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The story of Shaiiko

Shaiiko

Stéphane Shaiiko Lebleu is a French Rainbow Six Player who has had quite the journey in competitive Rainbow Six Siege. Shaiiko began his career when he was 18-years-old, entering the French scene with Aera Esports in March 2017. By October, Shaiiko’s optics looked sour. In the infamous ESL ruling, Shaiiiko was banned from competitive Rainbow 6 for 2 years.

His competitive ban was recently lifted in April 2019, allowing him to re-enter competitive siege. Fresh off his ban he joined BDS Esports, an EU roster that recently joined the Season 10 Challenger League, and finished third in DreamHack Montreal. Within only four months of his unbanning, Shaiiko is rightfully making headlines once again – so let’s take a look at his story so far:

Shaiiko’s early career

Shaiiko entered competitive Rainbow Six in March 2017. He joined Aera esports who competed in the Coupe de France in 2017. This team did well, finishing third behind both Vitality White and Black. He stayed on the Aera roster until the 5th June 2017, when he joined beGenius.

The beGenius roster participated in the Year 2 Season 3 season, after qualifying through relegation matches. This was Shaiiko’s big break as he was now able to compete alongside the best in the game. In their first match, they were defeated by PENTA Sports, (who later became G2), but managed to turn their performance around after taking down Millenium shortly after. Their next opponent was Ares esports, the outcome of which would determine whether they advanced to Regional Playoffs, or even be invited back next season.

The dream ended prematurely, as an ESL ruling came out days before the match had started. In the ESL ruling. ESL’s MOSS anti-cheat found that Shaiiko had anomalies in his key commands. ESL concluded that he had been using a Macro to spam the 4 key. Not much is known about what tangible benefits the key had, as it is a gadget button by default. But still, macros are against ESL ruling and the team were faced with punishment.

Over the course of his ban, Shaiiko issued a report with evidence in protest. There were 5 months between his ban and the release of his 19-page document with evidence of why he believed his ban was unjust. Shaiiko then got into even more drama, as it was believed that he made other ESL accounts to bypass his ban. ESL’s ban process automatically reset his ban length because of this, however, it doesn’t appear to have affected his actual ban length.

ESL responding to a now-deleted forum post with email screenshots about Shaiiko’s ban extension

End of the ban

Shaiiko’s ban ended on the 24th April 2019, marking his official return to competitive Rainbow Six Siege. The ban ended after 1.5 years of its duration. Shortly after his ban, he announced he would compete on BDS with aims to make it into Challenger League.

BDS qualified for the Season 10 of EU Challenger League through the second qualifier. With their qualification into Challenger League, their next big objective was to perform in DreamHack Montreal, which concluded last weekend.

BDS performed well beyond expectations as they qualified from the group stage, taking out G2 esports in the decider game. This was appropriately fitting for Shaiiko, as it was the core of G2 that issued the complaint back in 2017. In addition, Shaiiko also beat Luminosity Gaming with an impressive 25 frags in a single game.

BDS take down G2 esports in the group stage decider at DreamHack Montreal

For a player that has a complicated past, his future now looks bright. It will surely be exciting to see how far he and his new team will go.

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