Riot Games release competitive ruling on Slaze suspension

Riot Games has released a competitive ruling on Wednesday regarding the suspension of Sophia “Slaze” Ramirez for boosting players following the decision’s initial leak the day before.

Slaze has continued to deny her participation in any form of boosting and any violation of Riot’s terms of service or competitive rule set. She also claims the account in question has not been banned from casual play. Slaze violated rule 7.5 in the VALORANT Champions Tour rulebook according to the developer’s statement.

https://twitter.com/slaze444/status/1443365103261392897?s=20

In the Riot ruling, the developer cites Section 7 of their TOS — which pertains to boosting — and will levy a 90 day ban on the player. Slaze was also found to have intentionally queued with cheaters to actively climb the ranked ladder, a practice known as “bussing,” according to Riot.

The ruling laid out the timeline of event following Slaze’s team qualifying for VALORANT Champions Tour Game Changers Series III.

“On September 20, 2021, Slaze queued with an active cheater for nine games, winning eight of them,” the ruling said. “The cheater was banned for cheating during the 10th game, sending all players in the game, including Slaze, a red full-screen notification of a cheater detected in their game (the ‘Red Screen’). Slaze and the cheater logged into different accounts and played nine more games, winning eight of them.”

Slaze duo-queued with an active cheater in 60% of her ranked matches in the 28 day period Riot combed her account for according to the statement.

Polaris will field a substitute for Slaze in Game Changers Series III

The team announced Tuesday that they would field a substitute for the upcoming tournament. Polaris has only communicated about the issue through their Twitter account. The team is currently unsigned and did not appear for pre-event media opportunities for the tournament.

For the remainder of the tournament, @kxtieoh will be filling in as our emergency sub in place of Slaze.

— Polaris (@PolarisVAL) September 28, 2021

Polaris released a statement following the competitive ruling stating the player has been dropped from their roster entirely.

“The members of Polaris were completely unaware of her actions and would not condone anything alike,” the team’s statement said. “Everyone here on Polaris want to personally apologize to the Valorant community for these unfortunate events that unfolded today.”

Slaze herself has continued to deny boosting, bussing and has claimed the account in question has not been banned.

https://twitter.com/slaze444/status/1443371793054588928

“Idk why people are being so rude to me, idk anyone that cheats and wouldn’t play with someone cheating,” Slaze said in a recent tweet. “The person I’ve played with a lot the past month still isn’t banned so idk why riot is saying they banned someone for cheating. I’ve never seen someone I’ve q with cheat.”