There has been a massive wave of bans in the Dota 2 world. Perfect World and Valve have banned over 40 professional players for cheating. Among them are the Knights and the lineup of EHOME. Both teams have had inconsistencies for a while and various rumors that they would fix matches.
Most players were only suspended for 1 or 2 years. However, some players, including the complete Chinese lineup of the Knights, also got a permanent ban, ending their careers forever.
List of banned Dota 2 players
These are the Dota 2 players who have been banned for good:
- The complete lineup of the Knights, including eGo, Flyby, FelixCiaoBa, AlaCrity, XCJ – all banned for good.
- Dev1ce from Dalanjing Gaming
- guoguo from LBZS
- Helios from Team LBZS
- Ayo from 你这肥宅说
- 樊志龙
- Re:0 from Dalanjing Gaming
- Xyz from Dalanjing Gaming
- BANG from Dalanjing Gaming
- Star from Dalanjing Gaming
- TY from Dragon
- mmm from Team Mistique
- An unknown player from Team Flow
- ShareHeatbeat by Dalanjing Gaming
These are the players who were banned for 2 years:
- zone- from Mistique
- LongGG from Demon Slayer
- rayy from Mistique
- mks from EHOME
- sss from Dragon
- ghost from Dragon
- Nevermine from Team Flow
- Salad from EHOME
- pp from LBZS
- Nj from Mistique
- HuiHui from Neptune
- yChen from EHOME
- Lww from EHOME
- darly from Demon Slayer
- The player farewell
The following players have received a 1 year ban:
- Mercader from LBZS
- Docres from Dawn Gaming
- Kygo from Dynasty
- Hy from Dynasty
- xiaoyu from EHOME
- TrazaM from Team Flow
- Son Goku from Dawn Gaming
- ex from Dawn Gaming
- Fantasy from Dynasty
- Ms from Dawn Gaming
- tomorrow from Dynasty
Complete Team Knights suspended
The Chinese Knights have been in the headlines a lot lately, as they’ve been on almost constant notice for suspicious occurrences. It became conspicuous when they won against the top two teams IG and PSG.LGD in this year’s DPC CN Tour 1. A caster became suspicious during the match and found a map hack. The evidence was passed on to Valve and an investigation was launched. At the Lima Major, the team caught attention again when extremely high bets were suddenly used in their match, which almost always indicates match fixing.
Reactions from the community
Such a huge wave of bans has naturally caused a huge shock in the Dota 2 community and many people have since commented on it. Swedish pro player Janne “Gorgc” Stefanovski went through the 40 banned players on his stream and even recognized some of the names on the list. He was visibly appalled at how many Chinese Dota 2 players and teams were part of the scam, and was also amazed that the Knights had just recently played in the Lima Major in Peru.
Alliance player Remus “ponlo” Goh Zhi Xian was one of the few to take a different tack when commenting on the ban wave. He urged the community not to judge too harshly because they don’t know how the match fixing happened. ponlo’s theory is that many of these players are (or were) very young and may have cheated once in the game and then been blackmailed into submitting to match fixing. This is pure conjecture though, so far none of the players have commented on this.
Only 2 teams left in the 2nd division
Due to the ban wave, a lot of teams and players are missing. So only Meteor Gaming and Poke Gaming are left in the 2nd division for Tour 2. In the first division, Antarctic Penguins (former Team Knights) and EHOME have been banned. In the second division it’s Kylin Esports Club (former LBZS), Team Mystique and Solitude former Dawn Gaming).