Following a recent violation of Riot Games’ competitive rules, T1 has announced that Valorant head coach David Denis has been suspended for the upcoming VCT qualifier.
T1 was forced to forfeit their Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) qualifier series against TSM just days before the announcement due to “violating rules regarding unauthorized communication” during the match.
This was in response to TSM’s revelation that T1’s coach was typing messages to his team in the middle of a game, in violation of the VCT rulebook, which forbids coaches from communicating with players during games except during timeouts and technical pauses.
T1 said in a statement that they conducted a thorough review of the actions that occurred during the qualifier and expressed “regret” for breaking the tournament’s rules, as well as emphasizing that the decision to suspend David Denis was made “proactively.”
Riot Games has given T1 permission to compete in the second open qualifier, which will take place from February 4 to 7. The VCT North America Stage 1 Challengers, a $200,000 competition featuring the best teams in the region, including VCT Stage 2 Masters champions Sentinels and Stage 3 runners-up Envy, has just four spots left.
Since February 2021, David Denis, a performance coach who previously worked for Cloud9, TSM, and Gen.G, has been with T1.
Denis clarified his role in the situation after his suspension and provided more details on the nature of the chat logs Riot reviewed before reaching a decision.
T1 overhauled their Valorant roster before the start of the new season, adding three new players, including former 100 Thieves captain Joshua’steel‘ Nissan, as they look to improve their standing in the game in 2022 after a disappointing year.
