The MOBA Dota 2 has a large e-sports scene with many professional players all over the world. There is even the “Dota 2 Champions League Seasons”. However, two teams got a little too close, and a silly idea has now led to permanent account bans for 10 professionals.
On December 18, 2022, PGL announced that Dota 2 developer Valve has permanently banned a total of 10 professionals from the current competition. PGL is the organizer of major e-sports events and also announced that they will be banning the players:
These were players from the teams “Luna Gaming” and “S9”. The reason given was account sharing and that one had impersonated a person who one is not.
Now, the players “Koma” from Luna Gaming and “SuperNova” from S9 have addressed their bans in a video, and it turned out: What started as a joke and an idiotic idea, the players went through with and ended up receiving their bans.
Luna Gaming took over a match from S9 and they played with the accounts of the other team.
Dota 2: Silly joke destroys professional careers
The video with the statement from Koma and SuperNova was in Russian (via youtube.com). The website cyber.sports.ru completely transcribed the video (via cyber.sports.ru).
How did the bans come about? The team Luna Gaming had already qualified for the playoffs in the current Dota season. A success, but the team was a bit down because they would have fewer games in the near future.
On the other side was S9. They took over the group position from Luna Gaming but could not really impress and were also already of the opinion that they could not achieve anything in the current tournament.
The two teams know each other, and while they were sitting together on a Discord server, a joking idea came up: The players from Luna Gaming should take over matches from S9.
After some back and forth, the players went through with it. Luna Gaming would receive half of the prize money if successful and they could even train.
So Luna Gaming took over a game from S9 against NO SORRY. But already after the first match, the NO SORRY team did not want to continue playing. One player had received a tip – it was about the opposing team having an observer at NO SORRY and that the opposing players are not who they claim to be.
Nova and Koma insist that there was no observer. But the player swap actually took place.
Due to the rumors surrounding the player swap, DOTA developer Valve stepped in. Although the players tried to delete the corresponding evidence, the admins of the Dota 2 Champions League ultimately uncovered the truth and banned all 10 professional accounts involved.
By the way, player Koma tried before the video to somehow get back into the game: DOTA 2: 20-Year-Old risks professional career out of greed, gets caught and heavily punished – Now he asks Valve for mercy
