WCS USA Runner-Up Daisuki maphacking?

Hello TeamLiquid and Starcraft 2 community,

I believe that a high-level player, Daisuki (Liquipedia page), is maphacking on NA GM ladder under two accounts, both of which are called NITRIXeDRINK. This is not an accusation I make lightly, as I think a player's reputation is very important and in the past people have made careless accusations based on circumstantial evidence. As such, we will look in-depth at evidence across a variety of replays to show the following: that Daisuki is the player using the accounts named NITRIXeDRINK, and that he is using some form of maphacking software in his ladder games. In addition to my own investigations and analysis, a variety of top 16 GM and professional players have gone over these replays as well and unanimously agree that Daisuki is hacking.

Daisuki is well-known for getting 2nd place at WCS USA tournament in June 2012, and winning an online tournament sponsored by NITRIX Energy Drink (they also personally sponsor him). He is also a self-advertised account booster and leveler (screencap of his TwitchTV bio). The first player to talk to me about the possibility of him maphacking was frostSwarm, a top 16 GM Zerg who played a series of games on ladder against Daisuki and was puzzled by a bizarre lack of scouting and frequent massing of spine crawlers to defend unscouted attacks.

Edit for Daisuki's response:

+ Show Spoiler +

On February 09 2013 23:50 NITRIXdaisuki wrote:
First off, I’d like to start off by saying that I do not deny any accusations mentioned by the OP.
And so forth...
I have never cheated in any online or offline tournament (and won’t ever.) I did not make this decision to do what I did but agreed to it because it was a worthwhile venture at the time. A venture of which only began about two weeks ago.
I apologize for that.
I’m hoping ladder is not so important as to prevent me from participating in upcoming tournaments. I know I did wrong and learned from it the hard way. I hope that I can be accepted back even though chances of me of ever winning tournaments are pretty slim due to my age. (I’m getting old, fingers, wrist, and shoulder/neck affected after WCS)
“Sigh, when I was good rank 1 GM was easy I hate my life.”
I learned from my mistake. Won't ever happen again!

At this point, I started working to gather replays of games played by these 2 accounts (NITRIXeDRINK) to investigate more seriously and start compiling evidence. Before we jump into the replays and evidence, there's a few things I'd like to preemptively address:

1) Daisuki does have a livestream on Twitch.TV (http://www.twitch.tv/daisukisc2). However, he only streams games on accounts he is leveling or on an account called NITRIXdsuki (sc2ranks link) – this account is low GM with a 50% winrate. He has never streamed on either of the NITRIXeDRINK accounts, both of which are top 16 GM ranked as of 2/7/2013 (screencap of GM rankings).

2) The hotkeys and APM spam cycles used on the NITRIXeDRINK accounts (there are two accounts: sc2ranks here and sc2ranks there) exactly match the hotkeys used on his NITRIXDaisuki account while he is streaming, with one small difference – there is an extra control group that contains all his queens used for auto-injects. His hotkey profile is:

1 – Zerglings
2 – Corruptors / Broodlords
3 – Infestors
4 – All hatcheries
5 – Queen
6 – Queen
7 - Queen
9 – All queens (this hotkey is only used on the maphacking accounts NITRIXeDRINK)
0 – Misc utility hotkey

Here is a screencap of his hotkeys taken from his most recent Stream VoD: imgur link.

3) Additionally, here is a TeamLiquid thread where Daisuki says he is the player using the NITRIX accounts ("I AM NITRIX"). Here is an imgur mirror of the thread (imgur mirror). More significantly, he includes replays on the NITRIXeDRINK account in his replay pack. Here is a short video demonstrating that both of the top 16 GM NITRIXeDRINK are name changes from accounts that he shared in his replay pack:

Now, having established that NITRIXDaisuki is playing on both of the NITRIXeDRINK accounts, we will examine a variety of replays and point out the suspicious behavior in each one.

Replay #1: Werelf vs NITRIXeDRINK (Newkirk City PvZ http://drop.sc/302297)

The first bizarre thing in this replay is his overlord placement – he sends his very first overlord on a straight path through the Protoss main, and then never looks at it again. This includes not checking the natural to see if his opponent went forge first or Nexus first and not checking the gas timings at the Protoss natural at any point. Every other overlord he makes stays clustered up in this main base and natural – this is a level of blindness that is inexplicable at any GM level, let alone top 16. Zerg is an incredibly reactive race and without information like seeing if the Protoss went Nexus first or forge first, the timings of his 3rd / 4th gas, or if he is taking a 3rd it would be impossible to make proper decisions.

