Riot Games turns around Breeze result for Acend vs Vivo Keyd due to Cypher's camera bug

There is no doubt that Day 3 of VCT 2021 - VALORANT Champions 2021 featured exciting matchups, but an unexpected situation arose that has left a bitter aftertaste for many in the Valorant community. When Vivo Keyd Stars beat Acend in an intense three-game series, the Brazilian fans were over the moon, and while most of the community congratulated Vivo Keyd for their victory, a controversy started brewing concerning Jonathan "JhoW" Glória usage of Cypher’s camera utility.

At that time, the broadcast continued, and no action was taken with Vivo Keyd being awarded the victory and a placement in the winner’s match against Envy. However, a few hours later, Riot released a statement and overturned the results to provide Acend the winning privileges.

The statement from Riot Games reads:

During map three of the match between Acend and Vivo Keyd, Jonathan “JhoW” Glória from Vivo Keyd violated Rule 7.2.6 of the VALORANT Global Competition Policy by using a Cypher camera placement that is not functioning as intended and violates the design purpose of VALORANT.

Essentially the exploit allows Cypher to set his camera in a specific location allowing it to monitor a part of the map, which he shouldn’t be able to have access to. To add insult to injury, this placement of Cypher’s camera is invisible to the opposing team; therefore, won’t be able to destroy it.

Vivo Keyd used the exploit for six rounds, leading to the eventual map win. Riot, after providing proof of the exploit’s usage, has decided that the six rounds where the camera exploit was used will be granted to Team Acend, resulting in an adjusted score of Acend 12, Vivo Keyd 9. Furthermore, to account for the economic impact of the six forfeited rounds on the subsequent rounds in the map, Acend was awarded one additional round resulting in a map score of 13:9 to Acend, and a 2-1 score to end the series with the winner being Acend.

According to Riot, the exploit wasn’t obvious during the tournament itself and the opposing team hadn’t reported it, which is why tournament officials allowed the match to proceed. This reasoning is reasonable as the match officials have been quite vigilant given that they paused the match between FURIA and Sentinels for 15 minutes due to an apparent exploit that Alexandre "xand" Zizi allegedly used on Haven but was ruled otherwise.

Moreover, teams have been subject to similar rulings in the past with Vodafone Giants losing an entire map after using the exploit in VCT Stage 3, and X10 Esports during SEA qualifiers for Masters Berlin.

As expected, several fans were furious after Riot Games forced Vivo Keyd to "forfeit" their map win against Acend. With over 20,000 tweets, the hashtag “#justicforkeyd” quickly rose to the the trending page and the number continues to rise. Some pro players also expressed their concerns behind the ruling, including Vivo Keyd’s previous to-be-opponent Jaccob "yay" Whiteaker.

With this ruling, Vivo Keyd will now be facing X10 Crit in the Elimination match of Group A on 6th December 6PM CET / 9AM PT while Acend will play Envy today with a chance to qualify for Playoffs at 9PM CET / 12PM PT.