After Natus Vincere Junior was disqualified from ESL One Raleigh, the NAVI organization has spoke out about the incident.
On January 22, 2025, ESL, the organizers of ESL One Raleigh, announced via their X (formerly Twitter) that they would disqualify Natus Vincere (NAVI) Junior from the Western Europe qualifiers. The reason behind this was the use of a bug involving Smoke, which had apparently been previously flagged in other tournaments as sufficient grounds for disqualification. Following this, ESL launched a full investigation into the qualifiers, and yesterday, they released their findings.
Natus Vincere Junior and the smoke bug of Dota 2
The bug in question relates to the Smoke of Deceit item in Dota 2 and a way to know whether the enemy has used the item without requiring vision of them. If you had vision of an enemy with the item in their inventory, you could click and drag the item. This would, in turn, display an error message, letting you know that you do not control the unit. Whether the message shows or not would alert the player as to whether or not the smoke had been used.
When it came to the ESL One Raleigh 2025 qualifiers, NAVI Junior was first called out for using the bug by AVULUS after their victory in the lower bracket final. At that point in time, following an investigation, NAVI Junior was swiftly disqualified – which caused a major uproar.
Fast forward to January 29, 2025, when ESL announced the findings of a further investigation into the bug and the qualifiers. The report is extensive, containing details of every team that ESL determined to have used the bug and how often they were seen using it. It also includes different tiers of punishments, depending on the severity of the findings.
The full investigation and findings posted by ESL can be found here.
Related articles
NAVI hits back at ESL
With the investigation concluded, three teams were eventually found guilty of abusing the bug – 9Pandas, NAVI Junior, and Aurora Gaming. All three have now been disqualified from the event, which means different things for each team.
- Natus VIncere Junior – disqualified and lost their spot at ESL One Raleigh.
- 9Pandas – disqualified and unable to join if a team from their region is unable to attend.
- Aurora Gaming - disqualified and unable to join if a team from their region is unable to attend.
Since the original disqualification, fans have been calling for every team to be dealt the same hand as NAVI Junior. Notably, teams such as Team Spirit and Tundra Esports were called into question for also utilizing the bug – but with the investigation now complete, it seems as though they have been cleared.
After everything seemed to have settled, the NAVI organization posted on X, calling out ESL for their investigation. The organization defends its players, stating that they were not informed of any prohibition of the bug. They follow up with an argument about its widespread usage and that teams were informed of the offense only at PGL Wallachia.
NAVI replaced at ESL One Raleigh 2025
Right now, it seems as though the die has been cast, and NAVI is unlikely to get a chance to appeal the decision. While a few teams escaped with a slap on the wrist or simply a fine, the three mentioned previously take the full brunt of the punishment. With the metaphoric dust finally settling, AVULUS will be the team to take the place of NAVI Junior at ESL One Raleigh 2025.
The tournament is set to kick off on April 7, with 12 teams fighting for their share of the $1,000,000 prize pool. With all teams cleared of bug abuse for the time being, it seems likely that this will be the finalized teams heading to ESL One Raleigh 2025.
We will have more details on the event closer to the time, so stay tuned to esports.gg for everything Dota 2 related.
