Have you read the deets about the pro gamer moment that led to the ban of Perseverance’s CS team and their subsequent decision to kick the squad to the curb? It is one of the stupidest stories in recent Counter-Strike history, and if this is the level of excuse-making these chucklebrains could come up with, then I shudder to think what they could accomplish on the servers.

Essentially, the squad pulled a Silver IV-level player’s equivalent of a Rush B stat, faking a weather alert (very, very poorly) to try and delay their ESL Challenger League match in the hopes that they could play it later with a replacement player instead of the guy they kicked a week ago.

The end product was a poorly thought-out, easily fact-checked, and error-filled combo of weather reports and fake ““official””” text messages – and a ban swiftly followed.

Clearly, we’re grading on a curve here, but if you ever need a better excuse than this to try and delay your game, maybe try these instead. No guarantees (and no refunds), but you’re still going to have better odds than the ex-Perseverance bunch did.

A dog ate your laptop

A schoolyard classic adapted to a modern age. How are you supposed to play Counter-Strike competitively if your machine has been vociferously consumed by the fuzzy beast in the living room? Bonus points for conjuring the image of a scary, scary, scary metal-eating dog with endless hunger and no sense of self-preservation. No admin will want to mess with you about hearing of this animal. Nay, monster.

Here's an added benefit: CS2’s system requirements are so steep compared to Global Offensive that having your main computer consumed will genuinely make it quite unlikely that you’ll have an alternative lying around that can run the game properly.

My team is in Canada, you wouldn’t know them

You can’t play a Counter-Strike match without a team, right? Well, you can always just pretend that your team ceased to exist, or at least moved far, far up into the icy North of politeness, where never-seen and unknowable partners lie. As long as the admins are unfamiliar with Twistzz and NAF, they will definitely buy that your teammates are nowhere to be found and may not even exist.

Your religious beliefs prohibit you from playing on Dust 2

It’s Challenger-level competition, right? So everyone’s going to end up playing on Dust 2 at some point. So if you have a good excuse in your back pocket about playing the map, you can easily get yourself out any jam related to having to play competitive CS when you really rather wouldn’t because you want to kick a teammate to the curb before hopping on the server.

Well, much like how the Sabbath or Ramadan can genuinely intervene with religious athletes’ sporting endeavors, who’s to say you can’t be a devout follower of a little-known cult that fully prohibits playing Counter-Strike on a map called Dust 2 that has a mid door and two bomb sites? If anyone complains, just call them intolerant and call down hellfire from the tentacley ruler of your cult.

You strongly suspect your opponents of faking their availability

When all else fails, you can always go for the ol' switcheroo, especially now while the Perseverance kerfuffle is still on everyone’s mind. Who’s to say your opponents are actually ready when they have pressed the big green button? Maybe they are faking it! Demand detailed weather reports, photos with multiple camera angles where they hold up a newspaper, check for any AI interference, request info about their ISP and their reliability: like any good white-collar lawyer, you can drown them in endless procedural hurdles, safe in the knowledge that they will eventually surrender rather than having to deal with your continued bullshit.

Mom is calling for dinner and she doesn't understand that you can't pause an online game

We’ve all been there before. No admin will question it, ever.