Riot Games has officially responded to intergrity concerns regarding headset usage at VCT Pacific Kickoff. Following Valorant Masters Santiago, the Pacific region is undoubtedly the best region in Valorant, but integrity issues have marred its domestic competition.
Riot confirms infringement but denies advantage
The statement regards Gen.G players Kim ‘Lakia’ Jong-min and Team Secret’s Ko ‘Sylvan’ Young-sub wearing their headsets improperly, seemingly not covering the entirety of their ears against DetonatioN FocusMe and Zeta Division, respectively.
The images proved especially controversial due to the venue of Sangam Colosseum in Seoul, meaning the casters in the arena were speaking Korean, creating a potential advantage to South Korean players like Lakia and Sylvan.
Riot’s statement confirmed that “improper equipment usage” had occurred, but it deemed that no advantage had been conferred due ot the miswearing of the headsets.
Riot’s statement reads, “After reviewing footage and voice comms from these specific matches, we did not find evidence that the improper headset usage was intentional, nor that the individuals gained in-venue casting information for a material match advantage. In fact, the maps during which the headsets were improperly worn resulted in losses for both teams.”
As such, “a Written Notice has been issued to the players involved, and they have been informed that repeated offenses may result in additional disciplinary measures.”
Riot also stated that they are increasing the volume of their rehearsal-based audio testing to ensure peak caster volume cannot result in players discerning in-game information.
Headset controversy is the latest of VCT Pacific integrity concerns
Head of VALORANT Esports APAC & VCT Pacific Jake Sin had previously addressed multiple concerns regarding VCT Pacific’s integrity on VALO2ASIA’s podcast and on Pacific Valorant content creator GLHFSon’s channel.
Sin addressed concerns over T1 smoking in the bathrooms, which he stated that T1 later admitted to, resulting in a warning.
Sin also stated that Paper Rex’s controversial double agent remake was caused in only one instance by PRX, resulting in a warning, and the other was due to admin error, resulting in no action.
Concerns have also been raised regarding the performance of the computers in VCT Pacific Kickoff 2026, something which Rex Regum Qeon’s Maksim ‘Jemkin’ Batorov raised in a now-deleted X post.
Sin denied performance issues, but stated that the league was aiming to upgrade its hardware later in the year.
You can discuss the issue on Insider Gaming’s Discord server.
For more Valorant news, see our VCT EMEA Stage 1 guide!
Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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