The Counter-Strike 2 community has slammed organizers of the Skyesports Championship after a horrific opening day where just one game was played. Between tech issues, power outages, terribly unfair playing conditions, and even a shock withdrawal, the future of the event is in jeopardy.
The Skyesports Championship kicked off in Mumbai on July 23 and from the outset it was clear teams were in for a bumpy ride. Teams struggled to even load up CS2 on PCs as constant internet issues and outages plagued the day. Ultimately, organizers were forced to pull the plug after just a single best-of-one, postponing matches to Wednesday.
However, things continued to spiral downhill for the struggling CS2 event. A series of clips from the event followed, including one shared by CIS CS2 News on X/Twitter showing the poor state of the desks used. This sentiment was echoed by Eternal Fire player XANTARES, who called the conditions and event “a disgrace.”
It was later revealed teams had been using PCs with staggeringly different specifications. “We were playing on totally shit PCs, while other teams had ok PCs. We had to play official games from our practice rooms: How can we play on this shit while other guys can play on the good PCs?” BetBoom player Nafany said during the live recording of HLTV Confirmed yesterday. After hours of back and forth, BetBoom ended up withdrawing from the event altogether, booking an early morning flight home.
“We believe that fair competition requires a level playing field for all teams, which is currently not the case,” BetBoom said in its withdrawal statement. Nafany continued, claiming that other teams like 3DMAX and The MongolZ didn’t even have a practice room at all. “We spoke as a team and we decided there was no way we could compete fairly in this tournament because every hour they changed something.”
He hinted other teams were considering following BetBoom’s lead and pulling out of the Indian event too, but added it was “their decision… we understand everyone wants to make it to the RMR.” Thanks to Valve’s decision to remove open qualifiers for the Shanghai Major, teams are aiming to attend any event that would score them RMR points. As such, should the Mumbai event continue, teams will need to tough out the conditions if they want a contribution to their Major qualification run.
“The tournament is compromised, to say the least. It would be very surprising if they could turn it around considering the amount of issues,” SPUNJ said on HLTV Confirmed. Skyesports will attempt to do just that later today, with matches set to resume at 2:30am CT.
Dot Esports reached out to the Skyesports Championship tournament organizers for a statement. At the time of publication, there’s been no response.
