ESL has been awfully quiet after they disqualified NAVI Junior for abusing the Dota 2 smoke bug – perhaps because before they realised more teams participating in ESL One Raleigh 2025 have been caught abusing the bug
As such, the Dota 2 community is calling for ESL to make a fair decision on whether to disqualify every team that also abused the smoke bug or retract NAVI Junior’s disqualification.
Image Credit: ESL
Recap on NAVI Junior’s disqualification
Last week, NAVI Junior was the first of many pro teams to be caught abusing the Dota 2 smoke bug. For the uninitiated, the Dota 2 smoke bug is an exploit that allows a player to check whether the Smoke of Deceit in an enemy’s inventory has been used or not. This, of course, provides valuable insight on whether the enemy is performing a smoke gank or not.
What makes this bug so infamous right now is the fact that many, if not every pro player is aware of this exploit. With pros like Denis “Larl” Sigitov from Team Spirit, casually admitting to using it in ranked matches and even pro games.
Regarding NAVI Junior’s case, ESL didn’t hesitate to disqualify the team and invited another team to replace the former.
Image Credit: ESL
Does Every Dota 2 Team Deserve a Disqualification?
Not long after ESL’s verdict, more evidence of other Dota 2 teams abusing the same exploit has also surfaced on Dota 2 Reddit forum. The list now includes Tundra Esports, Team Spirit, Talon Esports, L1GA Team and 1win.
Particularly, 1win, outrightly denied using the smoke abuse bug with their official statement and even went back-and-forth with Oleksii “BafiK” Bafadarov. The Ukrainian Dota 2 caster has provided evidence of 1win (and other teams) abusing the smoke bug, but 1win still denied it, despite abusing the bug way back during DreamLeague too.
“And cherry on top is 1Win team, with a commentary of their manager who says they didn’t use BUG. LIIIIIARRRR HaHaaa. A lot of fun today, right?
1win swedenstrong match 8119339814 time 35-40
1win swedenstrong match 8119339814 time 22-51 and 22-53
1win swedenstrong match… pic.twitter.com/oMGkrRgO0B”— Oleksii Bafadarov (@bafikk) January 26, 2025
They even went as far to claim that they ‘do not benefit’ from this situation since they won’t qualify for the tournament anyway since they get eliminated in the early stage.
That aside, the MVP of the whole ESL Smoke Bug abuse fiasco is definitely BafiK, for compiling replays of teams abusing the smoke bug. In fact, BafiK even claims to have more teams on his list, that he hasn’t called out yet.
Will ESL ban these Dota 2 teams that abused smoke bug?
At this point, it’s highly unlikely that ESL will take any action, especially with five accused teams and it’s already five days since their last update. That’s five teams they have to disqualify and replace at ESL One Raleigh 2025, which will be a hassle as a tournament organizer.
As for NAVI Junior, it’s a shame that they are the victim of such injustice due to ESL’s lack of enforcement on bug abuse.