PARAVISION disqualified from Shanghai Major RMR for using banned coach

Russian Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) team PARAVISION has been disqualified from the European Regional Major Ranking (RMR) event for the Shanghai Major. The disqualification comes after it was discovered that the team used a Valve-banned coach, Ivan “F_1N” Kochugov, during a recent qualifier match, violating strict tournament rules.

Just recently on August 23, PARAVISION won an important victory in their closed qualifiers by beating GamerLegion 2-1 thereby advancing to RMRs. They couldn’t celebrate this success any longer when they posted a video showing F_1N as their coach participating actively during the match and after-game celebrations. This saw them being disqualified immediately by Perfect World who cited violation of Valve’s CS2 Major rulebook as their main reason.

Valve cracks down on rule violations, disqualifies PARAVISION

The rules of Valve for the Major Tournaments are clear; in any online match that has no event administrators present, coaches should not be present- physically. The rules were put in place to promote fairness and honesty, especially in the era of online where supervision can be a challenge. In addition to this, F_1N is banned from taking part in any major level tournament or qualifier by Valve which made their violation more serious.

This exploit led to widespread bans within the CS2 community because it allowed coaches to observe parts of maps that only they could see but their team could not. F_1N who was coaching Gambit Youngsters at that time received a nine-month ban from all ESIC registered events and a lifelong ban from all Valve-sponsored Majors.

According to Perfect World, “PARIVISION’s eligibility in this Major cycle has been canceled, and they are disqualified from the RMRs and any other portion of the Major.” Thus preventing PARAVISION from challenging for a spot at the major and leaving its players and fans devastated.

Teams battle for PARAVISION’s vacated RMR spot

The unavailability of PARAVISION means that Perfect World has organized a substitute competition that will be used to fill the empty slot in the RMR. The teams that narrowly missed out on qualification—BLEED, KOI, and Monte—will compete among themselves in a best-of-three round-robin bracket to determine who will represent PARAVISION. In this way, it is planned to start on Tuesday, August 27th and the winner will move to RMR.

PARAVISION’s Rifler Robert “Patsi” Isyanov expressed his frustrations on X/Twitter calling it “the most ridiculous and sad situation in a career if not life.” Nevertheless, an official statement has not been made by the team regarding its disqualification.

The Shanghai Major’s Counter-Strike 2 RMRS which is scheduled for November will be organized physically within China itself with European CS2 elites vying for one spot at the Major. With PARAVISION having been disqualified from playing in this tournament, changes have occurred so that another squad may soon find themselves participating in one of CS2’s largest events of the year.