The 2021 Dota Pro Circuit’s Southeast Asia organizer PGL Esports announced today that Team Assault will be disqualified from the Lower Division due to account sharing.
Indonesian stack Army Geniuses will take Assault’s former slot in the Lower Division since they held the next-best record in the closed qualifiers.
Several SEA pros chimed in on reportedly “suspicious teams” before PGL’s confirmation of Assault’s wrongdoing. HOYO’s Galvin “Meracle” Kang and Galaxy Racer’s Adam “343“ Hussein had a brief exchange about the pervasiveness of such teams in the region.
Lee “X1aOyU” Qianyu of ZeroTwo spoke out in a pub game about Assault, allegedly identifying them as former members of Newbee playing from China using borrowed accounts, explaining their higher-than-average ping while playing on the SEA server.
The former Newbee squad consisting of Xu “Moogy” Han, Yin “Aq” Rui, Wen “Wizard” Lipeng, Yan “Waixi” Chao, and The International 2 champion Zeng “Faith” Hongda was permanently banned from all Valve and Perfect World tournaments on Jan. 3. The same group was also implicated in a match-fixing scandal in May 2020 and was henceforth banned from ImbaTV and the Chinese Dota 2 professional association-organized events.
Dot Esports has reached out to PGL for more information.