I analyzed demos from Esports World Cup, BLAST Spring Final, IEM Dallas, and ESL Pro League to attempt to detect the usage of Snap Tap in these tournaments. Essentially, I counted the number of ticks a given player was pressing both the left and right keys. If using Snap Tap, it should be impossible for both left and right key inputs to be sent to the game at the same time, so players with zero ticks showing overlapping inputs are most likely using Snap Tap (or equivalent). Full write up in comments.
Summary: Snap Tap is currently perfectly legal to use in pro play. If banned in the future, it should be detectable. 15 players were found having demos with 0 overlapping input ticks over the past 4 tournaments. Players with non-zero overlapping ticks typically had numbers of overlapping ticks in the hundreds to thousands per demo. Players with zero overlapping tick games in each tournament:
ESL Pro League: KRIMZ, Maka, Skullz, YEKINDAR
IEM Dallas: Skullz, jL, huNter, nexa, electronic, YEKINDAR
BLAST Spring Final: nexa, electronic
Esports World Cup: aliStair, frozen, rain, Cabbi, iceberg, FL1T, torzsi, jL
Most of these players use a Razer Huntsman V3 Pro keyboard. The numbers of pros using Snap Tap (and equivalents) will likely continue to increase in future tournaments, but if tournament organizers (or Valve) decide to ban the usage of these tools, it should be enforceable. Parser used: https://github.com/LaihoE/demoparser.
12 Comments
Full write up here: https://mikecs1.substack.com/p/snap-tap-socd-detection-in-counter. Other post got deleted because of substack link, but there isn’t a paywall so this should be allowed.
Kekindar cheating and still being a bot is fucking hilarious
Interesting. I watched a video the other day of Ohnepixel talking to JL about the optimumtech snaptap video and found it strange JL didn’t think it should be considered cheating 
also lol @ the mouz guy lying in the comments about their players not using ST
But we see, that these “cheating” player didnt to exeptional better than “non-cheating” player and so the benefit cant be that great.
Yeah, its an advantage, but its more a jumpthrow bind level than a recoil script one.
Brilliant analysis. Puts to bed the rumours about MOUZ using it during their Pro League win.
I’d love to see a graph of the data in general, to see how far outside of the average population SOCD users are.
Fantastic analysis, I sincerely hope Valve and TO’s jump on this quickly and ban it already. it’s genuinely just “legal” cheating and does nothing but lower the skill ceiling in a way no one has ever asked for.
Smaller tournaments and TO’s always follow suit and I would hate to see more amateur-level tournaments carried out where teams who can afford/abuse the tech beat teams who can’t afford it or didn’t want to use it.
Great analysis. I was wondering what pros were using it, thanks for sharing
jL keyboard abuser. Classic.
Realistically what are the odds this gets banned? I’m currently in the market for a new keyboard and the Huntsman TKL looks like the best option for CS. However, I’d rather buy a higher quality Hall Effect keyboard if this won’t be allowed by Valve soon.
Also, if players such as jL don’t have a snap-tap/SOCD keyboard does that mean he was using null binds? Are they allowed? How would he get numbers like that otherwise?
Any chance to distinguish (Snap Tap/SOCD) from (Null Binds) specifically?
I recently added null binds to my config and all it seems to change is that my movement keys get stuck (as if i’m holding them down) about once every round.
If Valve aren’t going to ban hardware-assisted playstyles, at least integrate them into the game properly 🙃