TL;DR: During their match against Bonkers on the 27th April, 2026, Wave OCE has found that Squishy Cheeks has breached the Wave OCE Tournament Rulebook Section 2, Code of Conduct. After assessing the timeline of events and taking into consideration previous warnings, Squishy Cheeks has been disqualified from Wave OCE Rising Tides: Split 1.
The following information is a summary of all findings by Wave OCE. While all facts and evidence available have been reviewed and considered as part of this ruling, the timeline below only presents a summary of events necessary to explain the context behind the ruling.
On April 25, 2026, Squishy Cheeks player 'Murza' informed Wave OCE that their registered account had received a Riot communication ban. Before their match, Wave OCE informed Squishy Cheeks that they would need to play with a substitute as, following the Wave OCE Tournament Rulebook, 'Murza' would be unable to play while under an active Riot restriction.
Squishy Cheeks proceeded to start their match with a registered substitute 'indra'. During the match against Bonkers, a Tournament Referee suspected that 'indra' was not playing on their account and asked them to screenshare their game. Squishy Cheeks proceeded to all deafen in their Discord channel, and then soon after left the ongoing match, forfeiting their game. Squishy Cheeks player 'Abbas' later admitted that 'Murza' was playing on the account registered to 'indra'.
Wave OCE's Tournament Rulebook has been designed to follow a standard set by the international VCT Official Competition Ruleset. All team personnel are expected to read and be familiar with our Tournament Rulebook, and had agreed to follow it before the commencement of Rising Tides Split 1. Relevant rules include:
2.1.1
All Team Personnel are responsible for behaving in a respectful manner towards Tournament Staff, other tournament participants, and spectators. Discrimination, harassment or threats towards others is prohibited. Releasing personal or private information of another individual without permission, ie doxxing, is prohibited. Tournament Staff reserve the right to determine if a behaviour is in breach of this rule, and issue a warning before Disciplinary Action is taken. In extreme circumstances Disciplinary Action may be taken immediately.
2.1.2
All Team Personnel are expected to adhere to the Riot Global Code of Conduct as well as any Terms of Service guidelines for Riot Games, Discord and Twitch.
2.2.2
Players must play on the Riot accounts registered for this tournament.
For this ruling the Wave OCE team has reviewed and taken into account all events, evidence, prior rulings/warnings and mitigating circumstances. Mitigating circumstances include:
Notice that 'Murza' would be unable to play was only given one hour before their match was scheduled to play.
Squishy Cheeks was told that "there's no way of determining who's playing on an account" before their match started.
During online competition there is often no way of determining with 100% certainty who is playing on an account. Squishy Cheeks was told very clearly that 'Murza' would not be able to play and the statement of "there's no way of determining who's playing on an account " was not an instruction to have 'Murza' play on a registered substitute's account. As detailed in the timeline, Squishy Cheeks were uncooperative with the most basic player integrity check (asking the suspected player to screenshare their game on Discord) and actively tried to hide the fact that 'indra' was not playing on their account during the match.
Additionally, the entire Squishy Cheeks roster had been given a final warning regarding player behaviour. Squishy Cheeks' communication with Tournament Staff on April 12, 2026 was consistently rude, aggressive and uncooperative. They have also indicated unwillingness to play in Wave OCE tournaments moving forward following their forfeit to Bonkers and comments made in the game lobby before leaving.
In summary:
Wave OCE has determined that Squishy Cheeks has breached the Wave OCE Tournament Rulebook by account sharing and engaging in disruptive behaviour despite previous warnings.
As a result Squishy Cheeks has been disqualified from Wave OCE Rising Tides: Split 1 and will forfeit the rest of their games. All team personnel registered with Squishy Cheeks will not be eligible to compete in Wave OCE Rising Tides: Split 2, with further event eligibility pending review after the event.
Statement from Wave OCE
Wave OCE is committed to maintaining and operating a fair and professional environment for all of our Tournaments. As a community-focused organisation, we believe that we can create tournaments and avenues for players to continue competing, that can showcase to the world what Oceania is capable of. Wave OCE is a small team that volunteers a substantial amount of our free time towards building this vision, to the best of our ability. We're not perfect and we'll continue to strive to do better. We can only ask that players and the community do the same. It doesn't matter if you're an aspiring player in premier, or on one of the best teams in the region. Everyone is responsible for putting their best foot forward to contribute to a better competitive scene in Oceania.
