DOTA 2 International Champions Newbee Banned from Future Events for Match-Fixing
By Jack O'Dwyer
DOTA 2 competitive organization, Newbee, and its roster of five players have been permanently banned.
Valve and Perfect World have officially banned international champion organization, Newbee, and five of its players from all future Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) events on Friday, Jan. 1. This comes after a series of allegations against the group for match-fixing, supposedly beginning in May 2020. The ruling was handed down as the organization was in the middle of competing and subsequently had all their upcoming matches canceled.
just in: Valve and Perfect World has permanently banned former The International champions Newbee and players Moogy, AQ, Wizard, Waixi, Faith from all future Valve Dota 2 events (DPC) for match fixing
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) January 3, 2021
DOTA 2 Newbee Players Banned from DPC Events
Newbee and its roster—Yin "AQ" Rui, Zeng "Faith" Hongda, Xu "Moogy" Han, Yan "Waixi" Chao, and Wen "Wizard" Lipeng—have been a household name in the DOTA community since their rise in 2014. The group has entered every International competition since then, coming in second place in 2017 and ninth-twelfth in 2019. However, it was their participation in the DPL-CDA Professional China Dota 2 Pro League Season 2 that sparked the allegations of match-fixing.
Poor performance from the team prompted an investigation by the event coordinators, ImbaTV and the China DOTA 2 Professional Association (CDA). They were able to find evidence to confirm that these matches, indeed, had been thrown to benefit gamblers placing bets. Together, both coordinators placed lifetime bans on Newbee from any of their future events.
It appears that information has finally come to call. Valve, developer of DOTA 2, and Perfect World, the company that operates those servers in China, placed permanent bans on the organization effective Jan. 1, 2021. The ruling was confirmed on Jan. 3 by the DOTA 2 Weibo account and then further published.
Valve has a prolific history of cracking down on those who break the rules—for example, iPOWERBUY's lifetime bans from CS:GO after the same accusations proved true. Fan reactions are mixed with some happy the company finally took action and others saying the ban is too harsh.