The second suspicious activity in this replay also occurs early on – the Protoss player, Werelf, has a probe hidden at the vertical 3rd base. NITRIXeDRINK attack moves all 4 of his Zerglings directly on top of the probe without having had vision of it going there. It's important to note that EVERY single high-level Zerg player who makes 4 lings would either send them all to pressure a Nexus first or split them up to scout. Here is where the probe is hanging out:

Here is where he clicks to send his Zerglings:

[image loading]

Some people might make the argument that he is just blindly clearing out his 3rd base – this would be plausible except that isn't the 3rd base he takes:

[image loading]

From 5:15 until the very end of the game, he plays 100% in the dark – this means no units on the uncontested watch towers, no overlords on the map (besides the very first overlord which has not looked at once and is in a useless location anyways – see picture 4)

[image loading]

Strategically, some fishy but non-conclusive stuff happens between 6:00 and 10:00 mark that I'll briefly discuss. First, he goes for a blind 2x Evolution Chamber and skips Roach Warren entirely – this would be an automatic loss to any +1 zealot pressure build or all-in. Secondly, he delays his lair until 9:15 – this would also result in auto-losses against DT play (no detection) and 2-base Colossus pushes (no Spire). Thirdly, in spite of being absolutely blind, he hasn't built any Spore Crawlers at any of his bases (in case of DT / Stargate play). However, although quite unusual, as I said this is non-conclusive – it could just be blind greedy play or a coinflip.

Let's get to the good and more conclusive stuff: at the 11:00 mark, his Protoss opponent is gearing up for a 2-base Blink stalker + immortal all-in. Responding to an all-in that he does not know is coming, Daisuki builds 5 blind spine crawlers at his 3rd base. Again, just to reiterate how much scouting information Daisuki has this game, here is a screen shot of his vision when he dropped these spines:

[image loading]

He has no information about whether Protoss is taking a 3rd (with either Overlord or Zergling), he has no information about the gas timings at the Protoss natural, and he has no information about anything inside the main base of the Protoss (besides the fact that there is a Nexus). Up until this point, we have had an unusual lack of scouting, some suspicious Zergling movements, and a large number of corners being cut (no Roach Warren, no Lair). Building 5 spine crawlers in preparation of an all-in which hasn't been scouted (there haven't even been any attempts to scout either) crosses the line beyond taking a calculated risk.

At 11:10, Daisuki looks halfway across the map through the fog of war precisely at Werelf's army – see the following two screenshots showing Daisuki's perspective and the global perspective:

[image loading]

At 11:30, after several more fog of war peeks at the Protoss player's army, he prepares a ling surround for an army that he has never once had vision of. After setting up the surround, he finally attacks at 11:47 and gains vision of the army that he has been prepared to engage 20 seconds before he knew it existed.

This game, by the way, is the only loss in a page full of wins against rank 50 or higher GM players:

[image loading]

So although he loses this game due to poor macro, he is consistently winning the rest of his games on ladder. Let us continue looking at more replays:

Replay #2: TossBoy (aka CaliberLighT) vs NITRIXeDRINK (Ohana TvZ http://drop.sc/302717)

This replay is even more suspicious than the first one - we'll begin by noting that Caliber plays Random (http://sc2ranks.com/us/365740/TossBoy) so his race is unknown (Caliber confirmed that he was playing Random every game he played against NITRIXeDRINK).

Once again, Daisuki plays completely blind – he sends his first overlord to a corner on Caliber's half of the map and never looks at it again. Caliber opens with a 2-rax (built on 12 and 13 supply, in his base) that Daisuki never scouts, yet responds to blindly. As soon as his spawning pool finishes, he goes into constant Zergling production and as soon as his natural hatchery finishes, he drops a spine crawler (this is all without seeing anything other than a scouting SCV, which he also follows with two drones). He drops a second spine crawler shortly after as well.

After defending Caliber's 2-rax, both players macro for a while and Caliber then builds a bunker at Daisuki's 3rd base (see picture 1 below for the positioning). This bunker is completely unscouted by Daisuki – yet when he goes to build a 3rd, he builds it at what is normally a 4th or 5th base. (see picture 2 below for Daisuki's 3rd base, also includes Caliber commenting on the strangeness of Daisuki's spine crawler timing).

[image loading]

Shortly after this, at roughly 8:40 Daisuki sends two queens and all of his Zerglings to the standard 3rd base and preemptively splits his units to get a surround of the bunker which he does not know exists. See the picture below for what this looks like as well as an example of Daisuki's vision at this time in the game.

