Valve, via tournament organiser PGL, has announced that it has permanently banned ten players for cheating and rule violations during the Open Qualifiers for the Dota Pro Circuit 2023: Tour 1. And in bad news for Virtus.Pro, their recently-signed player Kamil "Koma" Biktimirov is on the list.
Koma receives permanent ban from Valve and PGL tournaments
The announcement was made via the PGL Twitter account, in which it was revealed that ten players have received permanent bans for account sharing and impersonating members of other teams during tournament games, activities that are strictly against the rules in Valve's tournaments.
Alongside Koma, some of the more notable banned players include felt's Aslan "Paradise" Vadilov, Ancient Tribe's Danil “illusion” Grzhevka and former Team Empire player Sergey "[T]SA" Timchenko.
The players have been accused of account sharing - meaning that some players were secretly helping to get through the Open Qualifiers by borrowing their accounts and playing for them.
These bans mean that all ten players are prohibited from participating in any future Valve and PGL events. Given that makes up almost the entirety of the Dota 2 competitive scene, it's particularly dire news - and the players will only be able to compete in minor events with no affiliation with Valve or PGL.
It's particularly frustrating news for Virtus.Pro, who only just signed Koma as their new carry player earlier this month, after he joined the team from Luna Gaming.
The team haven't said how they'll address this unexpected issue, but has tweeted that they are "aware of the situation" and are "conducting an internal investigation to understand more about the circumstances that led to this ban," promising to provide more information at a future date.
It seems that Valve is cracking down on rule-breaking behaviour ahead of the DPC leagues. The company announced late last week that they were also permanently banning Gianluca "Migi" Mendoza, following allegations of match fixing.
The Dota Pro Circuit is due to kick off on January 9, 2023 - and seemingly without Koma's involvement. We'll keep you up to date on that, and everything else in Dota 2 news right here on Luckbox - Just remember to sign up for your free account, and claim your 100% bonus!
