Valorant Masters London is set to introduce lips on the players’ desks and light bars to prevent players from ascertaining information they should not have in clutch situations, Global Head of Valorant Esports, Leo Faria has announced.
The VCT Commissioner later added that the measures will become standard in VCT splits starting in Stage 2, as Valorant attempts to tighten up its integrity protocols.
Derke complaints after Valorant Masters London match
The measures will be introduced following a social media post from Vitality veteran, Nikita ‘Derke’ Sirmitev, who pointed out that players were looking at their opposition’s hands to note if they were defusing or not.
The Finnish player, stated, “There has been a few occasions this year, and even previous one where a player during a 1v1 post-plant clutch starts to look at his opponent’s keyboard and mouse to read their movement if they’re defusing or not, for example.”
Derke then called for action stating, “As this situation has happened multiple times to us and other teams. I’m sure everyone has seen at least one clip of it happening and I still didn’t see any attempts to fix the situation.”
Derke stated that the intent was not to call out any individual or those who have done it in the past, but added, “I just think that it can impact some of the important rounds and hopefully it gets addressed.”
While the comments followed Vitality’s closely-fought 2-1 series victory over FUT in the Masters London’s Swiss Bracket, the player did not directly reference the contest.
Vitality and Leviatán moved on to the Valorant Masters London playoffs after wins against FUT and NRG, respectively.
Leo Faria responds, promising changes to Valorant Masters London and VCT setups
Leo Faria responded to Derke’s post, stating, “Thanks for flagging. We’ll implement a simple solution later this event, which we’ve used in VCT Americas before, which is to add a lip to the desks that covers hands and wrists.” The measure would deny hand visibily in those post-plant scenarios.
Faria added, “We’ve also always had light bars installed in front of the desks shooting at an angle to help with this. It prevents things like monitor light reflecting onto players’ faces which can be a tell (eg. if a player is inside Viper’s pit).”
The solution effectively disguises information that would otherwise be ascertained through reflection, such as whether the enemy is flashed or within the Viper’s nest, by overwhelming or interfering with the light from the monitor.
The VCT Commisioner later added that the measures would also be adopted for all VCT regions from Stage 2 onwards.
Lights and desk lips are two of many used by esports to combat outside information in the game. Similar problems are tackled in Counter-Strike by using ‘Smart glass’ which becomes Opaque upon rounds starting, turning translucent between rounds to allow players to chirp at each other when no information can be gained.
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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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