Followers of the Fortnite competitive scene will remember an incident in early May when a Fortnite player who goes by the screen name XXiF (real name Damion Cook) was disqualified from World Cup qualifying Week 3, despite ranking 3rd and being eligible to go on to the official World Cup. Video evidence surfaced to suggest XXiF was “teaming,” allowing friends to land nearby and kill them for easy points. Epic Games reviewed the evidence and banned XXiF from competitive play for 2 weeks and disqualified him for that particular week.
Now, 5 weeks later, XXiF has once again qualified, albeit in the Duos World Cup, and many are calling into question Cooks should even be accepted as a qualifier.
As of yet, there is no reason to believe that XXiF cheated in order to qualify for the Duo World Cup. At least one video has surfaced online to suggest some suspect play was afoot but that is better left for Epic Games to investigate. And there is little doubt that Epic Games will be investigating the legitimacy of XXiF and his partner, Code Ronaldo’s, qualification.
At this point, Epic Games made the ruling to ban XXiF from World Cup qualifiers for two weeks and not the whole event like banned 1,200 Fortnite players. It’s unlikely that the company expected the player to qualify further down the road but that’s the situation they face now. So if the publisher finds that the qualification is legitimate, they can’t possibly take the opportunity away without facing even further scrutiny. Still, we’re sure that those players who didn’t qualify (especially the 4th place duo) have something to say about losing out with so much money on the line.
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