In what is yet another wave of bans that involves SEA players, more talents lose their professional careers.
A total of 10 Southeast Asia players have received a lifetime ban from Valve sanctioned tournaments for match fixing and for playing Dota Pro Circuit qualifiers on multiple accounts for more than one team.
Among those who will not be able to play in any Valve tournament from now on are the well-established Malaysian players Cheng "vtFαded" Jia Hao and Lai "AhJit" Jay Son. Both currently playing for Team Orca, formerly known as Ragdoll, made a name from themselves by playing for some of the biggest esports organizations.
Regarded as one of the SEA prodigies, vtFαded made his debut on The International stage under the Chaos banner and throughout his career, he got to play for the likes of EHOME, Team SMG and Cloud9.
However, last year he missed the DPC entirely being temporarily banned for the same illicit activity. vtFαded played DPC qualifiers with Team D while he was still under contract with another team that already had a slot in the DPC. Back then Team D was disqualified and vtFαded received a one year ban from Dota Pro Circuit.
During his forced time off, he became one of the few to breach the 12K MMR milestone, however in the post TI10 shuffle, when his ban ended, he landed at Ragdoll and fought with them through open qualifiers to secure a spot in the 2022 Dota Pro Circuit.
Ragdoll were one game shy of promotion to the SEA Division 1 for the upcoming Spring Tour. They lost a best-of-one tiebreaker with Nigma Galaxy SEA, which meant that in the new season they would have had to fight again for promotion.
Unfortunately, it won’t be the case anymore as the entire roster got banned after an investigation for match fixing and impersonating other players.
Also involved is AhJit, currently mid lane player for Team Orca, who made his TI debut under the Fnatic banner and got to play on Major tournament stages with EHOME, LGD and Mineski.
According to an announcement made by Beyond the Summit, who host the SEA DPC regional league, there is “evidence that shows that Team Orca players used Team Apex accounts to compete on their behalf.” The incident happened earlier this week in the SEA regional league open qualifiers for a spot in Division 2.
Additionally, Beyond the Summit gathered evidence of match fixing by Team Orca players in BTS Pro Series and other third party tournaments.
Along with the Orca players, the entire roster of Team Apex has also received a lifetime ban from Valve tournaments.
The latest 10 SEA players serving a lifetime ban
Team Orca
Apex
Cheng Jia “vtFaded” Hao
Văn Hùng “hunghung” Bùi
Yifu “YIF” Zhou
This is the biggest wave of bans issued since October 2014, when the SEA competitive scene took a massive reputation hit as eight players from MSI and Mineski confessed to taking part in a betting scheme. Along with them, Arrow Gaming as an organization and two of their players, Yi Liong "ddz" Kok and Hsien Wan "Lance" Fua, also got permanently banned by Valve.
headline picture courtesy of MarsMedia
