Professional Dota 2 Player Gets Banned In The Middle Of A Qualifier Match

Mad Kings player Steven “StingeR” Vargas got embarrassingly banned in the middle of his DreamLeague Season 22 Qualifier match against Thunder Awaken. He could not reconnect to the match, and his team was forced to forfeit the series.

Peruvian squad Mad Kings faced off against Thunder Awaken in the South American Closed Qualifier for DreamLeague Season 22, a $1,000,000 tournament. Thunder Awaken took the first map in this Lower Bracket elimination match, leaving Mad Kings with their last chance in Game 2. 

In the first ten minutes, position five player StingeR suddenly disconnected from the match, forcing a technical pause for the side of Mad Kings. However, his teammate Parker revealed in the game chat that Valve had permanently banned his account, and he could not reconnect to the game.

Why Was StingeR Banned?

A month ago, Valve released an update banning players involved in smurfing, boosting, account sharing, and other similar breaches. They have banned tens of thousands of accounts and are still progressing daily. 

Earlier this week, a top 100 player in the Americas region named “mini” posted a Reddit thread on the Dota 2 subreddit, exposing Parker, StingeR’s teammate, for playing on his account.

Mini mentioned that StingeR, a support player, was unnaturally playing the core role. Once mini got StingeR on his team, the player on the account insisted on playing Carry and revealed that he was Parker, saying “I’m Parker. Go Mid please.”

The two players won their pub match, and mini called out Parker for boosting professional players’ accounts. Parker, still playing on StingeR’s account, instigated mini to “ban his account”.

For context, Parker is currently ranked second in the North and South American leaderboards. Meanwhile, his teammate StingeR was much lower, only ranked around 400th. Parker had been playing on StingeR’s account until it reached rank 274, which was when mini encountered the account. 

What Happened After?

Parker got what he asked for, and Valve took action and banned StingeR’s account. The time of this ban happened to be while Mad Kings was in the middle of the match.

Mad Kings resumed the game to play four versus five, but shortly conceded the match, resulting in the team’s elimination from the DreamLeague Season 22 Closed Qualifier.

No official statement from the organization or players has been released. Parker’s account remains untouched but could also be banned in the near future.

Header: Mad Kings Twitter