Fortnite pro banned mid-tournament for cheating

The player was booted during the NA East DreamHack Online Open Finals on Thursday night.

During the summer, public cases of cheating in Fortnite reached an all time high. Multiple accounts were caught using “soft aim” software in prized competitive events, sparking hostility throughout the community.

Since then though, we haven’t heard much more on the subject. Epic seems to be doing a great job of detecting and quickly punishing offending players, especially in comparison to other titles such as Call of Duty: Warzone.

However, it seems some people are still slipping through the cracks, at least briefly. Canadian pro “Paperclip” was struck by the banhammer two games into the recent NAE DreamHack Finals.

is there a hacker playin in dh?

— Clix (@ClixHimself) October 16, 2020

The former Team Vanish player, who was competing under the name “chris p bacon”, was kicked mid-match, receiving the message “You have been permanently banned due to cheating”.

Taking to Twitter shortly after, Paperclip claimed that he had not been cheating during the tournament itself. He argued that the ban was a reaction to something that he did a couple of months ago, “If u didn’t know I aimbotted on an alt in a pub”.

Regardless of this, there is no denying that the punishment was justified. Epic Games made it very clear that they would not tolerate the use of aimbot software in any situation with the permanent banning of FaZe star Jarvis “Jarvis” Khattri last year.

During the same event, other pros were also accused of using aimbot, this time incorrectly. These sorts of allegations, especially from popular players with a large following, can be harmful even if they do turn out to be wrong. For this reason, it’s usually best to leave the work up to Epic’s AntiCheat system.