XSE Pro League 2026 marred by further issues as players report malware on PCs, match faces lengthy delay due to blackout

Day of the two XSE Pro League Guangzhou LAN in China has come to a close, with the event once again being marred by a slew of technical and integrity issues affecting players at the $1m LAN event.

Today saw the bombshell revelation by BetBoom's Kirill "Magnojez" Rodnov that his PC had a keylogger and a Remote Access Trojan installed on it. These pieces of illicit software effectively allow an outside attacker to see all of Magnojez's actions on the tournament PC while also providing an easy inroad to steal passwords and other sensitive information, ompromising the integrity of the tournament.

The revelation comes after Magnojez alleged that his Steam account was allegedly hacked/stolen, while Aleksandr "zorte" Zagodyrenko has also claimed his PC also had malware and curiously World of Warcraft installed. Taken together, this suggests that XSE did not properly wipe and configure their PCs ahead of the event while also raising questions about the manner in which the PCs were sourced.

To make matter worse on the ground, the 9z v. SINNERS game experienced a lengthy delay after a transformer blew and knocked out power for around an hour. While minor compared to malware being present on players' setups, it adds on the list of woes for XSE which have included broken PCs, PCs without CS2 installed, broadcast issues, bad tables, excessive delays on day one, and fan complaints about the overall quality of the event.