The Initiator: The inside story of the Valorant cheating scandal according to Echo 8 team captain AYRIN
Q&A with Echo 8 team captain AYRIN, phox and w3ak banned for alleged cheating, news about the game’s next agent — Killjoy — and more
By Cameron Bray
Echo 8 team captain AYRIN talks cutting former teammates for cheating, and transitioning to Riot Games’ new shooter from CrossFire
Yesterday I interviewed Jordan “AYRIN” He, team captain of Echo 8, over Zoom. AYRIN is a five-year veteran of CrossFire, and under him Echo 8 has become one of the top amateur Valorant teams in North America (by which I mean teams unsigned by a professional gaming organization or esports club). Echo 8 saw much success during the two-month closed beta, when it won multiple tournaments. And more recently, AYRIN and Echo 8 competed in last month’s T1 x Nerd Street Gamers Showdown, the recent Pulse Invitational, last week’s EsportsDoug x eUnited Charity Clash and this week’s ongoing PAX Arena Invitational, where they fell out of groups Thursday, July 23, with a 1-2 record.
In addition to competing at this week’s Invitational, AYRIN has also had to deal with the fallout of the “phox” and “w3ak” cheating scandal, so he’s had a difficult and busy week. He sheds some light on what was the biggest Valorant story of the week, the worst scandal in the game’s short two-month infancy so far.
The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.
Bray: When did you first start playing Valorant? Did you play during the closed beta?
AYRIN: Yeah, I think I played the very first day, like I didn’t get a key, which was kinda shitty. But then I just kept watching, and I got it the very first day, very luckily ... So I’ve been pretty much every day since that day.
Who do you main in Valorant?
I main Raze. I’ve played Raze since the very beginning, because the first couple weeks I was playing her, I was dropping 30 bombs all the time. She’s a really aggressive character. But the downfall right now is that everyone on these pro teams already has that one top player, so you have to play different roles. Right now, I’m trying to play Cypher, which is quite difficult, because without practice on a team he’s really hard to incorporate. And it’s a completely different play style for me. Raze is just about holding and creating space for your team, while Cypher is more laid back and trying to direct your team.
What drew you to the game? What do you like about it?
What’s really amazing about the game is that it took elements of all the good FPS games, like a little bit of the Overwatch with the skill-based, which makes it different. But then the biggest part that drew me to it was the focus on the hitboxes, the aiming and overall, just making it a competitive game. I guess the most interesting part of it is it’s one of the first big games solely to be released as a competitive game, which hasn’t worked before. Last time I heard this was Battalion 1994, if you know that game. It was a small game, made by a small developer, and it was strictly competitive, five vs. five. And people thought it was gonna be the next Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or whatever, but then it just never took off. So it’s just really interesting to see how Valorant is like, “Oh, we’re gonna make this competitive.” And even right now I question how much all the casual people enjoy this. Can they play this game like League of Legends all day?
And have you played other games competitively before?
I played a game called CrossFire. It came out in 2009, so it was really big in North America in 2010. But then in 2011 and 2012, that’s when Call of Duty expanded its franchises — but mainly, Counter-Strike, Dota 2 and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty all came out at the time. So CrossFire wasn’t that massive in North America afterward. But basically, I was team captain of Team Canada and Team USA, like North America, for multiple years. My first competition was when I was 16, and then I played that game for the past five years. I traveled around the world playing for North America. We played in million-dollar tournaments. CrossFire was the only game I’d actually say I went pro in ... In 2017, we placed fourth in the world, so that was really fun.
And what have you done in the interim between 2017 and 2020 now with Valorant?
The thing about CrossFire is that we were salaried, but at the same time we had the opportunity to study as well. So I did four years of university while I was a pro in CrossFire. And then in 2017, I took a break from gaming and did my master’s. So my master’s was cool. I did a year in Canada, where I’m from, and then I did a year in Europe. So I just got back because of COVID-19. Yeah, so life’s interesting. I did five months in Denmark and then five months in Ireland, and I was just gonna start my life in Europe. And then I had to come back for COVID. So I was just playing Valorant for fun. But we just had so much success in the first two months of the game that I decided that I wanted to try to go pro in this game. You know, even after today’s loss, I think I wanna spend some time reviewing how much time I can give myself and what my goals really are.
