On January 22, ESL announced on the social network X that NAVI Junior had been disqualified from ESL One Raleigh 2025 for abusing a smoke bug. This incident sparked a strong reaction not only from the club representatives but also from the Dota 2 community at large.

Incident Details

The unpleasant situation occurred after the ESL qualifications, where NAVI Junior secured a slot by defeating AVULUS. The tournament organizers announced the bug usage and NAVI Junior's disqualification only a few days later. Avulus will replace them in the tournament.

The essence of the bug is that a team player can drag the smoke icon into the enemy's inventory and see if it has been used or not, even if the hero did not appear on the map. Indeed, this bug provides a significant advantage. You might think ESL's decision is right, but unfortunately, it's not that simple, and here’s why.

Vitaliy “Sword_Art” Petkin, the coach of the main NAVI team, expressed his opinion on this situation:

I wanted to write a lot about the situation with NAVI JR, but there are many reasons why each side believes they are right. In brief: 1) only the tournament operator PGL directly warned about the ban on using the specific smoke bug during the qualifications. 2) the rulebooks can be interpreted differently; they lack specifics about smoke abuse, so whether it's a bug or a feature is decided afterward, but after Bangkok, it should have been clear that ESL considers it a bug. 3) The young team decided to take the risk and got what they deserved; they used the bug/feature not only against AVULUS. 4) There are no questions for AVULUS themselves; it is their right to file an appeal with ESL, which decides how to proceed in this situation.

But most questions here are for Valve. Teams have known about the smoke trick for over a year, and God knows how many have used it in official matches during this time.

Vitaliy “Sword_Art” Petkin, NAVI main team coach

Hastily Made Decision

After the information was made public, people began checking the replays of other teams, and it turned out that not only NAVI Junior used this bug, but also such renowned collectives as Tundra Esports and Team Spirit, as well as 9Pandas. This is more clearly seen in a video by Ukrainian streamer and former pro player Ghostik.

The bo3.gg editorial team sent an inquiry regarding the incident to ESL but received no response. Overall, this situation suggests that ESL received evidence of bug use only by NAVI Junior and did not check other teams.

Community Reaction

One of the first to express his opinion on the situation was Tundra Esports player Anton "dyrachyo" Shkredov. He wrote the following in his personal Telegram channel:

I believe it is fair to disqualify everyone.

dyrachyo, Tundra player

Team Spirit manager Korb3n also shared his opinion:

It is probably written somewhere in the rulebook, but I have already spoken about similar things. Remind me, which tournament was it when BetBoom Team used some bug and got a time penalty? ESL? If it’s ESL, here’s the question: Why do they give a time penalty for one use of a bug and… Well, you get it...

But again, somewhere it said specifically "FOR Abuse," if, for example, Save did it once, and here they did... I didn’t count how many times. But overall, everything is relatively logical. The punishment is obviously harsh, I think it’s a lesson for everyone.

Korb3n, Spirit manager

Former NAVI player Volodymyr "RodjER" Nikogosyan described the situation as follows in his Telegram channel:

This "bug" has been used by everyone who can be bothered for over a year, and I would have used it myself because I consider it a feature, not a bug. No one is doing anything forbidden, and the game itself allows you to use this mechanic. So why the disqualification?

Or is there a note in the tournament operator's rules that says "whoever uses a bug is a scumbag," then the questions will be for NAVI Junior.

RodjER, former NAVI player

A user's opinion from X with the nickname @yatseniuk_27 under the ESL post should also be highlighted:

One rule, but not for everyone. Need a rehost without agreement with the opponent, ignoring them? - No problem, we will help. Are you still losing? - no worries, it's nice that the opponent was disqualified for using a bug.

Not only this team uses it? - sorry, we can't help you.

yatseniuk_2, X user

History Repeats Itself

Previously in Counter-Strike, there was an incident when HEROIC won ESL One Cologne in 2020. The next morning (literally 6 hours later), they were banned for using the Spectator Bug in ESL with a big press release about how bad Heroic was.

But when it was revealed that other teams were also using this bug, ESL did nothing with the other teams/players and waited almost 8-9 months for the "investigation" results, giving them time to find replacements, manage damage control, etc. As a result, dozens of players/coaches were punished for using the bug, but HEROIC suffered the most because ESL acted swiftly against them.

The scale of the current problem is smaller, but the actions are similar – an immediate hit on NAVI, and now they will "think" about it.

Conclusion

Overall, this situation shows that hasty conclusions should never be drawn, and ESL should especially understand this as they have found themselves in such a situation before, but it seems they have not learned from the past.

Also, one unclear thing mentioned in ESL's release is that NAVI Junior was disqualified for bug abuse, meaning multiple uses. It is currently unknown whether Spirit abused this bug, but we certainly know that 9Pandas and Tundra used this bug at least twice, yet they did not face punishment.

However, ESL should carefully investigate the situation and make a fair verdict for all teams that used this bug. Punishment does not necessarily have to be in the form of disqualification — various types of penalties that consider the context and frequency of bug use are possible. As an option, due to the large number of violations by different teams, the qualification could be entirely replayed. Such an approach would ensure equal conditions for all participants and help avoid controversial decisions in the future.