Four out of the five players shown in this picture were banned for a match they had thrown on August 20, 2014 where they had lost 16-4 on Season to NetcodeGuides. The only one not banned was Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham. He did not receive any skins for the intentional loss. All the other players had received skins in return for the match-fixing. The ban on the players steel, DaZeD, AZK, and swag were declared and published on January 16, 2015.

After Their Bans

Since then, DaZeD had moved on to stream and then to cast matches for ESL. AZK picked up Overwatch and began playing under the Team Liquid banner. Steel became professional streamer on Twitch and would cast matches whenever the spot would be available at events. Swag is currently contracted to Cloud 9 and streams for the organization. He recently stood-in for Cloud 9 at the BeyondTheSummit event which they had went on to win.

Due to Skadoodle not receiving skins, Valve had decided to not ban him. He continued to play and was eventually picked up by Cloud 9. Ska went on with the new squad and had a spectacular summer run. They were able to make it to three tournament finals in a row facing the likes of Fnatic and NAVI.

Now Unbanned from ESL

ESL stated in a tweet four hours ago that all banned iBuyPower players will be unbanned from all their future events.

With ESL unbanning the former iBuyPower players, this opens up a lot more opportunities for the players if they still have the drive to play professionally again. Teams can pick them up and utilize them to play at tournaments like EMS Katowice, ESL One: New York, ESL One: Cologne, etc. Picking these players back up are now becoming a lot more viable due to more events allowing them to attend. This could be the first step in fully unbanning these players from ALL tournaments.

Let me know how you feel in the comments! Have a nice day. ;D