Multiple top Dota 2 pros permabanned by Valve for match-fixing

Lai “AhJit” Jay Son and Cheng “vtFαded” Jia Hao are among a number of Southeast Asian Dota 2 pros now being banned for match-fixing and collusion.

On the morning of March 12, Beyond the Summit announced the sudden disqualification of Team Orca from the upcoming Dota Pro Circuit tour. No explanation was given for the decision beyond the promise that further news would come soon.

Later that day, Beyond the Summit followed up on this by announcing that Team Orca and another squad, Team Apex, had been sharing accounts in order to help one another qualify for the upcoming tour of the Dota Pro Circuit’s Southeast Asian league. The tournament organizer said a separate investigation also uncovered evidence of probable match-fixing by the two teams in third-party tournaments including the BTS Pro Series.

Because of this, all 10 players from the teams have been dealt a permanent ban from Valve events. BTS revealed the full list of players who had been banned:

AhJit, vtFaded among players banned from The International, other Valve events

As a result of this move, AhJit and vtFaded now find themselves on Valve’s banned list. This effectively ends their professional Dota 2 careers, as they will no longer be able to compete in any DPC events, Dota 2 majors, or The International.

AhJit has been playing at an elite level since 2016, competing with most of Southeast Asia’s top organizations along the way. This includes an appearance at The International 2017 with Fnatic. At the start of the 2019-2020 DPC season, AhJit moved to China and bounced between multiple organizations before returning to Southeast Asia after The International 2021.

vtFaded’s career followed the same general path, playing on multiple notable SEA squads before moving to China. This run ended in 2019 shortly after joining EHOME, where he had a public dispute with coach Zhang “xiao8” Ning. Despite those troubles, he was a clear talent which saw him loaned to multiple teams including Cloud9’s short-lived SEA squad.

To fill the gap left by Orca in the DPC, a closed qualifier series will be played. The competition includes Team M 11, M Y, Kobolds, and The Apes E-Sport.