Riot respond to Wardell and Player1’s cheating allegations

Cheating is a topic that comes up all too often in conversations regarding Valorant and esports in general. Despite the developers’ best efforts, bad eggs continue to slip through the cracks, recently prompting Ninja to label the game “unplayable”.

On Thursday, one particular situation exploded across Reddit and other social media platforms. Riot Games have since stepped in to offer clarity.

TSM star Matthew “Wardell” Yu, one of the stand-out players from the Valorant Ignition Series, and Gen.G pro Keven “PLAYER1” Champagne separately accused popular creator Mika Daime of using aimbot software.

The allegations came after a clip of Mika, who boasts over 139k followers on her Facebook streaming account, went viral. The short video shows the gamer pulling off some rather suspicious flicks whilst her mouse camera was pointed away from her hand.

Reacting to the footage live on Twitch, Wardell laughed “look, she’s aiming at the floor, aiming at the floor…aimbot!”. PLAYER1 had similar thoughts, saying “she looks at the ground, you guys are really wondering what’s happening here? She’s hacking, she’s hacking dude”.

Following the cheating claims, Mika Daime defended herself, insisting that input lag was the reason for the dubious looking gameplay.

On a Reddit post discussing the drama by user u/ilumn1, Riot team member “RayKay” decided it was time to chime in. “Normally, we don’t want to add to the publicity of any individual case” he explained, “but because this one’s getting a little out of hand: Mika is innocent”.

Not everyone was happy to accept the statement, with many asking for proof. RayKay admitted that they also thought the clip seemed a little fishy at first, but a full investigation showed otherwise. Riot are unable to release the data used in the investigation as it would undermine their anti-cheat strategy and violate data privacy policy.

It was good of Riot to step in here, although damage may still have been done. Unsubstantiated allegations can harm a player’s reputation and career, even if it turns out they were not guilty. The best plan is to report any suspicious activity, and let the devs do the digging and take any appropriate action.