For his Youtube channel, Styko dug around looking for lesser-known talents within the Counter-Strike
community. And he made a video about a player called Wonderful_y. Wonderful... I? Anyway,
he was ranked number 1 on FACEIT. Styko said that he's on the breaking point of becoming pro. The
very next day, Wonderful was banned for cheating. Not to be mistaken for the Navi player Wonderful,
who doesn't have a Y on the end of his name and I notice a lot of people have taken steps to make
it clear that he's not involved in this incident at all. And it seems like I'm not helping matters
because, having just finished this video, I realise I've been referring to Wonderful_y
as simply being Wonderful throughout this video. I did this because I didn't want to
risk distractingly mispronouncing a Y every 5 seconds, but with hindsight, maybe a bad idea.
You have been warned. I'm not talking about Navi's Wonderful. Apart from at one point. So, Wonderful,
the one who cheated. What gave his cheating away? Not a lot, it seems. Styko, an actual pro player
who reviewed his matches, had no idea he was cheating, praising him for his game sense and
performance and how he wasn't overly aggressive and, unlike other FACEIT players, wasn't just
looking for kills. So in short, there was no clear sign he WAS cheating. And yet he's been banned.
But was he REALLY cheating? Wonderful tweeted to say that it was probably his use of the SV CHEATS
exploit that apparently he used for 2 rounds in FACEIT before he stopped using it again. So maybe,
just maybe, it was this use of an exploit rather than actual cheating. But then FACEIT responded,
saying it WASN'T that that caused the ban. But thanks to what Wonderful has said, at least now we
know he was using the exploit as well as whatever else it was that actually got him banned. It was
interesting to see the comments on Styko's video before and after the cheating revelation came out.
Afterwards, Styko's video comment section was full of people pointing out smoking gun timestamps that
indicated something suspicious was going on. I suppose once there's proof that somebody's been
cheating, it gets a lot easier to be confident about making such accusations with hindsight.
Styko, however, continued to err on the side of caution, saying he's not sure if Wonderful
cheated in the games he reviewed. Which I commend! I wouldn't trust myself to be able to condemn a
player based on the footage provided, so I'm kind of pleased to see the same hesitation from a pro
player who I assume understands a lot better than I do about how a good player would be seen to aim
and to move and to think. But the comments made BEFORE the cheating revelation was revealed are
in my opinion a lot more interesting. Korova's comment praised his game sense for being on a
different level and following the ban, his comment received a bunch of well-humoured responses, which
I thought was oddly wholesome. There were also a few comments remarking on his history, saying he's
played on some dodgy teams in the past 2 years, presumably referring to a past team he played
for called the Prodigies, in which his team-mate, CONSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS was banned
following demo review. Another early comment on Styko's video accused Wonderful of having
match-fixed in the past, where he purposely loses money on games he's bet on. I couldn't find any
evidence of this, but there was an investigation into the OTHER Wonderful at one point, so maybe
he's just confusing one Wonderful for the other. And the last interesting comment I saw was this
one, where LKB accused Wonderful of cheating. And remember this comment was made before the
cheating accusations came out, so he wasn't sure if he had been cheating on FACEIT, but on
a competitive level for sure. Wonderful actually responded to this comment. And then, post-ban,
LKB responded again, apologising for accusing him of only cheating in competitive level now
that he knows he was cheating on FACEIT as well. After his ban he changed his Steam account name,
his profile picture and any evidence that he had ever played Counter-Strike on it. This isn't
just about wonderful here, this is about the state of cheating in Counter-Strike. And sure,
FACEIT DID ban him, but what for? Was it the anti-cheat segment of it, or for a
manual review of some sort? Perhaps following a surge of interest in the player from Styko's
video about him? And if he really was cheating, then how many of his 10,000 matches of FACEIT
had he also cheated in? And how many cheaters are still on FACEIT who remain undetected? I recently
covered anti-cheating Counter-Strike and how, when cheaters cheat so blatantly without being banned,
it damages the game's reputation in profound and long-lasting ways, and it makes people question
why they'd bother investing time into a game when they're only going to be entertainment for
a cheater somewhere else. So blatant cheats are bad but I'd argue this kind of subtle,
undetectable cheating is even worse, because it just makes people lose faith in anyone who's
good at the game. If you're beaten you want it to be because they were better than you,
not because they cheated in subtle ways just to gain a slight advantage over you and all
your thousands of non-cheating hours of play and experience. So what can we do about clever and
subtle cheaters? Not a lot. Counter-Strike's Overwatch feature, where you review suspected
cases and determine whether or not they're cheating, is NOT for this kind of cheating.
Despite what people may think. No, Overwatch is intended for the really obvious cases, where
you're sure beyond reasonable doubt that they are cheating. Stuff like SpinBot, Aimlock or obvious,
careless and repeated wallhack abuse. Not for stuff like this, despite how obvious it may
seem to the Youtube comment section post-ban. So when a cheater is doing it cleverly and subtly,
then our hopes of them getting banned lie solely with systems like VAC, which are there to detect
the cheating programs on their PCs. VAC by its very nature is always trailing behind the cheats
it's trying to detect. But while a player not having a VAC ban isn't proof they aren't cheating,
getting a VAC ban almost guarantees that they were cheating in some way. But Wonderful wasn't
detected by VAC. He was banned by FACEIT's own anti-cheat system. This is a much deeper level,
more intrusive form of anti-cheat than VAC is. Kernel-level stuff, such as this,
is what many consider to be a powerful weapon against cheaters in the scene. And it banning
a player like Wonderful before VAC did is only going to reinforce that notion. So here's hoping,
Faceit's anti-cheat banned him the moment he started cheating, and not 10,
100 or 10,000 games later. Wonderful had another FACEIT account that was banned for smurfing. This
account was removed somewhere between me first seeing it and me going to take a screenshot of
it. But I can definitely say it was banned for smurfing. And according to this comment,
all this took place AFTER his main account had got banned. I came across an older recording from last
year accusing his team of cheating. Some of the earlier clips in this video focus on Wonderful,
but the rest then move onto other players from his team. And the uploader of this clip left a smiley
face in response to someone informing him that Wonderful had been banned. Which I guess, for him,
validated the existence of this video. But how damaging this is, for Counter-Strike's reputation.
Wonderful had 14,000 hours in Counter-Strike and signs of matches dating as far back as 2016. 8
possible years where people thought they had been beaten by Wonderful, fair and square. And maybe
they had been! Maybe he only started cheating last week. But now that he's known as a cheater,
it calls into question ANYTHING he's ever done and been involved in. Valve please f-