You and Echo 8 played at last month’s T1 x Nerd Street Gamers Showdown as one of four qualifier teams. You played at the recent Pulse Invitational. And you took part in last week’s EsportsDoug x eUnited Charity Clash, where you finished in third-fourth place after falling to Cloud9 2-0 in the semifinals Saturday, July 18. And now you’re at this week’s PAX Arena Invitational. What’s your trajectory right now as a team? What are your goals?
I’ll run you down what our team’s been doing. In the first month or two, we played a lot. We were really, really good. We were winning all the tournaments except for the ones against TSM and Gen.G Esports. And we worked our way up. I think at that time we were one of the top-five North American teams. But then kinda what happened was, we hit a slump. And the slump kinda started in June. Early June was when we started losing to a couple teams we didn’t think we were gonna lose to, and we’re talking to a few organizations about getting signed and this and that. And then when the Showdown happened, we were still in the slump, and that tournament did not go well at all. We didn’t play that well and we didn’t make it out of groups, so that was a really bad experience. In that week of the Showdown, we’d already lost a couple teams here and there, and then this was kinda like, “You know, we’ve been playing together for two and a half months or so. It’s already June. We thought we’d be signed by now.” A lot of our friends started getting signed in June. That’s when we decided to remove two of our players, so in mid-June, we removed “Req” (Andrew Deng) and Reformed, so it was just me, “supamen” (Phat Le) and “Brando” (Brandon Parker)
So July, we had a lot of tournaments, a string of tournaments, like the ones you just listed, and it’s just been really crappy experience, because every one of these tournaments, we’ve played either with no practice at all, just five people, or we had like two days to practice. So it’s been pretty crappy.
Echo 8 is just me and Brando at this point, and there’s a lot to think about. And I’m just happy — one silver lining or great thing about this opportunity is that we made a name for ourselves in the beginning and we went to all these tournaments. But it feels bad not to play so much and not be able to compete at a high level.
Another amateur team, Together We Are Terrific, got picked up by Team Envy after some strong tournament performances. So what do you think the odds are that you get picked up by a professional organization or another?
I’d say the chances are still possible. That’s the goal. I don’t know. I don’t think I can put a percentage on it, to be honest.
The other big thing that happened this week was something you had to deal with, and this was the cheating scandal involving “phox” and “w3ak.” What was it like dealing with that? It was the start of week, so what did the start of the week look like for you?
I’ll walk you through the story. We lost a player — we lost supamen — and it was just me and Brando. We messaged a couple people. We had a couple hundred people message us to try out. It was a hard time selecting who to work with, who to play with. We saw this guy (phox) posting on Twitter with these amazing stats — absolutely amazing. Some of the best stats I’ve seen. We said let’s give this guy a shot. So me and Brando sent this guy a Direct Message, and he said he’d only play with his teammate, w3ak. And we thought that was all right. It’s not that crazy to want to play with your friend. So this was only two days before the Charity Clash, so we told them we want them to try out for the PAX Arena Invitational. But for some reason — and this was the first strike — they said, “Oh, we’ll consider it. We might wanna play with you. But if we do, we want the option to play with our team afterward.” It could be normal, because you might just wanna play with your friends. But if this is your opportunity to shine and possibly make a six-digit salary and change your life, if this is your passion, we thought it was kinda weird, right.
We got invited to play this Charity Clash. So we scrimmed with them for one day. After scrimming with them one day, I was a bit suspicious — even before we picked them up. So after scrimming that one day, we said we’ll play this charity tournament with them. And the bonus security feature was that they played in four or five tournaments not hosted by Riot Games and they didn’t get banned. That doesn’t say anything, but it goes to show that if phox was cheating in these tournaments and getting away with it, I would give him the benefit of the doubt that he was legit, because I don’t wanna miss out on the next best player on my team.
