R2B2's VAC ban set to expire before the next Major

A couple of months back, Gods Reign were well on track for an Asian MRQ invite for the upcoming Austin 2025 Major and a loss to VICTORES SUMUS at the Skyesports Pro League followed by a few more at the ECL set the team considerably back in their Asian MRQ contention.

ATOX who held a spot in the Asian MRQ were removed due to an ongoing ESIC investigation which made way for Gods Reign who were sitting at the borderline of the cutoff. However, the Indian side's hurdle-after-hurdle continued as one of their players R2B2 would not be eligible to contest in the MRQ.

R2B2 owns an Steam account with a VAC ban on it, preventing him from taking part in events directly affiliated with Valve like the Majors or it's direct qualifiers. The same issue arose during Gods Reign's Asian closed qualifier campaign for the Asia RMR leading up to the Perfect World Shanghai 2024 Major and issue continues to haunt them as this time, their former coach PokemoN will stand-in at the Asia MRQ.

R2B2's VAC ban was investigated by ESL's admin and upon lack of evidence to prove that this ban was specifically for cheating in-game, ESL's admins cleared R2B2's name allowing him to participate in ESL events. R2B2 stated that this ban was handed down to his account's involvement with an unauthorized third party skins website which he was unaware of as his account was bought from Amazon.

R2B2's VAC ban is set to expire this June, allowing him to compete in the next Major's qualification cycle. When contacted regarding the same, R2B2 confirmed that the ban is set to expire on 9th June 2025 but the Indian rifler pointed out that his reference was only through the VAC Banned Players page on Liquipedia.

While all of the above makes it seem like the ban just disappears on 9th June 2025, Valve's Major Supplemental Rulebook says a different story. Valve strictly mentions that a VAC banned player cannot be allowed to take part in a Major or it's qualification cycle. "Any player who is VAC Banned on any of their accounts must be approved in writing by Valve in order to be eligible to participate in the event." says Valve in their stance on eligibility of VAC banned players towards Major cycles.