The Axie Infinity team has announced a round of bans after several accounts belonging to the top pro players were found to be involved in match-fixing and win trading in the recent Season 20 Arena battles. A total of seven accounts and 210 Axies between them have been banned for a total of 999 days.
We just banned 210 Axies across 7 accounts for match fixing in Season 20. #AxieEsports
Full announcement ? pic.twitter.com/CTBuhg9NYA
— Axie Infinity?? (@AxieInfinity) March 29, 2022
Axie Infinity is an NFT-enabled blockchain game that allows players to take control of creatures called Axie and battle with them against the game or other players. As players win more games in the Arena (PVP mode), they gain more SLP rewards and a chance to receive AXS depending on their current MMR ranking. Due to the highly competitive nature of the game, there have been attempts by players to cheat or fix their matches so that they can get ahead.
In their investigation, Axie found out that these players would “purposely end the battle in a tie, resulting in a slight loss of MMR for each player”. Section 4 of Axie Infinity Terms of Service specifically disallows this which resulted in the bans of the seven high-ranking players.
As a penalty, these players will have to forfeit their Season 20 AXS rewards. All the axies listed in the account have also been banned for 999 days and the player themselves will not be able to compete indefinitely in any future eSports seasons.
Screencap from official Axie Infinity Google Sheet of Banlist
Accounts that have been banned include pro players Aremzy of MetaGoons guild, RJB of Axiemptomatic and Axie.gg, Keng #1 Prominence, Arwin of JM Esports, MxZ 20 of Axiemptomatic, xSkyyy of Axie.gg, and #471 Real Deal of PC Esports.
The Axie Infinity team has in the past banned several Axies and accounts for bug exploitation and match-fixing that are in violation of the game’s terms of service. The bans are designed to discourage players from joining in these activities and want to make the penalties outweigh any possible benefits from winning.
As per the Axie Infinity team, indefinite bans for high-ranking players caught cheating is an industry standard in the esports community and the bans will go a long way toward showing the team’s commitment to competitive integrity. Sky Mavis has a zero-tolerance to match-fixing or collusion for all competitive games on Axie Infinity, especially during peak season matches.
The crackdown comes ahead of the planned initial launch of Axie Infinity Origin at the end of this month, March 2022.