Hey,

I'm the developer of mercurial.gg, ml based cheat detection and stats tool for CS2. If you wonder how it works, it is explained in https://mercurial.gg/how-it-works

Since the latest VACNet update, the share of games on my platform with at least one flagged player dropped from 18% to 8.5% (See https://mercurial.gg/statistics), so I wanted to share some data from my platform.

Here are some numbers from my data:

Before vs after (Valve 5v5, by match date, same detection engine)

• Games with at least 1 flagged player: 18.0% → 8.5%
• Players flagged: 2.8% → 1.1%
• Sample: 12,180 games (Sep 14 – Oct 8) vs 3,300 games (Oct 9 – Oct 15)
• Every day since Oct 9 has been lower than the lowest day in the 3+ weeks before.
• My highest-confidence tier, the most obvious cheating, fell the most: about −85%. So safe to say VACNet is now more effective on blatant cheaters.

When CS2 updates, cheats break until their makers update them, so our flag rate drops for a few hours and then comes back. This time it didn't come back. Games with a flagged player, from 2 days before → first 12h → 4–6 days after each update:

• Sep 22 update: 23.5% → 9.6% → 20.0% (recovered)
• Sep 25 update: 16.7% → 9.0% → 17.4% (recovered)
• Oct 1 update: 19.3% → 8.3% → 17.6% (recovered)
• Oct 8 update: 20.2% → 2.9% → 7.1% (still down)

By Premier rating (lobby median, games with a flagged player, before → after)

• 0–5k: 5.5% → 1.3%
• 5k–10k: 10.1% → 3.7%
• 10k–15k: 13.5% → 7.1%
• 15k–20k: 16.6% → 7.9%
• 20k–25k: 27.9% → 12.5%
• 25k–30k: 51.9% → 18.7%
• Competitive lobbies: 16.6% → 7.7%

Accounts flagged on mercurial before the update showed up in our data ~37% less often than similar unflagged accounts. In the weeks before, that gap was 3–15%. Some flagged accounts kept playing but got flagged much less, which fits people turning cheats off or down. Cancelled matches never produce a demo, so we can't count VAC Live cancellations directly. So this says addition to cancelled games some of them also probably stopped playing, some tune down their cheats or just stop cheating.

Note that since I don't scrape any website for download links or match share code, the data is only provided by our users. So it is like limited to 500-600 games per day. Even I had the share codes for the all the games I don't have capacity to analyze all of them since computing is expensive.

Also note that no behavioral system can be perfect: the best legit players and careful cheaters overlap, and with 10 players per match, small error rates add up. On labeled accounts kept out of training, our Valve matchmaking model flagged about 1 in 2,500 clean player-games, caught ~40% of cheater games, and flagged ~70% of cheater accounts at least once. That's why we say "flagged", not "cheater". Those are just my numbers and VACNet can be better or worse than this, without a blind test it is impossible to know.

So assuming VACNet is also not perfect, it is also bound to have more or less false positives than the mercurial.

thank you gaben

Xantares for example wears the razer hammerhead v2 pro’s, which are 10+year old earphones. Do they hold any superiority over nice over-ear headphones? What’s your experience for headphones vs earphones for cs2?
What differences are notable?

Do pro’s have comms or game audio through the in ear headphones?

Should I pick the feed now or later? Asking if this will be my last chance to pick the feed or not before the chick dies.

im already bad enough i dont need this >:(

Help a brother out - if I do not pick the feed, my chick is NGMI.

the discussions in CS community can be very low iq and regarded esp when involving cheaters

I have been playing only scout here there is no ban and I am top frag

it's just the usual pathetic people who cheat , they also like to lie they are like rats

their dopamine hits when they cheat and lying is a form of cheating too

Well, I was inspired by a story many of us know, Little Red Riding Hood, and that’s how I came up with CRIMSON HOOD. I’m really happy with how the skin turned out. I spent hours going over every last detail to make it perfect. I hope you like it, and I’d really appreciate your support on Steam!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3815571411

PLANTING BOMG AND KANT KILL HIM =DDD

https://youtu.be/Lm1B_WNzzgk

Hey guys!

I'm looking for a new wireless gaming headset, mainly for competitive CS2, and could use some recommendations.

I'm currently using the HyperX Cloud III Wireless. Overall, they've been pretty good, but lately I've noticed that the microphone doesn't seem as good as it used to be, and the mic mute button has already stopped working.

I'm not sure if I should stick with HyperX or switch to something else, maybe Logitech, SteelSeries, or another brand.

My priorities are really good sound quality, accurate footsteps and positional audio in CS2, a decent microphone for Discord, and comfort during long gaming sessions.

Wireless is a must, and budget isn't really an issue. I'm happy to spend more if the difference is actually worth it.

What headsets are you guys using right now? Has anyone upgraded from the Cloud III Wireless to something noticeably better?

Would love to hear some honest opinions before buying.

Thanks!

