Dota 2’s TI winning team Newbee banned for match fixing

Among the very few things that esports and traditional sports have in common, match fixing is one of them. A new scandal has the Dota 2 community shook as well the whole esports scene. Newbee, a Chinese Dota 2 team, has been banned by Chinese Dota Association for match fixing. 

The match in question was the Newbee vs Avengerls match at Star Ladders Imba TV Minor’s China closed qualifiers in February. Avengerls had a massive gold advantage over Newbee after which they started walking into the team one by one to feed Newbee. This continued for the next few matches of the series well which raised suspicions initially. Xiao8, retired legendary Chinese Dota 2 player and the caster for the match said on air, “I will eat shit if this match isn’t fixed.” 

Following an investigation, CDA and ImbaTV have decided to indefinitely ban Newbee and the players Lai “Fonte” Xingyu, Yin “Aq” Rui, Wen “Wizard” Lipeng, Yan “Waixi” Chao, Zeng “Faith” Hongda, and Xu “Moogy” Han. The ban was first speculated by Dota 2 caster Kyle Freedman. Later ImbaTV and CDA made official announcements on their Weibo channel. 

This comes as a surprise since Newbee is considered one of the top Dota 2 teams, which won The International in 2014 and reached finals in 2017 against Team Liquid. Faith and Moogy are respected veterans of the game.  

Huge Dota match-fixing scandal about to get trotted out in public. This shows how Valve never got a handle on match-fixing, especially where it involves Chinese teams.https://t.co/HreI7SXsRB

— Richard Lewis (@RLewisReports) May 15, 2020

For now, neither the players nor Valve nor Newbee have issued any statement. CDA has however informed that they have sent the reports to Valve.