Dota 2 fans are calling out tournament organizer ESL for their apparently unfair decision to disqualify NAVI Junior for bug abuse when other teams, namely Team Spirit and Tundra Esports reportedly also also done similarly.
Lets dive into the bug, its workings, and what ESL’s options are given both Team Spirit and Tundra – two of the biggest teams in Dota 2 – could potentially miss an event due to this bug abuse.
Announcement on NAVI Junior’s disqualification (Image credit: ESL)
ESL Disqualifies NAVI Junior For Smoke Bug Abuse
There’s a new Dota 2 exploit that even pro players are using. Dubbed the smoke bug abuse, a player can check whether a Smoke of Deceit from the enemy player’s inventory has been used or not simply by using Alt + Right-click hotkeys and hovering on the opponents inventory. If the item has been used, there will be no message that pop-up, indicating that the item is no longer in the enemy player’s inventory. As such, this lets the bug abuser know when to fall back and avoid the attempted enemy smoke gank successfully.
After replays of NAVI Junior’s qualifier match versus AVULUS proved as evidence of the smoke bug abuse, ESL did not hesitate to disqualify NAVI Junior from ESL One Raleigh 2025. Most Dota 2 players don’t have an issue with ESL’s decision to punish NAVI Junior here, but it becomes a debate when ESL hasn’t done the same to other Dota 2 teams that also abused the same bug.
Tundra Esports and Team Spirit caught red-handed for Dota 2 smoke bug abuse?
It didn’t take long before clips of the two other Dota 2 teams also using the smoke bug abuse in several matches appeared. As such, Dota 2 fans are calling on ESL to act similarly to the two teams too, disqualification.
With multiple teams exploiting the same bug and caught red-handed, ESL will have to either have to disqualify all other teams that abused the bug or retract NAVI Junior’s disqualification. However, the latter option is perhaps not possible anymore because they already invited AVULUS, the runner-up of the qualifier, to replace NAVI Junior.
Moreover, it seems like ESL wasn’t aware of the smoke bug until the bug abuse clip went viral on Dota 2 Reddit. At that point, we can assume ESL likely didn’t warn its participating teams to not abuse the known smoke abuse bug. As such, the immediate decision to disqualify NAVI Junior was rather premature from their end.
ESL’s response to other Smoke Bug Abuse cases from Team Spirit and Tundra Esports (Image credit: ESL)
Will Tundra Esports and Team Spirit be disqualified from ESL One Raleigh 2025?
It seems like ESL will have to disqualify the two teams for abusing the same bug, especially since their credibility is at stake here. Not doing so, will mean that there are favoritism from ESL towards popular Dota 2 powerhouses. This isn’t the first time ESL has disqualified a team at ESL One Raleigh 2025 as recently, a team used a ringer during a closed qualifier match.
As for NAVI Junior, it’s a shame that a rising star team missed their big debut. Note that it was only the captain, Stanislav “Riddys” Mitroshkyn, who was abusing the smoke abuse bug, but the disqualification from ESL One Raleigh 2025 will affect the rest of the team as well.