Apex Legends Season 18’s #1 Predator (now former) has been banned. Another player who was streaming on Twitch at the time managed to capture it live.
Apex Legends is a highly competitive battle royale game. Since Respawn introduced Ranked Mode, it has been the go-to place for players who want to taste the intense competition against similarly skilled opponents.
Amidst a diverse Rank Distribution, the highest achievable rank in Apex Legends is Predator. To obtain this difficult rank, players must demonstrate extreme dedication and skill at the highest level. Even then, hundreds of players fall short of reaching Predator rank by the end of a season, as only 750 players worldwide can make it to the top of the leaderboard on PC.
Unfortunately, not many players follow the difficult route to achieving this prestigious rank. The examples of cheaters on the Predators’ leaderboard are common knowledge to everyone. Yet no cheater has ever climbed to the top of the leaderboard before getting caught and banned during a live stream.
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Who is This #1 (now ex) Pred?
The in-game name of the #1 Pred in question is Facilitatur. This IGN may ring a bell for many. It’s because many professional players and content creators have previously accused this player of cheating.
Not only that, he was also previously banned on multiple occasions on Xbox and PC for extended periods of time for teaming up and playing with cheaters. However, as his bans expired, Faclilitatur made a return to Apex Legends.
Since then, Facilitatur has been playing and grinding Apex without making much fuss in the community. Still, many pro players and content creators have been skeptical about his return and Respawn’s decision to let Facilitur into the game again.
In Season 18, Facilitatur made it to Apex Legends #1 Predator and held on to the rank. However, accusations started surfacing once again after HisWattson posted a suspicious clip of Facilitatur.
Many pro players who saw the clip shared a similar opinion to HisWattson. However, as there was no concrete proof, the accusations only remained accusations. Until now.
#1 Pred Facilitatur Got Banned Live
Just as the allegations against Facilitatur were appearing, he was banned live, proving that the accusations were not made up.
What you saw in the clip is the POV of a content creator named LegendJuice, who was playing Apex Legends Ranked when Facilitatur killed him. When his teammate was getting into a 1v1 situation against Facilitatur, he turned into a Death Box even without dying.
As we’ve known previously, it only happens when players quit or get banned. Moreover, Facilitatur’s #1 spot is also gone from the Apex Legends Ranked leaderboard, which further proves that he was in fact cheating and got banned.
Update #1: Respawn later released a statement via its official Twitter handle, confirming that the Apex anti-cheat team had issued a number of bans that day. Although Respawn didn’t particularly mention Facilitatur, it provided the community with the last missing piece to solving the puzzle.
Update #2: Facilitatur didn’t address the cheating incident. However, #1 Pred broke the radio silence and made an official post via Twitter on the same day, “Thank you apex, & all the dope people i’ve met. for everything 🖤”
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