FaZe Clan’s Nate Hill responds to cheating accusations in Fortnite Fall Skirmish

Professional Fortnite player for FaZe Clan, Nate Hill, found himself in a spot of controversy after week 1 of the Fall Skirmish, being accused of cheating by having callouts given to him by a teammate.

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The incident occurred as Nate Hill was playing by himself with his partner FunkBomb already eliminated, who was watching the official Fortnite stream (which had no delay).

By watching the official stream, FunkBomb was able to give Nate callouts on enemy positions, giving him a significant advantage in the match.

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After FunkBomb had been eliminated in the match himself, the instructions from tournament organizers were apparently to leave the match immediately, to help with server lag.

• More: TSM HighDistortion calls 100 Thieves’ Kenith a “scumbag” for bad sportsmanship during Fall Skirmish Fortnite tournament

However, some viewers accused FunkBomb of leaving the game in order to go watch the stream with no delay, in a deliberate attempt to give his teammate an unfair advantage.

You can watch the moment when FunkBomb gives a callout below, before shortly after saying “I feel like this is cheating”, and then makes no further callouts.

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Nate Hill has now responded to the accusations in a Reddit post, sharing it to Twitter with the message: “I try to inspire people every day to follow their dreams and become better people. I am deeply saddened by the events that took place yesterday. Here are my thoughts about it:”

“I wanted to touch base with the community on the events of last nights Skirmish. I took the night to think about it because the one post I responded too on the main sub was filled with hate, but I think I have gathered my thoughts at this point and am open to discussion.

For those who don’t know (I doubt that’s many at this point) during last nights stream FunkBomb died before me in one of our matches. Upon dying he did as Epic directed and left the game to prevent lag and tuned into the main stream. Once he got to the main stream he realized there was no delay and in a moment of poor judgement he called out DMO’s health to me.

We both realize the impact this could have had on the integrity of the competition and were fortunate to not have it do so. Funk made a mistake and he owns up to it, but those calling for him to be perma-banned and calling him a scumbag couldn’t be more misinformed. It was a mistake made by an otherwise great guy/player. He felt bad before anyone caught him cheating and self Reported to Epic. That is not the trait of a scumbag, that is someone being honest forthcoming and owning up to their mistakes.

I too made a mistake in deleting the initial clip of Funk’s callout. At the time last night there was so much vitriol and hate being directed at my friend I just wanted to mitigate it however I could. In hindsight I know you cant stop the internet hate train and should have just let it be. However for those saying I deleted the VOD it is still on my channel and I think the whole context of the situation is important. The incident happens at 1hr39m.

Funk clearly makes the call out, but realizes what he just did may be cheating and goes completely radio silent after the fact. It was a mistake and a big one at that, but I hope others realize it wasn’t malicious and out of character for Funk. Everyone makes mistakes, just not always in front of thousands of people. I think we will both learn and grow from this.

Both Funk and I have apologized to others behind the scenes, but I on behalf of both of us want to apologize to the community. This is not what either of us represents and we will try to be the best people and players we can be moving forward. I am not a cheater, and ive given my life to this game and the community around it.

-Nate”

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The clip was initially posted to the Competitive Fortnite subreddit, but Nate Hill delated it initially, giving this explanation:

“Deleted the CLIP because it was just being used a fuel for toxicity, the vod still exists if you care to watch how the call out made 0 impact in my gameplay. Obviously my partner made a very dumb mistake to call out someone’s health on a no delay stream and were very sorry for the mistake. He didn’t leave the game to cheat, he left because they make you leave to help server lag. Then watched the stream and without thinking started making a call out. And by the time I realized what he actually just said. Ignored the guy he called because in no way were we trying to cheat. Sorry for the mistake.”

Nate’s teammate, FunkBomb, also took to Twitter to apologize for the incident, explaining his side of things. He says he takes full responsibility for the mistake, and realize that it potentially hurt the integrity of the tournament.

Epic Games nor FaZe Clan have commented publicly on the incident, at the time of writing.