At the Pre-Season Invitational of Apex Legends, a major tournament, there were some complaints from the professionals. Others allegedly sabotaged the PCs they were playing on. They had crudely adjusted the settings.
How are players allegedly cheating? During the Invitationals, which ended on Sunday, September 15, several incidents occurred. According to professionals, the settings on the computers were changed to their disadvantage.
Pro gamer Jordan “Reps” Wolfe from the winning team Team SoloMid tweeted on September 14, urging his teammates to check their settings before they start.
He noticed that,
- the monitor was set to only 60 Hertz (professionals play at 144 Hertz)
- mouse acceleration was active
- there were still issues with the window
- and everything looked blurry.
He believes that teams who had finished playing changed the settings as a “parting gift”.
Altered Settings at the Apex Tournament
Why the sabotage is serious: For most players, a slight change in frequency or sensitivity might not make a significant difference. However, professionals have their own specific settings.
They typically train for months with a specific setting that they have optimized over years. Using online tools like mouse-sensitivity.com, they can transfer their familiar settings to new games.
Consistency is crucial because much of their skill comes from highly trained muscle memory. If the sensitivity is just a little different, a well-trained headshot may easily miss. Similar to what happened to streamer Shroud, who simply couldn’t hit anything.
How could this even happen? The reason these sabotages could occur at all is that players share the game PCs at the tournament. They take turns, and when they are done, they leave the spot.
Some players apparently changed the settings to the detriment of those who compete after them. Former Overwatch pro Lucas “Mendokusaii” Håkansson pointed out this very danger with shared PCs:
The tournament was won by Team SoloMid, followed by Natus Vincere in second place and Wyvern in third. A specific combo often helped the teams to victory:
