent four years with TYLOO in two spells between 2013 and 2019, Wings Up are currently ranked fifth in Asia. The team finished in fourth place in the recent Perfect World League Season 1, the first Regional Major Ranking (RMR) tournament of the year in the region.

ProHouse Wuxi Villa Cup 2, which has $31,000 on the line, will continue on Saturday with the semi-finals, pitting TYLOO against After, and Lynn Vision against Reece.