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Riot Disqualifies BONK for Cheating After Aurora Upset: The Replay Decision and Timeline (Nov 2026)

BONK beat Aurora 2-1 on 6 Nov, then Riot confirmed cheating software and disqualified the team on 8 Nov. An exceptional replay followed; Aurora won Qualifier 1 on 10 Nov. The participant is still unnamed.

A Axortex ·

TL;DR: On 8 November 2026, VALORANT Esports EMEA said a participant on BONK had used "unauthorised cheating software" and disqualified the team from VCT EMEA Kickoff Europe Qualifier 1. All BONK players and other registered team participants were provisionally suspended while Riot investigates individual involvement. Two days earlier, on 6 November, BONK had beaten Aurora Gaming — whose roster includes Masters champion Nikita "Derke" Sirmitev — 2–1 in the Round of 32. Riot then ordered an exceptional replay of the next two rounds. Aurora won those series, then beat Pixel Lumina and F9 EICAR on 10 November to take the qualifier. Riot has not named the participant, has not announced final sanctions, and said the replay "does not establish a precedent." This follows our earlier report on the ranked-play dispute, VALORANT's 2026 cheating crisis.

Last checked: 13 November 2026 (KST).

Timeline

Timeline of the VALORANT BONK disqualification and replayed VCT EMEA Kickoff Europe Qualifier 1 bracket. 6 November 2026: BONK beats Aurora Gaming 2-1 in the Round of 32, with reported maps Sunset 13-9, Lotus 8-13 and Bind 15-13, then beats Project 100K and ycatble to reach the last four. 8 November: Riot, via VALORANT Esports EMEA, confirms a participant used unauthorised cheating software, disqualifies BONK and provisionally suspends all registered team members. The same day, the next two rounds are replayed as an exceptional measure: Aurora beats Project 100K 2-0 (Lotus 13-11, Haven 13-7) and ycatble 2-0 (Summit 13-8, Lotus 13-8). 10 November: the delayed semifinal and final are played; Aurora beats Pixel Lumina 2-0 and F9 EICAR 2-1 to win Qualifier 1. Still open: Riot has not named the participant or announced final sanctions, and says the replay does not establish a precedent. The original Round of 32 scoreline is from contemporaneous reporting; VLR later lists that match as a BONK forfeit.

Date (2026) What happened Source
6 November BONK beats Aurora 2–1 in the Round of 32 of Qualifier 1. Contemporaneous reporting gives the maps as Sunset 13–9, Lotus 8–13, Bind 15–13. BONK then beats Project 100K and ycatble and reaches the last four. Insider Gaming; Dexerto; TalkEsport
8 November VCT EMEA posts a competition update: further investigation "confirmed that a participant on Team BONK was using unauthorised cheating software." BONK is disqualified. Every player and registered team participant is provisionally suspended. Final sanctions will be decided individually. Riot restates a "zero-tolerance policy for cheating, including knowingly enabling, assisting or concealing cheating by others." VALORANT Esports EMEA statement, quoted by Dexerto, TalkEsport and CXM
8 November Leo Faria, Riot's global head of VALORANT esports, writes on X: "Imagine cheating in OQs and thinking we wouldn't catch you. If you're involved, don't expect a slap on the wrist." Dexerto
8 November Riot replays "the two subsequent rounds of matches in the affected portion" of the bracket — the Round of 16 and the quarter-final — the same day. Aurora, Project 100K and ycatble agree to play. The semifinal and final are pushed to 10 November so no team has to play three or more series in one day. Riot statement; TalkEsport; Dexerto
8 November Aurora beats Project 100K 2–0 (Lotus 13–11, Haven 13–7), then ycatble 2–0 (Summit 13–8, Lotus 13–8). VLR.gg, Aurora vs Project 100K; Aurora team page
10 November Aurora beats Pixel Lumina 2–0 in the semifinal (Haven 13–6, Lotus 13–4) and F9 EICAR 2–1 in the Grand Final (Lotus 11–13, Haven 13–7, Sunset 13–6), winning Qualifier 1. VLR.gg, Aurora Gaming; CXM, 11 November
After the ruling VLR later lists the original Round of 32 as a BONK forfeit rather than the played 2–1. The 6 November scoreline above is the one recorded by news outlets before that change. VLR.gg match listing; Insider Gaming

What Riot decided — and what it left open

Riot's finding is specific in one way and narrow in another. The competition update says a participant on BONK used unauthorized cheating software. It does not name that person, and it does not say the rest of the roster joined in. The provisional suspensions cover everyone registered with the team "while we complete our investigation into individual involvement." Those are interim measures. Final penalties, Riot said, will depend on what it finds for each individual.

Dexerto, citing a Discord message from Riot's player-management team to ycatble, reported that the disqualification followed a dispute that team had filed, and that Riot thanked them for "using the official channels to report this." Insider Gaming likewise said reports went in through official tournament Discords.

The replay is the unusual part. Open-qualifier defaults, when a team is removed late, are often a simple forfeit down the bracket. Here Riot put Aurora, Project 100K and ycatble back onto the server for the two rounds that had followed BONK's win over Aurora. It described that as "an exceptional measure" that "will not always be possible," reflecting "the specific circumstances of this case" and not setting "a precedent for how future incidents will be handled."

TalkEsport, writing on 8 November, noted that BONK had already swept its first three matches — against Educated Idiots, Mörköjengi and THE ONE — before the Aurora series. Those earlier opponents were not part of the replayed slice of the bracket. Riot has not publicly said whether it will revisit those results, or earlier events.

One such earlier event has been raised by players, not by Riot. Former Team Vitality player nataNk, now on Pixel Lumina, said on 8 November that his team had lost to BONK 2–1 in the semifinals of EVC: The Surge 14 on 11 October, that BONK went on to win that tournament and its $1,500 prize, and that he had reported the team to a Riot anti-cheat analyst at the time. Those are his claims. The 8 November competition update does not address that event, and we found no public Riot comment on it.

CXM, writing on 11 November, said it had not found a public response from BONK. We did not find one either through 13 November.

How this sits with the wider cheating fight

This qualifier is part of the new path into VCT EMEA Kickoff 2027. Under the format Riot is using this cycle, open qualifiers feed a playoff that decides which non-partner teams reach the opening event — two from Europe, plus sides from Türkiye and MENA — and TalkEsport reported that non-partner teams who reach Kickoff also receive $100,000 in support. That is why a Round of 32 "upset" and a mid-bracket disqualification both carried more weight than a normal open cup.

It is also why this case belongs next to the argument that already defined VALORANT's autumn. In October, the public fight was about how common cheating is in ranked play, and about Riot's ban numbers. We covered that in VALORANT's 2026 cheating crisis and in the follow-up on ardiis's 60% claim versus Riot's 4.3% reply. The BONK ruling is the first major competitive-integrity decision of these Kickoff qualifiers: a confirmed use of cheating software in an official bracket, a team-wide provisional suspension, and a one-off replay rather than a quiet forfeit.

What is still missing is the part that will actually close the file: the named participant, the individual findings, and any final bans or period of ineligibility. Until those appear, the result of Qualifier 1 is settled on the official bracket, and the roster's longer-term status is not.

Sources

#valorant#bonk#aurora#derke#riot#vanguard#vct-emea#kickoff#cheating#2026
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