You cannot prove it. Valve and Faceit see server side data nobody else ever will, and a public profile shows results, not what produced them. What you can do is read the numbers, because smurfing and cheating both leave a shape: reactions faster than the rank explains, a crosshair already on the enemy before the duel opens, elite mechanics on an account with forty games. None of that is evidence. All of it is a reason to look twice.
The numbers that give it away
- Time to damage: how long from seeing an enemy to landing a shot.
- Pre-aim angle: how far the crosshair sat from the enemy when the fight opened. A low figure means the aim was there before the target.
- Aim rating: pure mechanics, useful mostly for how badly it clashes with the rank.
- K/D and winrate: blunt, and the two a smurf inflates first.
- Matches analysed: decides what the other four are worth. Twenty matches prove nothing.
A thin history with a huge K/D reads as a smurf. Great mechanics across a thousand games reads as a good player.
What the Pulse trust check does
Pulse puts those stats on the Steam profile and folds the same five signals into a single trust score out of 100, drawn on a slider under the numbers with a verdict beside it. It is computed locally in your browser from figures already on screen: nothing is sent anywhere to be scored. When the score comes out bad the panel marks the tiles it reacted to and prints a short "Why" line in words, such as "instant reactions" or "pre-aimed crosshair", so you can see which figure moved it. Under fifty analysed matches the tooltip adds small sample, because below that the other four signals are guesses wearing a number.
The five verdicts, and the two that refuse to decide
The scale only acquits at the bottom, and that is deliberate. An earlier version called everything below sixty suspicion points "looks legit", which handed a clean bill of health to profiles the formula had no grounds to clear. The middle of the range now says nothing either way:
- Looks legit, above 70. Nothing stood out.
- High skill, 56 to 70. Strong numbers that do not contradict each other.
- Mixed signals, 41 to 55. One figure is pinned at the top and the rest are not. This verdict is refusing to decide, and the marked tile is the whole content of it.
- Suspicious, 21 to 40. Several signals disagree with the rank.
- Very suspicious, 20 or below.
One override sits on top of all five. A player found in the public pro list gets Verified pro in place of a verdict, and the marked tiles and the "Why" line are cleared with it, because saying that top-tier stats are expected here while still pointing at a pro-level aim rating as grounds for suspicion contradicts itself. Measured against real accounts, listed pros land in the High skill band anyway, so the override rarely changes the outcome. A Faceit ban for cheating outranks the list: a banned pro shows the ban, not the roster entry.
A Faceit ban is not one thing
A ban for cheating is a verdict already passed by someone holding server-side data nobody outside Faceit will ever see, so it replaces the score outright and the section shows a ban box instead of statistics. A ban for smurfing is handled differently on purpose: the player was good, not dishonest about how they win, so it does not overrule the arithmetic. It takes ten percent off the trust score and says so in the tooltip, while the ban itself stays visible next to the nickname and in the Faceit section, so it does not slip past you either way.
What it is not
It is not an anticheat and it does not detect cheaters. It is arithmetic over public statistics, and its only honest claim is that a profile is worth a second look. A bad score can be a smurf, a cheater, or a good player with a thin history, and the check cannot tell you which. Report through the game, not off a webpage.
Common questions
Can Pulse prove someone is smurfing or cheating? No, and neither can anything else that only reads a public profile. Valve and Faceit act on server-side data; a profile shows results. The honest claim is the narrow one: this account is worth a second look.
What does small sample mean in the Pulse trust check? Fewer than fifty analysed matches. With that little history a huge K/D or a pinned aim rating can come out of one good week, so the verdict is weighted down and the tooltip says why.
Are pro players treated differently by the CS2 smurf check? Yes. An account found in the public pro list has its verdict replaced by Verified pro, and the marked tiles and the "Why" line are cleared with it, because elite numbers are the expected result on those accounts. A Faceit ban for cheating still outranks the list.
Does a Faceit ban decide the verdict? A ban for cheating replaces it outright. A ban for smurfing only takes ten percent off the trust score, because it is a judgement about an account, not about how the player wins fights.
Why does a Steam profile show no smurf verdict at all? Because there were no numbers to weigh. A private profile, private match history, or an account with no rated matches leaves the section empty, and no tool can get behind those settings.
Pulse is free, needs no account, and asks for a single permission (storage). Get
it for
Chrome and Chromium browsers
or for
Firefox,
then open any Steam profile. The privacy policy covers what it stores.