Metal desks blamed for mouse issues at Valorant event

Custom metal desks built for the Valorant Champions tournament in Shanghai appear to have interfered with players wireless mice, causing repeated technical pauses at the event. Organisers said the problem disrupted their most important tournament of the year and asked all players to switch to wired mice until it is fixed. In a match between FUT Esports and 100 Thieves, FUT player xeus could not fire his mouse, and FUT lost the series two to zero. Riot Games said a post-game review concluded that a round rollback should have been allowed and accepted responsibility for the error, but decided the match result would stand, since other options would overturn a victory by a team that competed under the same conditions.

Riot believes the custom metal desks may be the cause of the interference. Most players can run their wireless mouse in wired mode, but some models without USB Type-C ports, such as the SteelSeries Rival Pro, would force a full swap, meaning a pro has to adapt to a new shape, weight and feel. Even keeping the same mouse brings a drawback, because tethering it to the rig adds resistance to movement. The change therefore hands some competitors a slight disadvantage at the highest level of play.

Tags

• valorant
• esports

Sources

• PC Gamer

Where this story ran: one outlet on 2 October 2026. The summary above is written by GamersGuild; the links go to the original reports.

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