But then we played that tournament and we completely destroyed Immortals — like 13-5, 13-6. We almost beat Cloud9, which was quite ridiculous. They’re a good team. I know we can beat them, but it was just quite sketchy what phox was doing — you know, like everything. I could go on for an hour about this. But one was his laissez-faire attitude. He’d destroy five of them and be like, “Yeah. You know, that just happened. Whatever.” Or like, “I could get signed. Whatever.”
Phox and w3ak didn’t talk a lot in the game, and when they did talk, they were quite angry. It felt like they were angry at us to do well with their calls so they wouldn’t be suspicious. So after the Charity Clash, which we only played with phox, we didn’t wanna play with them. But we spent hours talking — we contacted some admins. I had people message me who were organizers from the Ignition Series, and they were like, “This guy’s been reported multiple times, and if he plays in this tournament, we will monitor his game.” That was right after I messaged phox and I said, “We don’t want to play with w3ak anymore. We only wanna play with you.” We just wanted to see what the next level was: Would he play without his teammate? And why? What’s going on here? What’s the dynamic? Why’s he wanna play with this guy so much? This guy, w3ak, would barely talk and wasn’t even that good in the one or two scrimmages we did — we just wanted to know why. We messaged phox, and he said no, he didn’t want to play.
We thought he was cheating. We played one tournament with him. That’s when we knew for sure, so we cut ties with him. And yeah, he got banned. I was telling some of my friends, these guys could be Hollywood actors ... It seemed like he just wanted attention. It was a really awkward situation ... We were playing with this guy for two days, and there was so much drama.
What’s an insight you can give my readers about Valorant from someone like yourself who's experienced in the game?
I’ve played a lot of ranked matches, and the game is really designed in a way where you have to work together. One thing that more casual players don’t understand is that you don’t always have to rush. So what I mean by that is, the way the maps are laid out, there are a lot of tiny chokepoints. To casual players, it feels like Counter-Strike: We have to five-man rush this or we have to force this. And a lot of times, I think people can just be more patient. There are so many abilities, and a lot of abilities can stop a five-man push, like a Slow Orb (Sage’s Basic Ability) or a Molotov (Hot Hands, Phoenix’s Signature Ability), so don’t just rush everything with five people.
Up-and-coming Valorant pros phox, w3ak banned from game for alleged cheating, two days before $25,000 PAX Arena Invitational with Echo 8
Top Valorant amateurs “phox” and “w3ak” have been permanently banned from the game after Riot Games said they confirmed allegations of cheating against them Monday, July 20.
The ban hit phox and w3ak exactly two days before they were set to compete in the $25,000 PAX Arena Invitational with Echo 8, one of the top amateur teams in North America. It was the first high-profile case of cheating allegations that resulted in a permanent exile from Valorant — a two-month-old game still in its infancy.
Previously, Ardis “Ardiis” Svarenieks had been accused of match-fixing and cheating, but he was cleared of these allegations after an investigation by Riot Games, he announced last month on Twitter.
The pre-tournament scandal started earlier this week when phox took to Twitter and announced he was taking a “break” from the game for mental-health reasons.
In response, Matt Paoletti, an anti-cheating developer at Valorant, essentially called his bluff, pulled back the curtain and clarified that phox had been banned for cheating earlier that day.
“If you come back, please don’t cheat next time,” he wrote sharply on Twitter.
But the developer struck a conciliatory note once phox released a final statement in which he confessed to cheating. Although the aspiring pro didn’t apologize for playing with cheats on — he said his statement wasn’t an “apology” or a “request for forgiveness” — Paoletti extended him an olive branch.
“Anti-Cheat is full of ex-cheaters who have learned our lessons too,” Paoletti wrote. “We're rooting for you to reform and hopefully eventually be able to enjoy gaming and competition in a legitimate manner.”
Phox and his teammate w3ak had been training for this week’s Invitational alongside Echo 8. Soon after Paoletti fired off his first tweet against phox, w3ak took to Twitter and tried to defend himself and his teammate.