[image loading]

At 10:22, there is a direct fog of war peek on Caliber's army. Below are Daisuki's vision and global vision at this moment:

[image loading]

At 10:48, he attack moves his entire army (which were working on taking down his rocks) to his 3rd base to defend 6 hellions before he has vision of them. The timing on this one is very close, so watch it frame by frame if you need to.

At 15:00, he looks through the fog of war for one of Caliber's Medivacs, then sends all his Mutalisks directly to intercept it.

Replay #3: NITRIXeDRINK vs XzaM (Ohana PvZ http://drop.sc/303013)

At 3:35, Daisuki sends all 4 of his Zerglings directly on top of a probe that is hidden at his 4th base. See the two pictures below:

[image loading]

The probe then moves a tiny bit to the right, and Daiuski issues another attack command, again right next to the probe.

At 8:40, several seconds after his opponent drops a 3rd Nexus, he drops a 4th hatchery without scouting his opponent's 3rd.

At 10:15, he starts making units for the first time in the game, coincidentally lined up perfectly with his opponent's first move out on the map. He initially rallies them to his opponent's watch tower, where his opponent's army is, then re-rallies them to his 4th base after his opponent starts to move there.

At 12:25, he directly looks at his opponent's army through the fog of war. He is not issuing any commands with any of his units while doing this. See the two pictures below for his vision and global vision:

[image loading]

At 13:05, his opponent says “why do u pretend like u dont maphack when its so obvious.” Daisuki responds to this by sending a Zergling to his opponent's watch tower for the first time all game. This isn't really evidence of anything, I just thought it was funny.

Replay #4: NITRIXeDRINK vs TossBoy (Antiga Shipyard PvZ http://drop.sc/303033)

This game features Daisuki using confirmed automatic injects. I won't bother discussing strategical oddities or fog of war peeks or anything like that for this replay. Instead, you can see at multiple instances in the game hatcheries being injected by queens without the queens ever being selected. Daisuki's camera is rarely on the hatcheries being auto-injected either, which normally wouldn't mean anything (minimap injects are not unheard of at high-levels) but still requires the Queen's to be selected. The most obvious one is at roughly 10:40~ at his 3rd hatchery – here is a short YouTube video I made showing this:

.

Note: this replay was played on 2/7/2013 and is the only one where individual queens are not hotkeyed (which would make sense given that he is using automatic injects). Otherwise, the hotkeys match Daisuki's.

Replay #5: NITRIXeDRINK vs frostSwarm (Ohana ZvZ http://drop.sc/301702)

As I do not understand ZvZ at a high-level, this analysis was performed by frostSwarm with the help of other top GM Zergs:

At 5:45, he begins making blind units beyond the standard threshold of 4 defensive lings to prepare for an unscouted Zergling and Baneling pressure (normally, you would not make more than 4 defensive Zerglings unless you were going to be aggressive – which would be impossible with Daisuki's fast lair / delayed speed timing). At 7:40, he begins mass producing spine crawlers at his natural in preparation for an unscouted Roach / Zergling / Baneling all-in. All of these spine crawlers are queued up and produced before Daisuki scouts any unit production or unit movement on the map.

Additionally, he keeps all of his overlords besides the first one at home, which is inexplicable in high-level ZvZ. His first overlord, which as usual he never looks at, is rallied to the edge of the map where it provides no scouting information.

In order to prevent this post from becoming too bloated, I will not be including pictures in most of the remaining replay analysis – just time stamps and descriptions of the suspicious behavior.

Replay #6: ROOTMinigun vs NITRIXeDRINK (Entombed Valley PvZ http://drop.sc/303163)

Scouting overlord never gets vision of Minigun's base (just sits in the corner, never sees probes, mining, or buildings until 7:15)

8:30: Blind preparation for Strargate play (pulls overlords into his main before vision of void ray / Phoenix, builds extra queens at every hatchery once Minigun's Stargate finishes, pulls transferring drones back to his main)

9:15-9:20: Multiple, prolonged fog of war peeks checking Minigun's natural, then his main base directly on top of recently add production.

11:40: Issues Zerglings an attack command to Minigun's 3rd base, then fog of war peeks at his natural (where he sees 3 undefended sentries and probes being transferred) and attacks there instead

Replay #7: TossBoy (CaliberLighT) vs NITRIXeDRINK (Entombed Valley ZvP http://drop.sc/302253)

0:07: Sends first overlord directly to Caliber's base on cross spawn Entombed Valley

0:15: Readjusts overlord to scout vertically

0:40: Drops 6 pool

1:20: Leaves the game after Caliber builds his first pylon in main and scouts

Replay #8: NITRIXeDRINK vs EmpireSilver (Condemned Ridge ZvZ http://drop.sc/302437)

0:50: Adjusts first scouting overlord to drop down and dodge his opponent's scouting overlord (this game is close air position spawns)

5:00-End of Game: Unit and drone production blind counters his opponent with minimal scouting information.

