Important! Players playing for NrS team have never been under suspicion of cheating. This concerns only the team boss whose actions may have negative effect on the team reputation as a whole.
I am bringing this case to everyone’s knowledge because according to NewRoSoft website (http://www.nrsteam.com/about.php) he is the team owner and at the very least he carries NrS tag on the ladder. Thus he is “someone” in the esports scene, and as such if caught hacking should be brought to the public knowledge.
I am going to break down here all the evidence I have gathered from the GM/Master hacker thread and the 4 replays posted in there. Common to all four replays is very low/non-existent scouting. A lot of the evidence is circumstantial, however, there are few pieces of very damning evidence which are rather impossible to explain. With everything brought together, the case is very strong if not impenetrable.
Also, here is a good video on the topic created by Generalul
This is by far the most important replay mostly due to 12:50, 16:47 and the burrow ling episode which is quite hilarious.
-10:30 Slightly after the spire goes down, he reacts with 2 stargates (no knowledge of the spire) Followed with Fleet Beacon for Phoenix range upgrade.
-12:15 3 Cannons Blindly at natural
-12:50 to 13:00 His camera jumps to the natural to warp in stalkers into the mineral line in anticipation of mutalisks that are not in his vision. If you pause at 12:58 and watch his vision it is clear that he sees the mutas before they are in his legit vision.
-16:47 This is the single most important piece of evidence in my opinion. Without any kind of warning he proceeds to active Photon Overcharge in anticipation of attack that is out of his vision range. This is hard evidence.
-17:25 He sends his whole army and a probe to potential 4th location. Burrowed Zergling is there to deny this move. However, he shouldn’t know this. Still, he does not even try to build the nexus and finally starts an observer without ever getting the error message that something is actually blocking the nexus construction.
-17:40 He immediately pulls back when Zerg army starts moving on the map. (He has no vision still). Around the same time he warps in 4 Zealots to block his main base from an attack which he does not see until after the warp in.
19:00 Pulls his army towards natural mineral line yet again in anticipation of an attack he has yet to see.
-6:40 He selects the mothership core in anticipation of marine poke. He activates the Photon Overcharge when the marines come into the vision. (Looks rather weird in his camera)
-12:20 Moves his whole army to intercept drop at third location without any vision.
-17:05 He conveniently builds forward pylons on the exact moment double drop is coming towards his 4th. This looks like maphack masking especially since there are no other forward pylons for scouting purposes in the game. He also selects his army on the very same moment and immediately sends it to clear the attack when he sees first units.
18:45 When Terran is preparing to move out with maxed army he walks to the middle and creates perfect concave where the terran army walks and dies. No vision.
I remembered this thread, so I decided to go for a very agressive build to see how he'd react. Here are the results:
- 5'15: chronoes a stalker without scouting that I'm arriving with 2 zealots and 2 stalkers. It makes no sense to go for a 3 gate build and to suddenly chrono a stalker in the middle of it like that. - 5'25: his camera jumps at my army at his natural right before he has vision of it. He has his army already pre-selected too.
If it was an isolated incident it could have been a coincidence, but in the light of the 2 previous posters, I have no doubt he's indeed hacking.
-3:45 Scouting (finally). However the pathing is a bit weird. He is about to skip the main where enemy is. When the probe finally arrives it gets funnier, he passes the main, seeing a bit of creep. Then pulls back in a move which looks a little bit masking.
(However, this move is not exactly the most suspicious on the list. It is simply weird)
-9:25ish He conveniently gets out of his base to catch the Zerglings.
-9:50 Again, slightly after the spire goes down he drops down two stargates, and later on Fleet Beacon without seeing scouting mutalisks. This is too much of an coincidence in my opinion.
-11:15 Observer arrives in Zerg base. He never ever makes an effort to scout anything with the observer, he simply moves it to Zerg base into a spot where it gives zero useful scouting information and then forgets about it (Mind you, player is at master level).
-11:30 Watch his vision. Whilst his vision is in main base he selects his army in anticipation of an attack yet to come, and when first ling or two hits the vision reacts immediately by sending army via minimap to defend the 3rd.
-12:40 Moves phoenix fleet in anticipation of a mutalisk attack.
There is the replay evidence. I would like to point out once more that most of the evidence is circumstantial, however few parts with unexplainable moves coupled with other weird moves and the fact that he is without scouting information pretty much always in the right place makes the case.
I would like to point out also, that Egomancer has been derailing conversation in the original GM/Master Hacker thread (Pages 334 to 343), accusing his opponents of maphacking (including me, I play the Terran in Replay two) and giving right out bizarre explanations for his weird gameplay. Everything taken into consideration, this is not a personal witch hunt against anyone, since the evidence is there. You may see it for yourself.
