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ESL One Raleigh bug investigation
Dota 23 weeks ago

ESL maintains decision to disqualify NAVI Jr from ESL One Raleigh for bug abuse

Image: ESL

Other teams that were found to have also used the bug were handed disqualifications or fines.

Renown Dota 2 tournament organiser ESL maintained its decision to disqualify Natus Vincere Junior (NAVI Jr) from ESL One Raleigh 2025 for abusing a bug involving the Smoke of Deceit item during the tournament's Western European qualifier earlier this month. ESL disqualified NAVI Jr from what would have been their first-ever Tier 1 LAN appearance last week.

The Smoke of Deceit bug allowed players to know if the enemy team used the item by checking the inventory of the opposing support heroes and right-clicking on the item's icon. If the “Alert allies” pop-up did not appear from this, it would be clear that the enemy team had used Smoke of Deceit, thus allowing the team to avoid an otherwise unknown gank.

Dota 2 developer Valve Software has notably pushed a hotfix to the game that removed the bug shortly after NAVI Jr's disqualification.

Following backlash from certain segments of the Dota 2 community from their decision to disqualify NAVI Jr, ESL announced they would conduct a more thorough investigation of the ESL One Raleigh qualifiers in order to identify any other instances of bug abuse.

With the conclusion of their investigation, ESL confirmed in an extensive post on their official website that it was AVULUS that made “the first complaint regarding the use of the bug in the qualifiers” following their loss to NAVI Jr in the lower bracket finals of the Western European qualifier. It is worth noting that NAVI Jr earned their spot in ESL One Raleigh with that victory over AVULUS.

ESL said they immediately investigated NAVI Jr and logged each incident of bug abuse by the team, adding that they discovered that “NAVI Jr had extensively exploited this bug throughout their qualifier run.” The organiser also added that they believed only NAVI Jr had abused the bug at the time of their decision. ESL said that one of the people responsible for checking if the other qualified teams had also abused the bug had in fact experienced a bug of their own, which prevented them from properly recreating the POV of the players being investigated – hence incidents involving other teams were missed.

The community backlash prompted ESL to re-open the investigation, which then found that multiple teams other than NAVI Jr did abuse the bug to varying degrees. The organiser internally split the teams found to have abused the bug into six categories, namely teams that made systematic, moderate, and minor abuse of the bug, as well as those that only accidentally used the bug, and those free of suspicion of using it at all.

Below is the categorised list of teams from ESL's report:

Systematic abuse of the bug

  • 9Pandas: ~160 abuses
  • NAVI Junior: ~115 abuses
  • Aurora Gaming: ~50 abuses

Moderate abuse of the bug

  • Passion UA: 17 abuses
  • One Move: 12 abuses
  • Virtus.Pro: 11 abuses
  • Winter Bear: 9 abuses
  • Tundra Esports: 9 abuses
  • Team Spirit: 7 abuses
  • Team Secret: 5 abuses

Minor abuse of the bug

  • Wildcard
  • Shopify Rebellion
  • Natus Vincere

Accidental abuse of the bug

  • Nigma Galaxy
  • TALON Esports
  • Gaimin Gladiators
  • M80

Not suspected of using the bug

  • The remaining 40 teams that participated in the ESL One Raleigh qualifiers

ESL hands out additional disqualifications, fines for bug abuse

Based on their findings, ESL decided that the teams that made systematic abuse of the bug were to be disqualified from ESL One Raleigh. This means that NAVI Jr's disqualification is maintained while 9Pandas and Aurora will no longer be able to participate in the tournament should another team from their region be unable to attend.

Meanwhile, the seven teams that moderately abused the bug were to be handed out fines, with Spirit and Tundra notably still able to participate in ESL One Raleigh. The teams that made minor abuses of the bug will receive warnings, while those that accidentally used it will not receive any sanctions.

ESL also stated that they first banned the use of the bug at ESL One Bangkok 2024, which took place last December. All teams in attendance at ESL One Bangkok were informed of the bug “to ensure they understood the function of the bug and its severity.” However, ESL admitted it was not reiterated to the teams participating in the ESL One Raleigh qualifiers that the bug was still not permitted.

“It has to be admitted that there is a significant degree of mitigation [with the sanctions for teams that used the bug] due to the fact that we did not explicitly re-communicate the banned status of this bug,” the organiser added.

ESL One Raleigh is set to take place from 7 April to 13 in Raleigh, the United States. The tournament features 12 teams competing for the lion's share of a $1 million prize pool.

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