Valve permabans match-fixing esports club and five Dota 2 pros, including a former winner of The International

Axe from Dota 2.
(Image credit: Valve)

In May 2020 the Chinese esports organisation Newbee, winner of 2014's Dota 2 International, was implicated in a Dota 2 match-fixing scandal. The incident took place during a match between Newbee and Avengerls in the Dota 2 Starladder ImbaTV League in February 2020, a minor event on Valve's Dota Pro Circuit. 

A video of one of the games in question can be seen below: at the time, clips of this went viral and it was widely perceived as having been thrown, with retired Newbee player and International winner Zhang 'Xiao8' Ning commenting to the effect that "If Avengerls didn’t fix this match, I'll eat shit."

When the allegations first surfaced, Newbee was barred from competing across a range of Dota 2 events: the CDA-DPL Professional League, IMBA TV and MarsTV schedules. At the time Newbee denyied wrongdoing and said it would appeal. Now both Newbee and the five players involved have been banned from competing in any Valve or Perfect World event permanently, effective immediately.

The announcement was made on Dota 2's Weibo account, and translated reads: "Perfect World and Valve have decided to permanently ban the Newbee Club and five players. The suspended clubs and players will not be allowed to participate in the official DOTA2 events hosted by Valve and Perfect World E-sports."

The players involved are Lipeng 'Wizard' Wen, Han 'Moogy' Xu, Rui 'Aq' Yin, Chao 'Waixi' Yan and Hongda 'Faith' Zeng. Hongda Zeng was a member of the Invictus Gaming team that won The International in 2012, and Newbee as a club won the International in 2014 and was runner-up in 2017. It's game over for all of them, permanently.

TOPICS
Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

Latest in MOBA
League of Legends promo image - huge dude in a huge suit of armor holding a huge axe
Riot walks back unpopular League of Legends changes: Hextech Chests are coming back, and the Blue Essence cost for new champions will be cut in half
A triptych of views from Deadlock's improved map, showing a suspension bridge backlit by a setting sun, a triumphal arch with buildings in the background, and a leafy park overlooked by distant skyscrapers.
Deadlock gets a massive map overhaul that shrinks its map from four lanes to three: 'This has a large range of accompanying map-wide changes'
Three monsters holding clubs in Dota 2.
As a lapsed 4,500 hour veteran of Dota 2, the big new Wandering Waters update has lured me back—but despite the changes, the game still feels stuck in its ways
Sahn-Uzal Mordekaiser revealed in silhouette against a white moon and a blood-red sky.
League of Legends is getting a hotly anticipated skin for its lich necromancer Mordekaiser, but fans' joy has been 'obliterated' because it's 'stuck in a $200 fomo gacha store'
Smite 2 art
Hi-Rez will only be giving 'minor updates' to Smite and Paladins now it's laying off around 70 employees, but don't worry, Smite 2 is the 'primary focus of the newly streamlined operations'
LoL summoner art
It's high time League of Legends got full voice chat
Latest in News
Will Poulter holding a CD ROM
'What are most games about? Killing': Black Mirror Season 7 includes a follow-up to 2018 interactive film Bandersnatch
Casper Van Dien in Starship Troopers
Sony, which is making a Helldivers 2 movie, is also making a new Starship Troopers movie, but it's not based on the Starship Troopers movie we already have
Assassin's Creed meets PUBG
Ubisoft is reportedly talking to Tencent about creating a new business entity to manage Assassin's Creed and other big games
Resident Evil Village - Lady Dimitrescu
'It really truly changed my life in every possible way': Lady Dimitrescu actor says her Resident Evil Village role was just as transformative for her as it was for roughly half the internet in 2021
Storm trooper hero
Another live service shooter is getting shut down, this time before it even launched on Steam
Possibility Space concept art.
Possibility Space owners sue NetEase for $900 million over allegations it spread 'false and defamatory rumors' of fraud at the studio that ultimately forced it to close