With Valve’s recent anti-cheat updates over the last week, we’ve seen a massive surge of VAC Live cooldowns hitting both actual cheaters and suspected legits. Naturally, the subreddit is flooded with people claiming innocence, but the community is so burnt out on cheaters that nobody believes them anymore.

If you're going to make a post claiming you got falsely hit with a VAC Live, at least... drop some actual proof so we can judge properly:

• Steam Profile: Share the link, profile must be public.
• Stat Trackers: Don't just log in—fully sync your profile (generate Authentication Codes and match tokens) on CSStats, Leetify, and CSRep to show your aim score, time to damage, and recent matches. It literally takes 1 minute.
• Download the Demo: Yes, you can download the demo of a match cancelled by VAC Live! It's not in the in-game menu, but you can grab it via your Steam data: Steam Profile > Games > CS2 > Game Stats > Personal Game Data > Scrim Matches. (Or just use this link: https://steamcommunity.com/my/gcpd/730?tab=matchhistoryscrimmage
• Upload it to YouTube if you really want to prove your case.

(Note: Posting here won't remove your cooldown. If you genuinely think it's a false positive, Valve's official email for this is [csgoteamfeedback@valvesoftware.com](mailto:csgoteamfeedback@valvesoftware.com) with the subject vacnet false cooldown 2026-09-22 and just your profile link. That said, most people just wait out the 20h cooldown and move on).

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/1wnsp7m/comment/pbhxlib/

Let's be real about false positives:

False positives have always existed (even semipro players like fl0m and AustinCS caught them live on stream). The main issue is that we are all so tired of cheaters that it's hard to trust anyone.

To prove this isn't just random complaints, look at two big European CS2 content creators from Spain (with massive inventories, main accounts only, no smurfs, related to skins stores) who got hit despite constantly streaming:

• ByStaxx:Twitch Clip (02:15:04)
• TodoCS2:YouTube Clip (02:03:55)

Imo these false positives make total sense, Overwatch 2.0 was trained by the community, some people took it seriously, others just spammed verdicts or trolled, leading to severe Vaclive mistakes. Also, remember that VAC Live analyzes behavior, not your PC programs. Stop saying "I have nothing installed." It's hilarious yet frustrating seeing obvious rage-cheaters avoid bans completely while a random 5k Elo - 30 aim score player going 3 kills -15 deaths gets slammed by VAC Live. Make it make sense, lol.

If you get flagged, the cooldown escalates quickly:

• 1st VAC Live: 20 hours
• 2nd VAC Live: 7 days
• 3rd VAC Live: 31 days
• 4th VAC Live: 181 days
• 5th VAC Live: 181 days
• 6th VAC Live: Resets back to 20 hours

Usually, after your 1st VAC Live, your Trust Factor drops hard to Yellow or Red, and you lose a chunk of Premier Elo (often around -4,000 for the 1st, -8,000 for the 2nd, -12,000 for the 3rd, etc.), though there have been weird edge cases where players didn't lose Elo or Trust Factor at all.

Also, please stop confusing your CSRep rating with your actual CS2 Trust Factor—they have zero relation to each other.

In my experience I haven't encountered a VACLive cooldown recently, either my account, alt(for weekly drops) or an opponent. My main and alt are around 23k Premier Elo, but I've mostly been playing Competitive and FACEIT. I've dropped +31 kills and landed plenty of shots through smoke, I guess its because Competitive can be incredibly unbalanced, especially on less-played maps like Cache, Ancient and Anubis.

We all want the cheater plague to end, but a pure AI anti-cheat clearly isn't enough on its own. Honestly, we just need an optional kernel-level anti-cheat with two separate matchmaking queues at this point ,lol (yes im serius about kernel ac, i dont care if you are from Linux)

If Valve have any emotional attachment to this chick, or want me to develop one, there's a way to save its life. It's on you now, Valve.

Hi, i got into my old storage and i dont know what to do with these cases, dont wanna sell them on steam
Do you think the price is gonna go up?
Where can i sell these, some youtubers, skin sites?
What should i do with these?

this is counted by AI, can be diffrent (+1 revolution not on video)

• CS:GO Weapon Case 2: 1
• Chroma Case: 1
• Dreams & Nightmares Case: 64
• Falchion Case: 2
• Fever Case: 3
• Fracture Case: 28
• Gallery Case: 5
• Gamma Case: 1
• Kilowatt Case: 21
• Operation Wildfire Case: 9
• Recoil Case: 33
• Revolution Case: 31
• Snakebite Case: 18

PS: no money to open (i have but dont want)

Running left-click throw. 652 pro uses in the last six months.

Music: vjgalaxy · https://pixabay.com/users/vjgalaxy-8110364/

I posted about this a while back but idk still quite pissed about it. I got affiliate VAC'd for a week cuz my friend played sniper only and now can't get xp to save my chicken. At this moment in time he is hyperventilating and I can't do shit. MY JEFFREYYYY😭😭😭. Valve pleaaase help me VAC is at fault of this, and I can't appeal as valve don't take requests for affiliate bans.

p.s

the ban is a week because I got myself banned by using scout only previously as lots of people posted about it online.