In the aftermath of the upper bracket semi-finals match between XSET and OpTic Gaming, the IGL of XSET, Rory “dephh” Jackson accused OpTic of cheating during their match in the Valorant Champions 2022.
The biggest Valorant tournament of the year, the 2022 Champions, is currently ongoing in Istanbul with the best teams across all the regions participating.
The two qualified teams from North America: XSET and OpTic have been in stunning form this tournament as they cruised past all competition to reach the upper bracket semi-finals, where they were set to face each other. In the all-NA clash, OpTic Gaming emerged victorious as they beat their fellow American team 2-1.
THE #GREENWALL STANDS STRONG AND TAKES THE BATTLE OF NA! #VALORANTChampions pic.twitter.com/eEpBcG5dnf
— VALORANT Champions Tour ???????? (@ValorantEsports) September 12, 2022
However, controversy arose after the match when dephh accused OpTic of taking advantage of calling unfair technical timeouts to halt the momentum of his team. “I think the only mind games that OpTic uses are finding ways to tech pause during pretty big rounds or before big rounds.” dephh said. “Seems like every time we play those guys there’s a tech pause. Obviously, a lot of that stuff is out of their hands or whatever.”
The tech pauses dephh are referring to came when XSET were in match point on the second map. Another such pause came during the second map just before the final round of the first half. According to dephh, his team’s momentum took a big hit as a result of these long breaks.
“The tech pauses today just seemed like to crush momentum at times, came at really bad times after tactical pauses and stuff and big round wins. So very unfortunate, but also pretty sucky for a team that’s pretty momentum based and we want to get rolling, and every other round we have to wait for 30 minutes,” dephh added.
Following the interview, the players and staff of OpTic responded to the cheating allegations in a fierce manner. OpTic’s coach Chet took to Twitter and blasted XSET for showing poor sportsmanship. “What poor sportsmanship by XSET, we don’t need to cheat to beat you guys sorry.,” he wrote.
“If our PC doesn’t work we will pause and riot wouldn’t allow us to abuse it without seeing it themselves.” Star player of The Green Wall, YAY also expressed his disappointment regarding the allegations. “I’m a little sad we’re being accused of using technical pauses for advantage. had an admin confirming the issue and witnessing it first hand,” wrote El Diablo on Twitter.
After being accused of using tech pauses for competitive advantage against XSET for Valorant Champs, OpTic had some pretty fiery responses pic.twitter.com/lYI6aXt5Hu
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) September 12, 2022
With the controversy heating up, dephh decided to mend the situation by apologizing for his overreaction. He said his reaction came the way it did due to ‘the heat of the moment’.
I have always been one to own up to mistakes and this is no different. To react like that in a press conference after our loss to optic wasn’t acceptable and I take full responsibility of my actions. We should have addressed our concerns to the proper channels instead /1
— XSET dephh (@dephhgg) September 13, 2022
Losing to OpTic pushed XSET to the lower bracket, where they will be facing Fnatic. The match is scheduled for Sept 13 at 05:00 pm local time.