16:25: Fog of war peek at his opponent's army

Replay #9: NITRIXeDRINK vs keydPotiguar (Ohana PvZ http://drop.sc/302998)

This replay also features automatic injects – see 8:10 at Daisuki's natural for an example where a hatchery gets injected without him selecting the Queen (this was the first time I noticed auto-injects in this game, but I wasn't looking specifically for them in this replay so they could happen again earlier on).

At 9:00 he plants and saturates a 4th base in response to an unscouted Protoss 3rd base. At 11:00 he prepares a ling surround for an army he doesn't know exists. At 13:38 there is fog of war peeking. At 15:15 Daisuki blindly attacks Potiguar's 4th base without scouting it and without checking for a 4th base at the normal location.

At 15:25 there is a long camera lock. At 20:24 he looks through the fog of war at a Zealot runby harass and moves his army into position. At 21:08, looks through the fog of war at army and throws up defensive Infested Terrans in preparation for an engagement with an army he doesn't know exists. At 24:11 his camera jumps over the Protoss army for a brief second. At 24:51 there is more fog of war looking at the Protoss army. At 25:54 there is another fog of war peek over the Protoss army. At 26:50 there is another fog of war peek at 4 hidden Zealots for harassment. At 27:00 he moves infestors towards the hidden Zealot harassment squad. At 29:00 he sends his army to defend his 5th base for the first time just as the Protoss is about to discover it. At 30:55 he looks through fog of war at more Zealot harassment.

Additional notes of general suspicious behavior:

- Not once in the 30+ replays I watched does he ever morph an overseer for scouting purposes (compare to him playing on his stream, where he plays normally holding watch towers and scouting with changelings). The only time he morphs overseers at all is to deal with cloaked units that he has not scouted.

- Similarly, he never builds spines or spore crawlers unless his opponent is going for either an all-in (which he doesn't scout coming) or cloaked units (which he doesn't scout coming).

- He rarely holds watch towers, and a majority of his games he keeps all of his overlords clumped up at his bases.

- He never boxes his mineral lines to check for saturation; maphacks include a feature that displays your saturation levels at each base, which would explain why he always has near-perfect saturation levels without ever checking them.

- Every single time he is getting 2-raxed, he either goes 14 gas / 14 pool or hatch first with blind spine crawlers and Zergling production. This has happened in 5+ games just over the past few days. He consistently matches his openers up against his opponent without scouting, sometimes without even knowing what race they are.

Baiting a Reaction:

After looking at the above replays, I spread the word to a group of GM players that if they hit a NITRIXeDRINK account on ladder, they should do unorthodox builds or cheeses so that we can see his reactions. Here are replays of those games and explanations of what happened, as well as more replays of him countering his opponent's blindly:

ovoxo vs NITRIXeDRINK (Daybreak TvZ http://drop.sc/303164): ovoxo goes for proxy 11-11 rax, NITRIXeDRINK goes for 14 gas 14 pool with a drone scout directly to where the Barracks are being built. This is the only replay in the 30+ that I have watched where he drone scouts. Please note at 2:20 that he issues an attack command with his drone directly on top of where the proxy barracks are before he has seen them:

[image loading]

city vs NITRIXeDRINK (Antiga Shipyard PvZ http://drop.sc/303165): city goes for double Stargate play, hiding both of them and massing Void Rays while denying scouting with Stalkers (although NITRIXeDRINK only has overlord on the map anyways, and it is rallied to a corner of the map where he ignores it for the entire game). NITRIXeDRINK goes blind hydralisks. Additionally, there is a prolonged game of fog of war cat and mouse at 7:40-8:00 at city's natural: city moves his Zealots + Sentries forward, Daisuki pulls his Zerglings back, city pulls his units back, Daisuki moves his forward, etc. Note how Daisuki dances in time with his opponent's units through the fog of war.

JCKE vs NITRIXeDRINK (Cloud Kingdom PvZ http://drop.sc/302758): This replay was not one of the attempts to bait a reaction, but it is an example of blind countering. JCKE goes for double Stargate, which remains unscouted the entire game, NITRIXeDRINK goes blind hydralisks. These are the only two replays in the 30+ that I've watched where he builds blind hydralisks.

