schadE halt disqualified from Elisa Invitational Fall 2022

Tournament operator Elisa Esports announced the disqualification of the schadE halt team from Elisa Invitational Fall 2022. A new case of alleged match-fixing was revealed after the organizers received information from third parties confirming the suspicious behavior of the German-Ukrainian team within the event.

As a tournament operator, we take integrity issues very seriously as we continue to build and develop our CS:GO tournament system. Elisa Esports has been informed of suspicious behavior in two schadE halt matches against 00PROSPECTS and yodagus. Suspicion indicates that the results of the two matches were manipulated by one participating team, schadE halt. This is against our competition policy and therefore the respective team has been disqualified from all Elisa Invitational matches. The suspicion has been reported to the Finnish authorities, who will be responsible for further action on the case. We also share information provided to us with other tournament operators and ESIC.

Tournament organizers have stated that they were alerted by a third party to suspicious behavior in the schadE halt matches against 00PROSPECTS and yodagus, indicating that the results of the matches were the result of external factors.

Elisa Esports also stated that it has shared information with the Finnish authorities and other tournament operators, as well as the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC).

The organizers did not share more details about how the results were allegedly compromised or how the team was supposed to benefit. However, during the match, several strange moments were noticed, which, potentially, hint at the presence of a contractual nature.

The same schadE halt roster was recently seen as part of the qualification for GAM3RS_X EU Champions: Fall 2022, where they got an extremely strange victory over ALTERNATE aTTaX (2:1), but then lost to Sangal Esports (0:2) and Sprout (0:2).

It is noteworthy that this is not the first time that schadE halt players have been involved in this. The backbone of the team, previously under the ttc tag, was caught by the community several times using third-party programs. Suffice it to recall the last qualifier for ESL Challenger at DreamHack Melbourne 2022, where powerYY and KrowNii played under the Formel tag. Just like before, the German team ttc showed suspicious results in the Funspark ULTI tournament series.

In addition, the day before, the organizers of CCT Central Europe Series #1 decided to remove the PALOMA team from the championship, having received evidence of its use of third-party programs. At the same time, the organizers did not make an official statement on this situation.