BuNTz: "If we were ID spoofing, why did we lose in the Grand Slam Grand Final?"

The spoofing allegations on Marcos' Gaming BuNTz in the Skyesports Masters 2024 Indian Closed Qualifier caused a spark in the Indian Community as players, coaches, owners, took to Twitter asking for justice. However, BuNTz was later cleared out by Skyesports, after a thorough investigation conducted by 'Industry Specialists', who found inconclusive evidence against BuNTz. We reached out to BuNTz, to hear his side of the story.

Following his match against Gods Reign, where Marcos Gaming suffered a 0-2 defeat, BuNTz found himself under scrutiny with a rating of only 0.52 in the game. Reflecting on his performance, BuNTz discussed how the pressure from the community had significantly affected his gameplay.

Everyone wants to put pressure on us, so we panicked and didn’t play our game. Today's game (against Gods Reign) didn't go as planned; we didn't play as we should have. Mentally, we were all unstable. Personally, I couldn't focus during today's game; I was so nervous. I know I could have done better. But we need to put this behind us and focus on tomorrow's match. Many people were saying bad things to us, and before the match, many players were calling me and saying terrible things. When there's a lot of pressure on us, we lose confidence. It's not just me; every member of our team, including the EU players, faces this.

BuNTz also talked about how the 'heavy surveillance' was just a side webcam. But the pressure from the community weighed heavily on him, leading to uncharacteristic mistakes that he would never even make on FACEIT.

This was the angle of the camera for me. Everyone is saying we were under heavy surveillance, which affected my performance. rite2ace mentioned that the café owner said no one played on my PC, and he doesn't believe it. So what can we do? If no one believes in Café Owners, then spoofing can be done even from that camera angle. Moreover, if we were attempting ID spoofing, why did we lose in the Grand Slam Grand Final, where we didn't drop a single match? We were one match away from glory at that time, and I was underperforming. The pressure and stress made us uncomfortable, and we couldn’t perform well. Even the things in-game that I can usually do easily, I messed up. This is something that never happens even on FACEIT.

BuNTz revealed that an organization had approached him with a lucrative offer, contingent upon his qualification for the Grand Slam LAN. He also admitted that if he had considered exploiting ID spoofing, it would have been during that time. But it is something he will never do.

When we were at the Grand Slam, before the tournament started, we didn’t have an organization. One organization approached us and said (don’t want to mention names) "Legacy guys, if you win the Grand Slam final and go to LAN, we will onboard you with the best salary, boot camp, everything. EU players' flights, visas, and all expenses will be reimbursed to you. Just win the Grand Slam India qualifiers." If we wanted to do ID spoofing, where it was my first Skyesports tournament in 2024, and only because of winning one tournament, the India qualifiers, we would get everything as a team, then at that time, I would have done that. I was the worst performer on the team at that time. Still, we didn’t do it. We will never do that.

BuNTz also pointed out that it wasn't just the café owner and Marcos Gaming players present, but also several other players who had come to watch their match, both in the Grand Slam and Masters tournaments.

(but) we never attempted to do it because it's not just the admin or café owner who watches our games. A bunch of café players came to watch our game in the Grand Slam and this tournament as well. But due to the pressure, our team environment was bad; no one was performing at their best. Everyone was in a bad mood, shouting, and all. Plus, you can check the camera; in yesterday's match, my monitor turned off automatically, and the PC restarted once.

Many people speculated it was their former Russian teammate GreK playing for BuNTz. To clear this suspicion, BuNTz provided a video showing GreK in Moscow on March 29th, 2024.

BuNTz attributed his improved performance in the Indian Qualifier 2024 to rectifying mistakes with the team and identifying how he cannot perform under pressure. Therefore he mentioned that after the allegations against him, he got under pressure and was unable to perform.

In all Grand Slam matches, against many teams, I was in single digits. Then why am I in double digits in every match of the qualifiers? "Why isn't Buntz in single digits like in the Grand Slam?" Because after the Grand Slam, we were trying to fix our weaknesses. My whole team said that 'under stress and pressure, Buntz can't perform' so we shouldn't take pressure and stress. The same thing happened to me and the team in the last two matches.

BuNTz also remarked that if he had truly intended to attempt ID spoofing, he would have played from home. However, he chose to go to a gaming café so that he could play with his team.

I have a good PC at home with a Ryzen 9 7900X3D and a 3080 GPU. Still, I went to the PC club (gaming café). Why? Because my players want me to play with them at the café. If we want to attempt ID spoofing, we always play from my home or a private place where everything is under our control.