Counter-Strike 2 Pro falls foul of SnapTap and admits: 'embarrassing' and 'amateur'

Valve made a major decision with Counter-Strike 2 and put a line down when it came to a feature named SnapTap. SnapTap is a feature that is mostly associated with Razer keyboards. However, similar features can also be found on other hardware. SnapTap allows players to counter-strafe in the game more easily. So Valve banned it along with other automation tools, and the ESL did the same on August 29, 2013.

Yesterday, the team HEROIC messed it up. The ESL announced in mid-broadcast, shortly after a victory over NIP during an ESL Pro League Season 20 game, that SnapTap was detected on the hardware of a player. HEROIC was disqualified from winning the match, and the map was awarded to NIP. NIP won the match 2-1.

Rene "TeSeS", a HEROIC gamer, was the culprit. He later claimed that he had turned off the feature after Valve announced its ban. Madsen posted on social media that he was "fucking embarrassed and amateur". "I turned it on ages ago, when it was banned by Valve. I didn't even notice it while playing the game and it was obvious that it wasn't done on purpose. "I'm sorry I let them down. I'm very upset about it."

The CS2 community is generally sympathetic to this (though the subreddit contains a few conspiracy theorists), mainly because everyone enjoys dumping on Razer’s annoying software. There does appear to be a problem where switching between PCs or hardware can reactivate the feature without the players being aware. Both Madsen and HEROIC seem to have accepted the blame, taken the punishment and the issue seems to be over.

It was inevitable, given the prevalence of SnapTap in the competitive scene. Even if, as Madsen himself said, it seems "amateurish" that professionals don't double and triple check their settings before competitive matches. It's still the first time a Counter-Strike professional team has been punished for using SnapTap. This is a warning to all other teams that SnapTap can be a liability and cost you games, regardless of the outcome.

SnapTap has become a problem in many competitive games. Valve may have banned SnapTap from CS2, but you can still use it in other games. Here's an explanation of how and why it's so important.