valens found using coach bug when on Cloud9; version with free roam revealed

The now-retired coach was found to be in the bugged spectator state on three maps during his time with Cloud9.

Soham "⁠valens⁠" Chowdhury, former coach of Cloud9 and current Head of Data Science at Evil Geniuses, has been found to have used the coaching bug on three occasions in online maps played multiple years ago, Dexerto has revealed.

Two of the instances are similar in nature to other offenses by coaches who have been banned, with valens seen spectating static areas on Inferno and Train. In both examples, he can be seen moving his mouse to follow and track players visible from where the spectator camera is positioned.

On the former map, he had a view of the B site for three rounds during an EPICENTER closed qualifier series against Liquid, while on the latter, he was in the bugged state for the opening pistol round with a view of OpTic's T spawn in ESL Pro League Season 7 North America.

However, the most surprising reveal is in a never-before seen version of the bug, in which valens is able to roam with a free-spectator camera while the round was live on Mirage in the same EPICENTER series against Liquid.

According to Dexerto, he first entered the state before the game went live, but was taken out of it following the restart of the round to kick off the match. He re-entered the state three rounds into the map after reconnecting to the server, and only remained in it for one round.

In a statement to same publication, valens explained that he came across the bug several times without an understanding of what it was, and stressed that no information was shared with the team. He also added that he thought it was simply a bug that would go away, and contacted the TO mid-game on at least one occasion.

"It was quite possible I was just waiting for it to reset since most weird glitches in-game kind of just went away after pressing some keys, like the weird height bug where your model can see over things until you crouch or press jump," he said.

“I definitely don’t know how it came to be and I didn’t seek it out in any way. I hope the lack of a pattern in getting to that game state is self-explanatory of my intent.”

Michal Slowinski, the veteran referee and tournament admin who played a key role in uncovering the scandal and helped to analyze demos for the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC), has since commented that the free roam version of the bug was also a part of his investigation, and that the instances of valens using the bug were provided to ESIC.

However, the now-retired coach was not among the 37 coaches banned by ESIC in 2020 after the bug was first revealed to the general public, with news of its widespread abuse rocking the Counter-Strike world for months as more and more names began to surface of coaches who had abused the bug both in years past and during the online era.

The esports watchdog group stated in an August 2021 update that it was reviewing its sanctions matrix following the outcome of a number of appeals from coaches banned following the first report.

A second, unannounced batch of cases is also still being reviewed, with ESIC telling Dexerto that they are concluding discussions with Valve about the application of their sanction mechanics in relation to bans from Valve-sponsored events before revealing their findings.

Valve, meanwhile, informed Dexerto that their method for determining bans from the original one they had posted hadn't changed, and that there were no plans to update it.