Valve bans Knights, EHOME, over 40 pro Dota players in total for foul play
2023-03-09 08:34:00Valve and Perfect World issued over 40 bans on professional players, including the scandalous Knights team and EHOME roster. The former lineup was previously accused of cheating in DPC and match-fixing in both the regional league and at The Lima Major 2023. The statement came out on the official Dota 2 Weibo.
Knights, one EHOME player, Mks-, and most of the others received a permanent ban. Some were blocked for a year or two. The official reason is foul play for every player listed.
Full list of banned players
- eGo (Knights) — Indefinite
- AlaCrity- (Knights) — Indefinite
- Flyby (Knights) — Indefinite
- FelixCiaoBa (Knights) — Indefinite
- XCJ (Knights) — Indefinite
- Unknown- (Team Flow ) — Indefinite
- mmm (Mistique) — Indefinite
- Helios (LBZS) — Indefinite
- guoguo (LBZS) — Indefinite
- Star (Dalanjing Gaming) — Indefinite
- BANG (Dalanjing Gaming) — Indefinite
- Dev1ce (Dalanjing Gaming) — Indefinite
- Xyz (Dalanjing Gaming) — Indefinite
- Re:0 (Dalanjing Gaming) — Indefinite
- 新手上路
- darly (Demon Slayer) — Two years
- LongGGG (Demon Slayer) — Two years
- farewell — Indefinite
- mks- (EHOME) — Indefinite
- rayy (Mistique) — Two years
- Nevermine (Team Flow) — Two years
- ShareHeatbeat (Dalanjing Gaming) — Indefinite
- pp (LBZS) — Two years
- sss (Dragon) — Two years
- HuiHui (Neptune) — Two years
- ghost (Dragon) — Two years
- yChen (EHOME) — Two years
- Salad (EHOME) — Two years
- Lww (EHOME) — Two years
- zone- (Mistique) — Two years
- Nj (Mistique) — Two years
- tomorrow (Dynasty) — One year
- Fantasy (Dynasty) — One year
- Hy (Dynasty) — One year
- Kygo (Dynasty) — One year
- xiaoyu (EHOME) — One year
- Ms (Dawn Gaming) — One year
- ex (Dawn Gaming) — One year
- Son Goku (Dawn Gaming) — One year
- Docres (Dawn Gaming) — One year
- Mercader (LBZS) — One year
- TrazaM (Team Flow) — One year
- TY (Dragon) — Indefinite
- Ayo (你这肥宅说) — Indefinite
- 樊志龙 — Indefinite
Knights were accused of cheating after they suspiciously beat PSG.LGD and IG in DPC CN 2023 Tour 1. A Chinese caster made a video exposing Knights using a map hack. His claims were confirmed by the outlier deward rate. Later, Perfect World sent the evidence to Valve.
This situation led to another scandal at Lima Major 2023 as Knights qualified for the event. Several casters and the former OG analyst Kozak claimed that Knights and EHOME were match-fixing at the event based on extreme betting anomalies. We talked with Kozak about it, and you can read more here.
