"Solo and No[o]ne got second chance and became legends." Valve-banned Koma apologizes to community, hopes his ban will be lifted

Former Virtus.pro carry Kamil «Koma» Biktimirov wrote an open letter to the community, explaining his past integrity violation, followed by the notorious 10-player ban by Valve. Koma said he was young and naive and listened to the wrong people. He also reminded the community of Solo and No[o]ne, who were found guilty of similar cases but became the legends of the scene.

One day, my manager, Lil_skrip, told me we had tournament games to play on 22 September, although there were not supposed to be any games on that day based on our team schedule. He then told me that I needed to play from the account of another person, who was in team S9, participating in that same tournament. I was unsure about it, but I was then told that this was only for us to get more games to use as practice for more competitions in the future and that no match-fixing was involved. I was naive, so I did not think any further and said okay, and went ahead to play since it was just more practice for me. Suddenly, I saw the news about 10 banned players, with myself being included. After this, I found out more about this situation and realized that some players received money for those games. I was not persuaded to play on the basis of money, just practice, so I did not receive any money from this incident which I can prove with bank statements. <...>

There have been other players in the scene who were given second chances in the past and have grown to be an integral part of the Dota 2 esports scene, such as Noone (account sharing) and Solo (match fixing), who are now regarded as Dota 2 legends. I just ask for empathy and forgiveness for my mistakes. I greatly hope to be able to continue my career in the future.

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Koma and other members of S9 and Luna Gaming shared their accounts and were banned by Valve. There are some inconsistencies in his story, as Koma already apologized in the past, saying the money was also a factor: "I made a mistake, listened to the persuasions of other people, believed them, and played an official match from another account, hoping to receive prize money from the tournament." Now he claims it was only for practice.

Valve rarely lifts bans for cheating and especially match-fixing. The most famous case is CS: GO's iBUYPOWER squad, begged to be unbanned by the community for years, but it never happened. However, over some time, Valve reduced their punishment for cheating players. Solo's case occurred before Valve implemented its strict lifetime-ban policy. He served a year-long block implemented by third-party TO. No[o]ne's case was ignored by the Dota 2 devs.

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