The BLAST Premier Fall Series tournament organizer is letting Counter-Strike: Global Offensive fans know that it is addressing the coaching bug scandal.
BLAST introduced some changes to its rulebook that will prevent CSGO coaches from using the spectating bug that has seen 37 coaches banned from competitive play. After the Esports Integrity Commission uncovered the prevalent usage of the unfair coaching exploit, many CSGO organizations have opted to keep the coaches who were caught previously taking advantage of the bug. BLAST is hoping that its new rules will ensure that the bug doesn't see further use in professional play.
Coaches must now stream their perspective to a Discord channel during the matches. All coaches must also install MOss Anti-Cheat for the duration of the games. MOss will provide BLAST with screenshots and logs of the coach's PC during live matches.
"Although this isn't a perfect system, it's a fantastic step forward in improving the integrity of online games," BLAST Esports Operations Manager Robert Mulgan tweeted.
He noted that this would also give them "more evidence" if they need to review cases.
BLAST implements coaching changes to discourage cheating
It was recently revealed that the spectator bug has been present in the game since 2016. This allowed many coaches to exploit the bug over the past few years.
Valve patched the spectator bug as soon as its effects were made public. Now, BLAST is taking the next step to make sure that the coaching exploit is never seen in its tournaments. It's a change other tournament organizers could make as well.
The MOss Anti-cheat software will constantly be monitoring the coach's PC, taking random screenshots throughout the match. It's been active since 2010 but was never required in this type of professional setting until now. This will ensure that coaches can't make use of any glitches in the game, since the TO will be closely keeping an eye on their perspective.
The CSGO coaching exploit has been quite concerning to the Counter-Strike community. Big organizations including OG, Heroic, Boom, Hard Legion, ENCE, and AGO had coaches found guilty of using the bug in past tournaments. The organizations opted to work with the coaches, since many of them used the bug quite some time ago. But fans have been split in their reactions to these decisions.
Some fans have been concerned about the teams keeping coaches after such serious offenses. BLAST's decision to rewrite the tournament rules should ease some viewers' concerns about the integrity of the competition.
