Complexity bans player after disqualification at Halo London Major

Complexity has suspended one of its Halo players after he was disqualified from the Halo Championship Series (HCS) London Major.

The HCS admin team noticed before the match against Faze Clan that the North American Complexity player Spartan had used an SSD that was not the official one provided for the tournament (which takes place this weekend at Twickenham Stadium).

“Upon closer investigation, it was found that the software on the SSD was not provided by the administration and, in addition, contained new, unauthorized software as well as other modifications to the existing software in order to increase the performance of the PC,” the HCS said in an official decision.

“No other type of software was discovered. When asked, Spartan cooperated with the investigation.

“Competition integrity and fairness are top priorities for the HCS, our partner teams, players and the community.

The decision also listed the rule violations, including Section C (Cheating) of the HCS 2024 Program Manual v2, which states: “Any form of cheating, whether intentional or not, is strictly prohibited by any participant.”

Spartan also violated Section 6 (League Required Equipment): “Failure to Use Equipment Provided” and “Use of Unauthorized or Unapproved Equipment.”

He also violated Section 3.1 (General) of the HCS Major London 2024 Official Rules v1.3: “Any violation of the rules set out in the Handbook, the Code of Conduct or these Official Rules, including but not limited to any form of cheating, may result in forfeiture of the game/match and/or disqualification from the tournament.”

Complexity reacts to disqualification at Halo London Major and suspends Spartan

Complexity initially released the following statement on the incident:

They later followed up with the following more detailed Complexity Halo explanation.

Complexity has suspended Spartan from its Halo Infinite roster pending the HCS’s final decision following the London Major and has apologized to the HCS, event host Quadrant, its fans, and the Halo community.

“During practice matches, Spartan experienced PC performance issues, including lower than expected frame rates,” Complexity explained.

“Spartan did not notify any tournament administrator of these performance issues, but instead took steps to improve the performance of their SSD/PC. (Note: Spartan has extensive technical expertise in computer optimization for Halo Infinite and has previously helped the HCS establish a standard set of steps for optimizing PCs at HCS events.)”

The organization said he reformatted the provided SSD using a USB Windows image of his home PC setup, which included MSI Afterburner, various Windows settings and registry changes.

Before the Faze match, Complexity said, “The tournament admins went to each player’s PC to make sure a white noise program was enabled. When the tournament admin ran this check on Spartan’s PC, it was discovered that the white noise program was not installed because Spartan had reformatted the Windows installation on his SSD. The tournament admin decided based on the above discovery that Spartan’s SSD would be swapped out for a new SSD.”

“A new SSD was installed on Spartan’s computer and the tournament administrators kept Spartan’s original SSD. Spartan then set up this new SSD by updating the display’s refresh rate, changing a controller input setting in Steam, and using a tuning preset in the AMD Adrenaline program.

“The team and Spartan played the match against FaZe Clan on the main stage with the newly issued, new SSD – not the newly imaged SSD.”

Complexity stated that Complexity coach Ashes and player Spartan were informed prior to the Cloud9 match that an investigation had been launched into equipment tampering and that there appeared to be a competitive integrity issue that resulted in Complexity’s disqualification.

Complexity added: “Spartan claims that at no point did he bring an external SSD to the event and swap it for the tournament-issued SSD, only that he reimaged the tournament-issued SSD. HCS tournament administrators are adamant that the SSD is not part of their competitive fleet because it has a different storage size than their regular SSDs. As far as we know, this is the only point where Spartan and HCS’s views differ substantially.”

“First and foremost, Complexity respects HCS’s competitive decision and we appreciate their cooperation in determining the facts and results in a timely manner. Competitive integrity is of paramount importance to our industry and actions that compromise fair play cannot be tolerated at events of any size.

“We believe that Spartan’s actions were not intentionally malicious or fraudulent, but that he acted carelessly and unprofessionally and violated the rules outlined in the HCS statement. We found that Spartan, without informing a tournament administrator, took significant and unusual steps to modify the software on his SSD to increase PC performance, which gave him a competitive advantage.”

“Our findings are consistent with HCS’s statement that no other prohibited software was discovered on Spartan’s SSD other than the PC’s performance modifications. We appreciate that Spartan fully cooperated with HCS and Complexity’s investigative missions, but that does not absolve him of the actions described above.

“We are disappointed that this incident has prematurely ended our promising appearance at the London Major, but we hope to continue our work in the Halo community to set a positive example through our competitive team, community events, and more. We appreciate your continued support of Complexity Halo.”

Spartan responded with the following tweet:

Complexity originally qualified for the London Major by finishing 6th at the Arlington Major in March.

The disqualification guaranteed that FaZe Clan, Cloud 9 and the open bracket qualifier team – Reversal Perfy – made it to the playoff round.

The British organization Into the Breach also participated in the HCS London Major this weekend, but was eliminated due to round difference.

Wade “AggresiveDuck” White is a tournament and event organizer for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate in London and Essex, hosting events with up to 250 or more participants.
Wade originally started his esports career in amateur Dota 2 leagues before moving to the FGC scene with Smash Ultimate in 2018, competing in offline events in the UK and Europe.