UPDATE: FaZe, Black Dragons Involved in Match Fixing, ex-Analyst Claims

Update 2:

ESL has released a statement stating that "there is no concrete evidence to confirm the claim that FaZe Clan or its members were involved in match-fixing and therefore no action will be taken against the team." Black Dragons, however, will be docked 20% of their Season 9 prize money following two major penalty points: one for "Internet issues that were caused by deliberate actions taken by members of the team" (referring to GdNN1 reportedly pulling the internet cable out during the game) and one for not showing up for a game on schedule.

It is therefore ruled that there is not enough information given to punish either team for match-fixing and GdNN1 will likely be un-suspended from the roster in time for their Pro League match on Wednesday.

Update 1:

Thyy has since released three screenshots of text conversations which seems to show an unidentified Black Dragons player discussing the match-fixing deal with Thyy:

Thyy: “Hey guys.
I’ve created this group because I needed to talk to everyone together.
I need to know more about the match-fixing deal with FaZe, in the week it happened I was in the hospital if I recall correctly, so you didn’t tell me, but even if I was there with you guys, I am sure you wouldn’t even ask for my opinion, but although I can’t participate in every team discussion, I do help the team. So because of this, I wanted to say that I don’t agree with the actions that you are taking, I don’t know who had this idea but you should have told me before deciding to do it. I am not judging your actions, I just don’t wanna take part of this. If you continue with this idea, I need to know.”

Thy: “Are you going to insist with this idiot idea?”

Unidentified BD player: “What do you mean by insist, Thy? It’s done bro”

Thy: “What about [the] BR6 [match]?"

Unidentified BD player: “It’s done, fella. We will win the BR6 match. It’s an exchange. I think that if you want to have a say on our discussions, you should, as I said, be more participative, man.”

These were released as part of a video explanation by Thyy of the events in which he also states that he has more proof he has shared with Ubisoft and that teams have been sharing scrim recordings between each other. A full English language translation of this five-minute-long video can be found here.

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What Happened

The story began in the early hours of the morning when former Black Dragons analyst Thiago "Thyy" Nicézio sent out a number of since-deleted Tweets. He claimed that the Black Dragons player of Juninho "GdNN1" Nunes had agreed with ex-teammate and current FaZe Clan player Ronaldo "ion" Osawa to have Black Dragons intentionally lose against FaZe Clan in the second half of Season 9 of the Pro League.

The Pro League match played in the 4th of April was a farce, as far as I know. Gdn made an agreement with Ion in which BD would throw their PL game against Faze in exchange for a throw from FaZe in a BR6 match that will happen in the next month.

This match was the second of the season to end in a forfeit victory and had four Black Dragons players disconnect multiple times, leading to an final scoreline of a 7-0 in FaZe’s favour. This victory at the time was seen as crucial for FaZe Clan’s hopes of making it to the Pro League Finals in Milan, while Black Dragons sat both safe from demotion and too far from a LAN position, meaning the result effectively did not matter for them.

According to Thyy, this 'throw' on Black Dragons' part was to be repaid by FaZe Clan when the two teams met again on June 30th in the 2019 iteration of the Brasileirão (i.e. FaZe would intentionally lose their Brasileirão to Black Dragons). At that moment, FaZe Clan sat safely in a guaranteed LAN position while Black Dragons sat in fifth place -- just one point behind a LAN spot -- with two games remaining for each team.

Proof?

Since the accusation, Thyy has since posted a number of voice recordings to back up his assertion. First, there was a recorded conversation between Thyy and GdNN1 which said:

Next came a conversation between himself and another Black Dragons player, Pedro "pzd" Dutra, in which it is implied that GdNN1 unplugged his internet cable right before he was about to pull off a clutch. The audio can be heard here with a translation below:

While there has been little response by many of the Black Dragons and FaZe Clan players so far, GdNN1 has released a Twitlonger in which he states the following:

We did not have direct contact with anyone and the decision on how we would treat the match was ours. ...  We played in a 'YOLO' way and without any worry about the match -- the internet crashed, and we did not have any concern.

FaZe Clan's manager, Leandro "tgk" Portela, also made four Tweets in which he states:

There will never be any kind of manipulation on our part either for match fixing or any other kind of unfair action in or out of the game, this goes against the pillars of our company... however, we put ourselves at Ubisoft's disposal to clarify the accusations on the part of a former BD member.

Finally, the two owners of Black Dragons, Nicolle "Cherrygums" Merhy and Denis "Pings" Vidigal, have released a total of seven screenshots of Whatsapp messages here and here from the day. In the screenshots, the players claim the internet was, in fact, down. Pings also claimed that these accusations have come due to Thyy wanting to get back at GdNN1 after an argument:

My opinion is that after that, they fought and then, as Thyy was pissed and wanted to leave Black Dragons, he posted that.

Repercussions

In the same thread as these claims, Thyy announced that he had stepped down from Black Dragons due to “personal issues that are related to things outside the game” but has forwarded all of the information he had onto Ubisoft.

Since then, Black Dragons has announced that they are “removing [GdNN1] from the roster till the facts are duly investigated and an official statement by the championship organisers is issued”, and are also fining the player. 

We’ve always valued a healthy and competitive scene, so because of the negative words said by the player @GdNN1r6 in a leaked conversation, which happened at our gaming house, we’ll be punishing him with a fine. 

We’re also removing him from the roster till the facts are dully investigated and an official statement by the championship organisers is issued.

Ubisoft Brazil is likely investigating these claims, however, have yet to release any kind of statement. The standard punishment if match-fixing is proven is a five-year ban from competitive play as well as a possible fine.

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Neither of these teams will be playing in any games until at least June 9th when the Brasileirão resumes. Until then, keep an eye out here at SiegeGG for any major updates on this story as it unfolds.

Thank you to @Thotomartins for many of the translations above.