Streaming stars Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins and Turner ‘Tfue’ Tenney have spoken out against Fortnite pros and the professional scene after players were banned for allegedly cheating in a tournament.
Once upon a time, Ninja and Tfue were the pinnacles of competitive Fortnite – they were the players everyone aspired to be like, but slowly gave way to a new generation of talent as time went on, despite still being top players.
After players Nate ‘Kreo’ Kou, Logan ‘Bucke’ Eschenburg, ‘Keys’, and ‘Slackes’ were given 60-day bans for collusion in a Fortnite Championship Series event, much of the community provided their opinion on the matter – and now Ninja and Tfue have weighed in on the controversy
The ban was handed to the aforementioned players within just a few hours of the incident happening after viewers started to question whether they were teaming, and Ninja has explained why he thinks this happens in the Fortnite pro scene – as well as making a dig at Epic Games’ inconsistent punishments.
“This competitive scene is purely run by kids,” he said. “And then Epic’s like, ‘here’s a Fortnite tournament.’”
He went on to mention how “disappointed” he is in the players who have been banned, as well as commending players such as Kyle ‘Mongraal’ Jackson and Benjy ‘Benjyfishy’ Fish, who he says don’t need to cheat because they’re “too talented.”
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Ninja also spoke out about the inconsistency in bans, referencing FaZe Clan’s Jarvis ‘Jarvis’ Kaye. “Jarvis cheats in an online, regular game for no money and gets a full-time ban. Players get caught cheating in a tournament for money and they get banned for 60 days. Alright, go,” he said.
Meanwhile, Tfue slammed people who think 60 days is too long, saying that would maybe be the case if they cheated in just one match – but the ban is perfectly reasonable considering it was across 9 games.
He also said that 60 days would be alright if they did it only two or three times, implying that he believes the ban should be even greater than was given.
The other notable cheating scandal in Fortnite was that of Xxif and Ronaldo, who faced 2-week suspensions prior to the 2019 Fortnite World Cup for collusion in qualifiers, with many people ardently against the seemingly-lenient bans considering the magnitude of the event.
Ninja and Tfue don’t always see eye to eye on certain things, but it seems they’re both on the same side when it comes to this cheating scandal, even believing that the punishment could have been much worse on the players.