Former NA Pros deride FACEIT Anti-Cheat: "FACEIT’s priority isn’t stopping cheats — it’s saving face"

Cheating has always been a hot-button topic in Counter-Strike 2 and on third-party matchmaking services like FACEIT, with claims that Valve and ESL FACEIT Group are not doing enough to stop cheaters being a common topic across all levels of play.

Adding to this discourse, former NA pro players Shawn "witmer" Taylor and Michael "Uber" Stapells both made extremely critical posts on X this morning arguing FACEIT are not enough to stop cheaters while claiming FACEIT are being dishonest about the number of cheaters on their platform.

Both of the posts, as seen below, take aim at FACEIT's claims that the newest iteration of their anti-cheat, released on February 28th, is effective at stopping cheating, with Uber claiming "there are more cheater than ever on FACEIT right now", while witmer said it feels like the "AC might as well be off."

Additionally, both leveled similar claims that FACEIT have attempted to hide how many cheaters are on the platform, with witmer claiming that cheaters are being labeled as "smurfs" in order to obfuscate the scope of the issue and "save face".

It is important to note that the two players' criticisms at this point amount to hearsay with no hard evidence, however as a litmus test for the mood of the wider NA community FACEIT may need to do more to reassure players they are doing everything they can to combat cheaters on their platform.