10 pro Dota 2 players banned by Valve for account sharing

Many Dota 2 players may view account sharing as a bit of harmless fun, but Valve strongly disagrees.

Valve has announced the banning of 10 competitive Dota 2 players on the grounds of illegally playing on other players’ accounts during tournaments. The list primarily consists of tier-two players, but also includes the safe lane carry of Virtus.pro and the bulk of Luna Gaming’s roster. These players will no longer be allowed to participate in any events supported by Valve or PGL.

The list of players banned for account sharing includes the following, who are banned by CSGO developer Valve and tournament host PGL. Their bans were announced by PGL through social media on December 18, 2022.

• Paradise’
• Keintseru
• SuperNova
• Illusion
• Lilskrip
• Koma`
• Chambl
• Limtless
• [T]SA
• deihra

While western Dota 2 fans may not recognize most of the names on this list, the majority of them are up-and-coming grinders in Eastern Europe. The list also calls out some notable names. Kamil “Koma`” Biktimirov, who recently joined Virtus.pro as a safe lane carry, has had his career cut short by account sharing.

Sergey “[T]SA” Timchenko played for B8 and Team Empire in multiple DPC seasons, and Alliance fans may also notice Yaroslav “Limitless” Parshin, who played offlane for that team during the 2022 qualifiers for The International 11.

The ban announcement did not specifically say which events these players played in without a host’s knowledge. It’s likely that they posed as other players for tournaments outside of the DPC. In these cases, teams who wished to cheat would contact them and give them the account information needed to pose as another player.

Whatever prizes they earned from those tournaments, it’s likely not more than their potential earnings if they were allowed to continue their careers.

Can you get banned for account sharing in Dota 2?

Valve has repeatedly stated that sharing accounts violates the terms of service for Dota 2, though these rules are rarely enforced outside of professional play.

For normal players, account sharing is highly discouraged and considered a violation of the game’s rules. Casual and lower MMR accounts are usually unpunished for this behavior, but Valve is able to detect when it happens and holds the right to ban Dota 2 players who choose to share accounts. 

In most cases, sharing accounts also falls under the category of smurfing, which Valve only recently made explicitly against the rules. Accounts that have been found guilty of account sharing are subject to similar punishments, ranging from getting shadowbanned into a smurf pool or outright account termination.

Valve’s methods for detecting account sharing are top secret, but cross-referencing IPs should be enough to trigger a ban for esports players.