Counter-Strike Prodigy Forsaken Free To Compete After Ban Expired

The circumstances pertaining to forsaken’s ban are so serious that practically anyone acquainted with the Counter-Strike esports scene knows about the OpTic India debacle that unfolded back in 2018’s Asian Championship of CS:GO. For those unaware, it all started when OpTic Gaming came to India to invest in the talent there, putting together a roster of Indian players after months of trialling, where forsaken was deemed the star player.

Background: Qualifying for the championship

OpTic was right on the money with the roster as they began to dominate every regional tournament to take place since with forsaken at the forefront. At the time, Siddarth Nayyar, esports entrepreneur at AFK gaming said: "Forsaken was one of those hidden gems. One of those players that came with an unnatural amount of skills.” However, at the same time, allegations of cheating were being levied against the star player. Even Antidote, one of forsaken’s teammates at the time, commented on the suspicious plays the star had made from time to time: “Other people were saying he was fishy, but we didn't have any concrete evidence to kick him out of the team.” 

Regardless, the team blew past the Hyderabad qualifiers, asserted dominance in the eXTREMELANDS 2018 tournament and earned themselves a spot for the Asian Championship of CS:GO in Shangai, China. It truly was a magnificent feat at the time, as the roster would now go on to represent their country on the big stage and showcase their mechanical prowess. “It was really exciting because you could just see their eyes light up. They were like: 'Oh my gosh, we're in a new place and we're about to just showcase what we're made out of'," Jesal Parekh, former global development director at OpTic India, said at the time.

The cheating scandal

The team first faced off against Malaysia, who they were able to beat, albeit by a very small margin. It is during this match likely that forsaken realized just how much he still had to improve in order to win on a big stage like this, motivating him to compensate for his shortcomings in an illegitimate manner. 

Hence, going into the next match, forsaken had installed cheats but was caught halfway through the match, resulting in disqualification. The scandal was so serious it caused OpTic to withdraw from the region and disband a team, all because of what forsaken had singlehandedly done. 

For those wondering if forsaken will compete in CS2 now that his ban has expired, his words from an interview to AFK Gaming months after the scandal might serve as the most probable answer: “I was confident in my decisions, I was confident in understanding of the game etc but was never confident in my aim so to compensate for that lack of confidence in aim I chose the wrong path. I would probably delete the day when I first played Counterstrike. Nothing good has happened to me since the day I started playing this game.”