BetBoom player disqualified from Dota 2 Bali Major after watching Twitch stream during match

Dota 2’s Bali Major is engulfed in drama after BetBoom’s Offlaner Pure was caught watching a Twitch stream during his team’s match against Tundra Esports.

On July 5, 2023, there was an official match between BetBoom and Tundra Esports in the upper bracket quarter-finals of Dota 2’s Bali Major. During that series, Tundra called a pause to report an issue to the tournament officials.

While the match was paused, BetBoom’s Offlaner Ivan ‘Pure’ Moskalenko alt-tabbed his game and switched to the Twitch stream of Aleksandr ‘Nix’ Levin momentarily. This is against the DPC rules, which state that “players are prohibited from watching any broadcasts while they are currently competing in an official match.”

The rulebook also states that only Steam, Dota 2, and Teamspeak can be open during a LAN event game.

Pure disqualified from Bali Major after incident

Pure’s actions had some serious consequences as BetBoom’s 2-0 victory against Tundra was overturned, the tournament officials announced on July 6’s pre-show. The Russian team now faces elimination from the Bali Major as it is playing in the lower bracket.

The loss may also end up costing BetBoom a spot at The International 2023. With the victory against Tundra, the team was already qualified for the showpiece event based on DPC points.

Shortly before the match against Azure Ray began, Bali Major host Neal ‘Tsunami’ Khandheria announced that Pure had been “disqualified, not just from the series, but for the rest of the event”.

With Roman ‘Resolut1on’ Fomynok, a two-time TI finalist, filling in, BetBoom lost to Azure Ray 2-1 and are out of the Bali Major in 9th-12th place. They can still earn an invite to TI, depending on the results of Quest Esports and Team Aster, the only two other teams who can qualify for the event based on DPC points.

BetBoom respond to disqualification

In a statement posted on VK, BetBoom acknowledged that Pure violated the tournament’s rules but insisted that “there was no malicious intent” from the player.

“We would like to stress that the incident could not have had a serious impact on the almost two-hour match – it happened in the ninth minute,” BetBoom noted.

The Russian organization added that it does not agree with the severity of the punishment. It has submitted an official request to Valve, which, it hopes, will analyze the case with “due care and provide an objective solution.”

Bali Major organizers IO Esports highlighted the punishment for cheating in a statement posted to Twitter. According to the event’s rule 5.2.3, in case of a cheating incident, the player in question “will be disqualified, forfeit his prize money, and be banned from all competitions for a duration of normally 5 years.”

The rule also states that the duration of the ban can be lower, “if significant mitigating factors are in play, but also higher, if there are aggravating circumstances.”

This is not the first time that Pure has found himself in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. In April 2022, he was caught drawing the pro-Russian war symbol ‘Z’ on the minimap during a Beyond the Summit match against Mind Games. His team, Outsiders, was disqualified from the tournament, and he was dropped by the organization.