Former Valorant pro turned content creator Matthew ‘Wardell’ Yu has been called out on social media for playing with a stream sniper and lying about it.
Stream sniping is an epidemic in competitive titles, as some players will do anything to rank up. The latest controversy around the issue has come to a head in Valorant around former TSM pro player Wardell.
The pro retired from competitive play in 2022 and was last seen playing as a stand-in for Version1. He has since become a streamer and content creator.
Wardell is currently in hot water because he was caught playing with a stream sniper and abusing his callouts to get a win over one of the most popular Valorant creators, Tarik ‘tarik’ Celik.
In the clips that have circulated online, players on tarik’s team notice that Wardell has a player called ‘kittymeowmeow’ on his squad. They tell tarik that the player is a notorious stream sniper and is probably watching him as they speak.
Wardell plays with stream sniper, lies about it to tarik
Over on Wardell’s stream, kittymeowmeow can be heard making callouts of the enemy’s location and what they are planning to do in some rounds by watching tarik’s stream. Wardell even got into a Discord call with the player, according to the clips.
tarik eventually messaged Wardell through the Valorant client while the game was ongoing to ask if he was playing with a stream sniper. On Wardell’s stream, viewers saw the former pro type “na” in response.
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When streamers with millions of followers are purposefully queuing with stream snipers for elo, no wonder valorant ranked is so terrible. pic.twitter.com/qhS7IyLZjR
— Dasnerth (@Dasnerth) September 21, 2023
After the game concluded, with Wardell’s team taking the win, the Sova on Wardell’s team typed to tarik’s team that someone should watch the first few rounds of his stream.
“Someone get Riot and ban this guy’s ass. Actually embarrassing for the game as a whole,” they wrote.
The incident has since made the rounds on social media, with one creator calling Wardell out directly.
“When streamers with millions of followers are purposefully queuing with stream snipers for elo, no wonder Valorant ranked is so terrible,” they said.
Wardell reportedly claimed at the end of his stream that the entire team was stream sniping tarik, and then blamed the creator for not streaming without some kind of delay, according to Dot Esports.
