Ex-Natus Vincere player reportedly bet against his team in DPC

The lower divisions of the Dota Pro Circuit leagues have been rife with issues related to competitive integrity, and that isn’t stopping now.

According to a report by Cybersports.Metarating.ru, former Natus Vincere player Idan "MagicaL" Vardanian has been removed from XactJlepbI. This follows the discovery of MagicaL betting against his own team during the ESL One CIS Dota Pro Circuit League. If this is true, it sparks serious questions regarding the competitive integrity surrounding XactJlepbI’s matches in the league. 

XactJlepbI’s roster was loaded with a number of notable veterans from CIS teams, and was made up of the following players:

1. Alexander "lightless" Potapenko
2. Idan "MagicaL" Vardanian
3. Gleb "Funn1k" Lipatnikov
4. Rinat "KingR" Abdullin
5. Aleksandr "Nofear" Churochkin

MagicaL spent two years with Na`Vi from 2018 to 2020. He was a key part of the 2019 roster that made a surprise run to The International 2019. He left in 2020 and played with Cyber Legacy before joining XactJlepbI for the Dota Pro Circuit qualifiers.

XactJlepbI finished the ESL One CIS DPC League’s lower division with a 2-5 record, narrowly avoiding relegation. No member of the team has publicly addressed the report as of yet. If the report is true, XactJlepbI may look to add a new mid laner or may disband entirely with its players looking to qualify back to the lower division with a new roster.

Match-fixing in 2021 Dota Pro Circuit so far:

• Meta4Pro concedes over match-fixing suspicions
• Fans theorize Newbee played in DPC on smurf accounts
• Every Valve-banned Dota 2 pro

Dota Pro Circuit leagues don’t fix match fixing in Dota 2

Though the new Dota Pro Circuit format offers more opportunities for teams that were previously stuck in the tier-two or tier-three scene, the issues regarding competitive integrity still linger in a big way. Alongside a variety of other issues with teams and players being removed from leagues, there have been repeated issues with match fixing.

Before league play started, a team was disqualified for account sharing, with speculation that the sharing involved players previously banned by Valve. More recently, Meta4Pro withdrew from the league over suspicions that one or more members of the team had thrown games.

Even outside the known instances of match-fixing, numerous players have gone public about being approached regarding throwing games, including XactJlepbI’s own Funn1k.

Given the sheer number of competitive integrity issues that have arisen in the Dota Pro Circuit and Valve’s general indifference towards preempting these problems, the next season of the Dota Pro Circuit may have similar problems.