Egomancer has has been banned today from Team Liquid.
Edit// Added Bnet profile and personal information Edit2// Do not blow back this on NrS players, they have never showed cheating behaviour.
Let's hope that the rest of the team gets aware of this. Some game from him could be explained with luck, but all in all the evidence is very strong. Too many lucky transitions and DT harassments.
I recommend Generalul to use an authenticator or at least switch screen and microphone off during password entry.
On August 19 2013 03:05 JacobShock wrote: Shame the audio in the video is so bad, watching it right now. It's hard to hear what he is saying. The evidence seems very damning though.
wow, the maphacker accuses the other guy of hacking, thats pretty hilarious.
Happened a few times to me. Would play vs a dude on ladder, very blatantly hacking, then when he loses "LOL reporting for hacking noob" or something similar.
Interesting, Egomancer was never a good player, even if he has 12k ladder games under his belt he still can't play properly.
Guess he realized that he will never be good at this game and he decided to cheat just to feel better, and not feel bad that he wasted thousands of hours playing and practicing sc2.
On August 19 2013 03:05 JacobShock wrote: Shame the audio in the video is so bad, watching it right now. It's hard to hear what he is saying. The evidence seems very damning though.
wow, the maphacker accuses the other guy of hacking, thats pretty hilarious.
Happened a few times to me. Would play vs a dude on ladder, very blatantly hacking, then when he loses "LOL reporting for hacking noob" or something similar.
I guess if you're the type who willingly cheats without a problem, you'd expect the rest of the world to be cheating too.
On August 19 2013 03:33 KadaverBB wrote: He is already permed on tl.
Should the thread be closed then? Or is the agenda here different since he's kind of a "public person" of the e-sports scene (even though I admittedly don't know anything about the guy).
I've heard plenty about him before so this isn't news, but I'll definitely check out the replays for myself. It's been a while since I've played him, I literally didn't realize he was the owner until a few months ago ><
Shouldn't really affect the team, though I doubt this will have a positive effect.
Why is this a big deal, who is NRS and do they have an offline presence? You've got to imagine for every one maphacker blatant enough to get caught, there are a handful that aren't. Online presence = doesn't matter.
On August 19 2013 08:38 kckkryptonite wrote: Why is this a big deal, who is NRS and do they have an offline presence? You've got to imagine for every one maphacker blatant enough to get caught, there are a handful that aren't. Online presence = doesn't matter.
Yes they do have an offline presence, Welmu being their biggest name.
I'm pretty sure Frozendruid would kick any player caught with maphacking but he can't do anything about the boss. He isn't a competitive player anyway so it's no big deal.
Catching one is better than catching none. I myselfe was active in looking at those replays, however i had no clue on who the person was. I dont follow the pro-scene that much to know whos manager etc, but i still feel like a part of the community as an active player.
Ive also been watching his streams lately, and tbh, i feel kinda bad for him. He might have been maphacking or similar in the past, but by watching his stream now, i would rather say he is trying to improve the way he should, though he looses a few times that might look, well ... belonging to a lower league (his rage is also clear on his stream, especially when he faces platinumplayers)
Know he cant reply to this thread since he is banned, but if he was maphacking before, it seems like he aint doing it now (according to what i see to his stream atleast).
All in all, maphacking or similar should not be taken lightly on, nomatter who they are, where they come from. Anyone should be playing on equal terms, nomatter what league or status, thats the best for everyone.
One might ask why did he hack on his main account and risk his whole team and reputation? the answer to that is most likely that he wanted to impress his friends/teammates with a top master rank.
On August 19 2013 08:45 J_EU wrote: Ive also been watching his streams lately, and tbh, i feel kinda bad for him. He might have been maphacking or similar in the past, but by watching his stream now, i would rather say he is trying to improve the way he should, though he looses a few times that might look, well ... belonging to a lower league (his rage is also clear on his stream, especially when he faces platinumplayers)
I find this incredibly amusing that he feels so entitled to waste better player's time.
There's no way he can attempt to cheat again now that "the community" knows his history. I don't think this even warrants an apology if he's actually playing legitimately on a livestream. I think a cheap laugh from me is enough punishment.
For years now I thought every time cheating is being discussed publicly on forums or gaming shows it has the potential to cause an opposite effect, I mean people just see how easy it is to cheat and get away with it and are more likely to turn to hacking. Sad part is that it is quite obvious a lot of the hackers are actually a part of the community here. In my opinion tournament admins / refs should have a hidden forum or something where replays can be analyzed and ban certain players from entering further tournaments, while discussing hacking publicly should be taboo. Stop advertising cheats !
