4 pro gamers auto-muted on one map? It seems that even they can be toxic at times as well.
It is often said that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro players should represent the community well and set an example for other players. It seems that this is not always the case, as can be seen in the case of auto-mute of the players from the VP Prodigy vs FURIA Academy match. Out of 10 players, 4 of them had this type of penalty.
The reason for this may be ambiguous
As you can see in the screenshot below – 3 contestants got an auto-mute. It is a kind of sanction that causes the player to be mutated for everyone at the beginning of the match. Of course, others can unmute them at any time, but they have to do so on the scoreboard. As a rule, this prohibition is issued for toxic communication, although the actual reason may be ambiguous.
As can be seen from the following Reddit entries, part of the community believes that this is simply because these players are toxic.
Though there is another alleged reason for issuing this prohibition as well. Auto-mutes are also given to players who communicate in general chat in a language that the rest of the players do not understand. This means that by playing on Europe’s servers and speaking Portuguese, they may be sanctioned. One of the CS: GO commentators, “Mauisnake”, noticed this:
It is difficult to say what actually caused the penalty, but it looks quite comical with so many players being muted at the very start.