Streamer Summit1g was stunned after learning that “cheating” was allowed in a Sea of Thieves tournament hosted on Twitch and YouTube. 

On April 1, BoomTV held a Sea of Thieves tournament with a prize pool of $35,000. The epic contest included popular streamers such as Dr Disrespect, ZLaner, and Jaryd ‘Summit1g’ Lazar.

The 34-year-old Twitch star was floored, however, when he discovered that contestants were allegedly “cheating.” According to Lazar, he was informed that some players were using stream sniping to get an advantage over their opponents. 

Summit1g calls out Sea of Thieves tournament cheating

The Twitch star addressed the scandal on YouTube and said, “I personally think it’s cheating. I’ve never seen a tournament that would just allow open information to be shared through all of the streams.” He then read off screenshots he had been sent of players using their chats to monitor every move each contestant had been making during the contest.

Lazar was floored when a fellow contestant donated to his stream and wrote, “Hey dude, we wanted ghosting/sniping to be illegal. After asking organizers they said it was another element to add to the event. I assumed all crews knew.” Summit responded to the message and exclaimed, “I won’t let this slide. That’s not something a tournament organizer just lets go under the rug.”

The streamer then explained to viewers why he found this unacceptable. “That’s a VERY IMPORTANT thing to say. Hey, stream sniping every other team is legal, or hey it’s not. It’s assumed that it’s illegal, so it’s not even talked about. THAT MAKES NO SENSE! That also supersedes Twitch.”

While he said tournament organizers might have meant it was okay for streamers to accidentally see their chat talking about things, he criticized the tournament for ultimately allowing players to organize full-blown stream sniping teams to gather intel on Discord. “But that doesn’t mean hey chat, go out there, the whole f**king brigade,” he said. “The mod team. Give me all the information. Now I know that it wasn’t just one player, but the whole team.”

He said he didn’t know if it was the organizer’s fault but said that it was poorly communicated either way. The streamer’s main criticism, however, seemed to be focused on players who were utilizing stream sniping.

Viewers seemed to back up Summit’s frustrations as many comments were also critical of how the tournament played out. “They didn’t just read some info from chat and use it, they mobilized them and had them convey information in a discord. They took “using chat” to a completely different level,” a user wrote. Another comment read, “This really upsets me, they completely destroyed the integrity of this tournament.”

Several players involved in the Sea of Thieves contest defended their strategy, claiming they had asked the tournament organizers to ban stream sniping and sharing information but were given the go-ahead.

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Summit1g responded to them while streaming live on Twitch. “IT’S A TOURNAMENT. How is that not automatically assumed you don’t stream snipe? You think you have to ask the tournament organizers this?” he said in frustration. 

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