Puts his players permanently into an uncomfortable position. Terrible decision making from someone who is supposed to be looked at as mature and responsible.
Watching his stream at the moment and I like qualitiy & music I wonder if it doesn't put a lot of pressure on you to hack since you might still lose. It must feel far worse than to lose normal. How is he as a person @ppl who know him? Strong or weaker kind?
On August 19 2013 10:35 KingFool wrote: Puts his players permanently into an uncomfortable position. Terrible decision making from someone who is supposed to be looked at as mature and responsible.
He made it even worse by going on a 10page "argue with everybody" stint in the hacking thread too.
played vs him, even if hes hacking hes is not that good. vs me it didnt look like he was hacking or his reaction time is just bad http://drop.sc/354743
On August 19 2013 13:08 coldscars wrote: played vs him, even if hes hacking hes is not that good. vs me it didnt look like he was hacking or his reaction time is just bad http://drop.sc/354743
he lost about 250 points in the last 5 days. so if we wait for another week, he should have reached his real level. that´s quite interesting, so we can finally see the influence of mh on ladder points.
me playing under nickname zgrywus vs lionheart on starstation http://drop.sc/355603 i only did a quick look on the rep and here are two thoughts: he sent his only scout to the place where i proxied and this planetary nexus before he sees my army coming at 17:08:
It appears NrS's boss, formerly LionHeart, continues to hack under US account [NrS]ZeroSkill. Would also expect he has a new EU account, as it seems he stopped using the LionHeart account as of 9/11/13, but I do not see any EU accounts with the name ZeroSkill.
The team's Wiki has ZeroSkill as team owner Andrei Gireada's new name. Also we can compare the hotkeys and APM of this US account ZeroSkill with the previous replays of LionHeart and see that it's the same person:
These graphs show his hotkey tapping. His graphs are in the red at the top:
ZeroSkill:
LionHeart:
The APM of all those replays is also very similar, around 90 APM and 60-70 EAPM.
Now, here is my game against ZeroSkill which I think provides the evidence of hacking:
- Zero scouting throughout the game. - At the start he moves stalker right to my incoming scouting overlord. Not a big deal in itself. - 8:00 - does not move his DTs to my nat, not even to see if he can get anything done. - 9:30 - moves his DTs over to his 3rd, and is watching this area right before my lings come in. - 12:30-12:50 - prepares at his 3rd and moves his camera over there before my banes come in. - Later he attacks my 4th without having done any scouting, etc.
As of the time of this post, his stream is live and it consists of his webcam view of him playing, with no view of his screen. He looks at the upper left of his screen a lot...production tab? Note as he's playing right now, he's not using the ZeroSkill account I just played against, so clearly he has other accounts.
NrS is still an active team, and with its team owner hacking like this, even continuing to do it with the NrS tag after being exposed, is really shady. But to kick NrS out of tournaments or something would just punish the players. Not sure what can be done about it, other than Blizzard banning his accounts lol.
Pretty disgusting that he would continue to do this. Seriously though, how retarded can you be? It's not even like he's a pro, or a semi-pro, what benefit is there? He's a team owner, what is the point in hacking and CONTINUING to hack after being exposed? He must have some serious issues.
On December 16 2013 03:39 ZAiNs wrote: Pretty disgusting that he would continue to do this. Seriously though, how retarded can you be? It's not even like he's a pro, or a semi-pro, what benefit is there? He's a team owner, what is the point in hacking and CONTINUING to hack after being exposed? He must have some serious issues.
I can conceive he likes to hack, but does he have to tag his clan on his hacking account? LMAO
On August 19 2013 03:05 JacobShock wrote: Shame the audio in the video is so bad, watching it right now. It's hard to hear what he is saying. The evidence seems very damning though.
wow, the maphacker accuses the other guy of hacking, thats pretty hilarious.
Happened a few times to me. Would play vs a dude on ladder, very blatantly hacking, then when he loses "LOL reporting for hacking noob" or something similar.
This is typical for bad players that cheat in multiplayer games (especially fps games). They believe their losses are all due to opponent's cheating rather than them being bad, so they end up using cheats. Dumb people, probably all suffer from some kind of brain damage.
On July 24 2014 02:38 Wormi wrote: just met him again and he´s still using mh. guess it isn´t worth uploading the replay or reporting him. won´t change anything anyway.
upload it if you already necro the thread upload it