After XSET’s loss against OpTic Gaming 2-0 at Valorant Champions, the team’s IGL Rory ‘dephh’ Jackson and head coach accused OpTic of taking advantage of technical pauses to stall their momentum.
In the last question of the loser’s press conference, XSET’s IGL was asked if OpTic used any mind games in their match as the two teams have faced off four times this year alone.
“I think the only mind games that OpTic use are finding ways to tech pause during pretty big rounds or before big rounds.” dephh said. “Seems like every time we play those guys there’s a tech pause. Obviously a lot of that stuff is out of their hands or whatever.”
OpTic called a tech pause in the second map, Ascent as the score line was 12-11 in XSET’s favor and OpTic was coming back from a steep deficit. The Green Wall also called a pause for technical issues on the final map, Pearl just before halftime, which was longer and involved Victor ‘Victor’ Wong swapping in a new computer for the match.
“The tech pauses today just seemed like to crush momentum at times, came at really bad times after tactical pauses and stuff and big round wins. So very unfortunate, but also pretty sucky for a team that’s pretty momentum based and we want to get rolling and every other round we have to wait for 30 minutes,” dephh said.
XSET’s head coach Don ‘SyykoNT’ Muir chimed in after dephh, saying that he has brought the issue up with Riot Games and he believes it is intentional from OpTic.
“It’s no different when we play them online than when we play them here on stage,” SyykoNT said. “Tech pause after we get a win and tech pause after I call [a timeout]… You know, it’s intentional and in my eyes, it’s abuse of the rule set.”
OpTic Gaming respond to XSET allegations
What poor sportsman ship by XSET, we don’t need to cheat to beat you guys sorry. If our PC doesn’t work we will pause and riot wouldn’t allow us to abuse it without seeing it themselves pic.twitter.com/5k7jnLZgxj
— NRG Chet (@chetsingh) September 12, 2022
Afterward OpTic responded to the XSET’s frustrations about the technical pauses when informed that their opponent took issue with their timing.
When asked what the technical pauses were, the team said that Victor’s computer was micro stuttering. OpTic’s IGL Pujan ‘FNS’ Mehta said that some players on the team also went to the bathroom during the second tech pause while waiting for the admins to fix the issue.
When asked if the timing of the pauses were intentional, OpTic’s coach Chet ‘Chet‘ Singh said that Riot would not allow something like that to happen.
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“There was no intention to like, screw them over anything. The PC was just actually not working well,” Chet said in the post-match press conference.
ggs 2-1 vs @XSET I’m a little sad we’re being accused of using technical pauses for advantage. had an admin confirming the issue and witnessing it first hand. all good tho. we play our brothers at @LOUDgg next
— yay (@yay) September 12, 2022
OpTic’s Jaccob ‘yay‘ Whiteaker said that on the round before the team called for a tech pause, Victor got three kills while playing through the micro stuttering. The team laughed off the accusations and said that the referees can confirm why the pauses were called.
“We don’t need to cheat to beat them,” FNS said to end the press conference.
XSET apologize for accusations
Hours after the press conference SyykoNT and dephh apologized for what they said in the press conference online and affirm the OpTic won the match legitimately.
“I also apologize for comments made in the heat of the moment in the post-match conference. The timing of the tech pauses was frustrating but I don’t want to minimize OpTics win, they played well and gave us a tough loss,” the head coach said on Twitter.
“I had a great conversation with Riot and am happy with the result of the call. I commend their great communication and their ability to take feedback and implement rule/procedure changes to improve the competitive experience.”
dephh gave a similar statement, saying he should have taken his frustrations to the proper channels instead of venting them after the match to the press.
I have always been one to own up to mistakes and this is no different. To react like that in a press conference after our loss to optic wasn’t acceptable and I take full responsibility of my actions. We should have addressed our concerns to the proper channels instead /1
— M80 dephh (@dephhgg) September 13, 2022
“Definitely a heat of the moment thing and something I regret. Optic played great and deserved to win and I want to make sure those involved don’t feel slighted. We have raised certain problems we saw with the timings of them and some miscommunications. But we cannot do anything else but apologize for reacting in that way,” the IGL said online.
OpTic will move on in the upper bracket finals at Valorant Champions to face LOUD while XSET go to the lower bracket to face off against FunPlus Phoenix.