It was just recently on April 15 CeroBlast was a victim of transphobic speech from Dalauan “LowTierGod” Sparrow during one of his live streams on YouTube. LTG and Cero met in an online Street Fighter V match which LTG rage quit after only a few seconds, he then began his homo and transphobic rant directed towards CeroBlast.
Following this incident EVO organizer Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar issued a ban to Low Tier God from all EVO events. Following this, the organizers for CEO and Combo Breaker, Alex Jebailey and Rick “TheHadou” Thiher, issued statements banning Sparrow from those events. An email was sent to LTG regarding the EVO ban which he shared on Twitter along with a message telling his audience “that’s it for me in the FGC”.
Well everyone i guess thats it for me in the “FGC”. A stream clip aimed at one person unethically gets me banned from events over something that had nothing to do with events i attended. Ive seen people accused of worse. But it’s all good you lames never liked me anyways lol. ✌ pic.twitter.com/rFDi190EvL
— D.Sparrow (@SparrowsAlive) April 18, 2020
Following the bans becoming public knowledge social media shed light on an unrelated situation from a Twitter post on March 23rd in which CeroBlast cited a racial slur to another player named BigNastyKail.
Joey Cuellar followed up by replying to one of Cero’s apology tweets with news she would be receiving a ban as well.
You are also not welcome at any Evo events for the foreseeable future. For more information, please see our Code of Conduct: https://t.co/AmrpUTXrbJ
— Joey Cuellar (@MrWiz) April 20, 2020
A slew of other tournament organizers supported the ban by issuing bans of their own. Cero tweeted that she “was officially banned from all tournaments next year.” Cero then stated via Twitter that she would begin to take steps to correct her vocabulary which was picked up from her upbringing in NYC.
I grew up being around NYC peeps / being in NYC. I’d visit my bestfriend every summer during high school.
Naturally being accustomed to the racial slur N word.
Starting today I will try my best to remove this word out of my vocabulary.
— CeroBlast @ Living under a rock (@BlastCero) April 19, 2020
At the moment EVO 2020 on June 31st has not been canceled. Las Vegas will begin soft opening its casinos in late May following strict social distancing guidelines. The best-case scenario for us is EVO will be able to run at the Mandalay Bay as scheduled but you won’t see CeroBlast or LowTierGod on site.
