DAVEY caught up in stream sniping fiasco
David "DAVEY" Stafford has had the limelight turned on him as he was recently caught stream sniping Etherian during their semifinals match on January 21st for the IEM Katowice Online Qualifier.
The match was being broadcast by resident community commentator Roy "Strong Legs" Ahad on his Twitch channel when DAVEY began to pass communications to his teammates regarding their opponents current economic situation. Confused yet aware at what had transpired, Strong Legs remained composed and continued to cast the match.
Splyce would go on to win the match 16-9 and shortly after defeat compLexity in a swift 2-0 fashion, securing their spot in the IEM Katowice North American Closed Qualifier, but the backlash had already begun on Twitter and Reddit.
While most of the Tweets involved have been deleted by DAVEY, he was quoted in one Tweet saying:
has to be one of the dumbest things i’ve seen yet LOL. funniest part about it is I just confirmed what I had already said… if anyone thinks there can be any advantage gained with a 2 minute delay then they should cancel all cs streams in the future, ye?
Many were quick to respond to DAVEY's cavalier attitude about the situation:
Splyce CEO Marty 'Lazerchickenz' Strenczewilk was a bit hasty to come to the defense of his player, which he was quickly called out on by Scott "SirScoots" Smith:
A curious and lesser known fact about the situation is that Etherian was also being fed information from a third-party during the match as well:
This incident has brought to light a greater issue at hand than just a single match being compromised. The amount of information one can gather from even a two minute delayed stream is vast. Whether it be setups, comms about future rounds, or current economic status, two minutes is but a single round in CS:GO. It begs the question whether or not longer stream delays are needed, or if regulations need to be modified to penalize teams caught stream sniping.
DAVEY later posted a TwitLonger apologizing for his actions:
No action or statement has been made regarding the matter by ESL, so as of now the team will meet up with their fellow North American rivals in the closed qualifier which will begin January 30th.
