ESL introduces tentative measures against crowd influence at Major

The tournament organizer removed the minimap and X-ray vision for a limited period during the Imperial-Cloud9 match in order to "protect the integrity of the tournament."

Throughout the first two days of the IEM Rio Major Challengers Stage, the audience viewing the match on-site was on occasion giving away crucial information about the match. These instances ranged from commonplace cheering in key moments to members of the audience shouting out the bombsite where the Terrorist team was heading.

Following similar such occurences that happened during the match between Imperial and Cloud9 at the end of day two, ESL decided to remove the minimap and X-ray vision from the screens inside the Riocentro venue for several rounds at the end of the first map.

According to a statement by Shaun Clark, ESL Senior Director of Game Ecosystems for CS:GO, this was a measure taken to combat the crowd influencing the match, made after the concerns over tournament integrity had been regularly communicated to the audience.

"Tournament integrity is the most important factor for us. Over the past days, we’ve experienced incidents that we believe have put this at risk," Clark said. "We’ve been communicating to the audience the level of importance this holds and have done so throughout the tournament."

"Earlier this evening we felt the need to remove the mini map and x-ray vision for the on-site audience for a number of rounds in order to protect the integrity of the tournament. Despite doing this, we do not want to ruin the experience of our viewership and the audience."

Clark went on to shoot a warning to the audience regarding future such instances, saying, "We’ll continue to uphold this." How far the organizer is willing to go to combat crowd influence beyond these measures is unclear.