In a since-deleted tweet, w3ak wrote that he and phox were two of the “best players to touch this game.” And he doubled down on his innocence, saying, “[I’m] reinstalling the game to show I didn’t get banned.”
But his defense didn’t last long. Soon afterward, he admitted to cheating in Valorant, and so did phox.
“Not gonna try to prolong this anymore,” w3ak posted in another now-hidden tweet. "None of our teammates knew we were cheating. I got a message from phox this morning saying he got banned, so I checked if I was too. I have now logged in to being banned, thought I could play it off.”
One of the game’s breakout amateur stars, phox recently competed for Echo 8 at last week’s EsportsDoug x eUnited Charity Clash, where his team finished in third place Saturday, July 18.
Phox was one of the top players at the Charity Clash, finishing with an incredible kill-death ratio of 1.45 and an Average Combat Score of 286 — still well below Cloud 9 superstar captain Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, who finished with a KD ratio of 1.61 and an ACS of 316.2.
In online play, phox was one of the most decorated amateur players throughout North America, achieving the top rank of Radiant with an astonishing 75 percent win rate.
Before joining Echo 8, phox and w3ak played for Athletic Strong Muscular Ragers (ASMR), another amateur team. Several of their opponents had suspicions of them using cheats.
Echo 8 took part in this week’s ongoing Invitational, with a last-minute, improvised roster.
The amateur crew fell out of group play Thursday, July 23, with a 1-2 record.
No other players are suspected of cheating, and Echo 8 team captain Jordan “AYRIN” He put out a statement on Twitter describing his suspicions against phox and w3ak, and detailing each of the appropriate actions taken in response by the team.
What we know about our next Valorant Agent — Killjoy (not Bombshell?)
Despite my predictions last month in Issue 5 and the sleuthing of many Valorant writers, players and fans, our next Agent — No. 12 on the roster — appears to be named Killjoy, not Bombshell.
While Bombshell could still come into play in a later update (or not), Killjoy seems to be the next playable character that developer Riot Games is teasing in its latest update, patch 1.04.
In the patch, players have discovered an Easter egg and have data-mined several audio files that seem to suggest Killjoy’s upcoming debut.
First, the Easter egg: On Split, a slight decorative change has given players a first look at Killjoy. In the high-tech sneaker shop near A-site, a cardboard cutout of the new Agent can be seen from the window. It’s a shadowy image for sure, and next to it, a poster on the wall proudly displays the new Agent with the number 4 above it. This clue could mean that Killjoy is set to debut Tuesday, Aug. 4, when Act 2 of Valorant Episode 1 is supposed to be released, along with a new Battle Pass to Valorant players.
Second, the audio: While researching Killjoy, Valorant sleuths data-mined several electronic sounds with Killjoy’s name attached to them. In addition, they uncovered several of the Agents’ new voicelines to Killjoy. Cypher, for example, says to Killjoy at the start of a round, “Little engineer, I borrowed one of your transmitters for my camera. I’ll pay you back — probably.” Upon completion of a kill, Reyna says to Killjoy, “I don’t care how bright you are. You’ll never be a Radiant.” And in my favorite voiceline, Breach simply says to Killjoy, like a schoolyard bully, “Nerd.”
These audio files suggest that Killjoy will deploy turrets as part of his Abilities and that he is of small stature — two qualities I attributed to Bombshell. Perhaps Killjoy is the German engineer we’ve been expecting all along (none of our Agents so far have been from Germany), and I was wrong about Bombshell.
In other words, the bombshell of the week could be that Bombshell (if there is such an Agent) is not who we expected him to be.
Either way, we’ll learn more about Killjoy (and maybe more about Bombshell) when Act 2 comes out in August; stay tuned.
Cameron Bray is the lead writer for The Initiator, a recently created newsletter about Valorant sponsored by Numlock News. He also contributes to No Bid Nation, a new sports blog about William and Mary basketball. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @spike_cameron or send him an email at cameron@numlock.news.