Fugazi vs NITRIXeDRINK (Daybreak TvZ http://drop.sc/302256): Daisuki doesn't scout with his first overlord and blindly goes double hatch first (his opponent was going CC first). Daisuki also never scouts whether his opponent is going mech or bio, but blindly goes into mass upgraded roaches.

ROOTMinigun vs NITRIXeDRINK (Entombed Valley PvZ http://drop.sc/303166): Daisuki early pools. Daisuki sends his Zerglings to attack the rocks at Minigun's natural while Minigun builds 2 Zealots. Minigun sends the Zealots across the map to scout, Daisuki fog of war peeks at Minigun's natural, stops attacking the rocks, and kills Minigun's undefended cannon. He then adds on extra Zerglings back home while positioning his Queens to defend Minigun's Zealots (which he hasn't had vision of).

NITRIXeDRINK vs city (Antiga Shipyard PvZ [this replay will be uploaded shortly]): Daisuki 9-pools, his opponent goes gateway first, and Daisuki just drones instead of making Zerglings (without scouting his opponent). 9-pool is not a macro opening so making this kind of transition without any scouting is inexplicable.

NITRIXeDRINK vs keydPotiguar (Ohana PvZ http://drop.sc/302997): At 7:40 he sends Zerglings to where a probe was previously hidden, realizes the probe has moved, and adjusts the Zerglings to chase a probe that he doesn't know exists, let alone its whereabouts. At 9:20 he takes a blind 4th base just as the Protoss starts a 3rd base, without scouting the Protoss 3rd base. At 13:35, he starts adding spines in his main base as soon as the first warp prism is in production (this could be coincidence), although he also adds another round of spines after production is started on a second warp prism. At 16:35, he moves his whole army from one spine wall to another to get into position for a Protoss attack he is unaware of.

NITRIXeDRINK vs keydPotiguar (Newkirk District PvZ http://drop.sc/302994): At 8:15 produces 24 Zerglings as soon as a Proxy pylon for 4-gate pressure is set up at watch tower – he is doing this blind, with no scouting of the Protoss natural gases or main base. At 10:15 he sends his army straight to an oddly placed unscouted pylon – his click is almost directly on top of it. Please note and contrast his unit production this game with the previous game: when the Protoss takes a 3rd base, he blindly takes a 4th and drones it. When the Protoss is doing a 2-base all-in, he blindly mass produces units. At 11:00, he starts massing spine crawlers blindly for an incoming unscouted all-in – this could be coincidental. At 18:50 he drops a Spire right after Colossus bay is dropped (this could be coincidental).

NITRIXeDRINK vs keydPotiguar (Newkirk District PvZ http://drop.sc/302996): At 8:20, he builds spore crawlers blindly as his opponent is producing a DT shrine. Note that in none of the other replays or matches has he ever built blind spore crawlers. At 8:40, he fog of war peeks over a proxy pylon and sends his whole army directly to it. Also, please compare his reaction this game to a 2-gas Protoss with his reaction in the previously analyzed game to a 2-gas Protoss; when genuine 4-gate pressure was incoming, he blindly massed units. When he is facing a DT build that looks, from his vision, identical to the build he faced the prior game, he has minimal units and blind spore crawlers. At 9:30 he morphs an Overseer in his main base (he did not build a blind spore in his main, it's possible he saw the DT walking on creep to his main so this is non-conclusive).

In addition to these replays which I and other high-level players have analyzed, there are even more replays that have not been analyzed / discussed in this post (most of them can be found on drop.sc: account 1 and account 2). Anyone who has more replays of themselves vs NITRIXeDRINK is welcome to post them in this thread, and I will add them to this section here. We believe this hacking is something that has only started recently, so please do not post old replays as evidence of him not hacking.

Community Submitted Replays:

+ Show Spoiler +

Replays:

PvZ submitted by JCKE: http://drop.sc/302999. "He did 7 pool or something, made 6 lings, and backed off without even checking what my ramp had because i made 2 cannons + pulled probes to block."

I was going to have a section here about the community reaction, but it's pretty much the same thing again and again so I removed this section.

Thank you for reading this novella of a post, and I hope that the evidence and analysis above is satisfactory. I would like to give special thanks to frostSwarm, Jing Quix Wu, NoRegreT, MoosegillsLighT, Minigun, keydPotiguar, CaliberLighT, city, FXODrunkenboi, Hendralisk, and a few others who wished to remain anonymous for their help in analyzing and providing replays.

Detective RemarK signing off.

+ Show Spoiler +

WCS USA Runner-Up Daisuki maphacking?

Completed

Ongoing

Upcoming