Soon, Alex "Steel" Panov will once again be allowed to compete in CS after he was banned for cheating in ESAU's Razer Competition back in 2009.

As a former top CS player that represented Australia in WCG 2008 World Finals, Panov's fall from grace set a powerful example that cheating is not tolerated within the community.

In the interview below, I asked him some challenging questions about the ban and the controversies that surfaced.

The Interview

Hi Alex, you're approaching the end of your 18 month ban, how do you feel about it? Do you think the ban was warranted and do you regret your actions? What do you have to say for yourself?

Wassup GEO, I feel GREAT! :D Finally time has passed and I'm looking forward to scrimming again. All I will say is that cheating in general is scum.

ESAU originally imposed a 3 year ban on you, now in hindsight do you think it was a fair punishment on cheaters? If not what do you think is a fair punishment to any cheaters caught?

I don't think 3 years is a fair punishment, but I also wouldn't know what a fair punishment would be.

During WCG 2009, a lot of people were disappointed that you were allowed to play the event which effectively meant the ban wasn't completely upheld, that coupled with the fact you were playing for a high profile team led to allegations that there might have been underhanded dealings between ESAU, Immunity and CBN. Can you shed some light on what happened?

The ban was rightly upheld by ESAU and prevented me from playing all of their comps/tourneys within 18 months. However, I got to play WCG finals only because ESAU had no true control of who is allowed to compete and who isn't for WCG Finals. I think ESAU admins only had control of running the tournament play, whilst WCG had the rest covered. ESAU and WCG are two different organisations. There were no "underhanded dealings" going on to let me play WCG.

Immunity failed to defend their WCG title in 2009, and shortly afer you were removed from the team. From your perspective what happened to the team and why did they fail?

We didn't play up to standard with the calibre of players we had in the lineup. We placed 4th @ WCG'09 and it went downhill from there as the team went inactive for a while.. time went past and a new squad was made, I had no say in it.

Alex "Steel" Panov today

Going back to the reason why you were banned, what made you confess to your team mates that you cheated when you could have gotten away with it? Do you think a lack of anticheat in the competition attributed to your decision to use cheats, and do you feel that your team back then back stabbed you or did the right thing?

Yes I could have easily gotten away with it unless their was an Anti-Cheat and obviously not having one only made it more tempting. I didn't think a team would go to the next level to exile one of their own, poor judgment by me I guess. Lets be reasonable here.. If this were a more serious matter than hacking in an online gaming comp and one of my mates or associates dogged me, id drag hell down from above until I restored salvation. Happy to say it was just cs :)

Were there or are there any attempts to return the prizes won, or do you think missing a number of national events is punishment enough?

There were numerous times where I tried to negotiate with admins with returning the gear, but both parties came to a disagreement. As to me repaying the gear... heh, you do the logic. A couple of days of CS in Sydney to play WCG Final (didn't play quals). That is the only competitive CS I got for the length of one year and six months. That's my opinion anyway..

Do you think it'll be difficult for you to get back into old form and compete at a higher level given the long absence from the game?

I've been playing this game for like 10 years. I know the game back to front and this isn't the first time I've taken a long period of time away from the LAN scene. I know what it takes and what measures I have to adjust to get back into top form and stay ontop of the scoreboard. However, this will all come down to how much motivation I have left for the game, but the thing I look forward to the most will be catching up with old friends and even foes.