Thai female Honor of Kings bottom laner Tokyogurl given lifetime ban for allegedly cheating during a match at the SEA Games..

Singaporean media outlet Lianhe Zaobao reported on Tuesday, citing local Thai sources, that the Thailand women's national esports team's Honor of Kings bottom laner Tokyogurl, has been handed lifetime ban for  allegedly cheating during a match at the 33rd Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games).

According to the report, netizens accused Tokyogurl of installing third-party software on her game phone which took place on December 15th after the match. She was even accused of seemingly giving the middle finger to the camera during the match, apparently out of disdain for her opponents.

Following the match, the Thai eSports Association announced an investigation into the allegations against Tokyogurl.

Although the investigation is not yet complete, the Thai Olympic Committee announced the following day that Tokyogurl was indeed suspected of having installed "unapproved third-party software" or "modified software" on her phone and cheating during the match.

Tencent, the developer and operator of Honor of Kings, also announced on December 16th that it had immediately imposed a lifetime ban on Tokyogurl for violating the integrity of fair competition.

This means that unless Tokyogurl's accusations are completely dropped, she will be barred from participating in any official Tencent-authorized and certified Honor of Kings tournaments effective immediately.

Subsequently, the host nation, Thailand, also announced its withdrawal from the tournament due to the controversy.

Their qualification for the knockout stage was transferred to the Lao national team. Unfortunately, the Lao team lost to Indonesia in the subsequent match.

However, the gold medal match (finals) will be contested by two strong teams from the region, Malaysia and the Philippines.

However, Tokyogurl maintains her innocence regarding the verdict, stating that a malfunction during the match caused her to suffer a panic attack and be hospitalized.

She stated, "Please allow me to briefly respond here. If I really cheated, we would have won the game long ago. Honestly, how could I cheat? I was just playing around, but I was so nervous I had a panic attack."

"Nobody at the scene knew what happened. I ended up being taken to the hospital. I finally managed to get my phone back, but after connecting it with the cable, the screen couldn't display any image. You all don't know what happened, yet you're saying this. Everyone's like this. What else do you expect me to say?"

"As for the middle finger incident, I was just joking with my teammates next to me. I turned around and found the camera pointed directly at their faces. I was under a lot of pressure, so I just played around. I was so nervous I fainted. They had to take me to the hospital."

At the time of writing, Tokyogurl had deleted all her personal social media accounts and was temporarily unreachable.

Meanwhile, her Hong Kong club, TALON (TLN), has terminated her contract.

Tokyogurl, 24, whose real name is Naraphat Warasin, became a professional Honor of Kings  esports player in 2024, primarily playing as a bottom laner (ADC).

Due to his resemblance in fashion style with famous Chinese female singer Sa Dingding and his looks to Lee Tae-eun, a former member of the K-pop girl group RaNia, Tokyogurl quickly gained nearly 30,000 followers across multiple social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook after her debut.

In late 2024, Tokyogurl became a member of the TALON Academy team and was promoted to the main team as a stand-in this year.