ATF follows up with an explanation following the incident.
Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf and Akbar "SoNNeikO" Butaev are both in the hot seat at PGL Wallachia Season 2 after a physical altercation happened between the two in the hotel lobby. AVULUS, SoNNeikO's team, has been given a penalty as a result, losing massive drafting time for the entire series against Team Falcons.
What happened between SoNNeikO and ATF?
During the third day of PGL Wallachia's group stage, a heated incident happened before AVULUS and Team Falcons squared off. The newly-formed Western European team, AVULUS, fields prominent captain SoNNeikO at the helm, who allegedly resents Falcons' offlaner, ATF, due to a pub trash-talk beef.
According to many in the community, SoNNeikO warned ATF that he would punch him if he qualified for a LAN event. Although plenty of time has passed since the pub shenanigans took place, it seems like the tension remains.
According to PGL, the two had "an altercation in the hotel lobby" but only SoNNeikO's side is penalized. We can assume that he likely attempted to be physical thus the heavy penalty on AVULUS' next series.
UPDATE: ATF explains the incident
ATF has recently elaborated on what happened during the hotel lobby incident. According to him, Sonneiko had sent him threats on Twitter/X after ATF called him "braindead" in a pub match. The messages were sent 3 months ago when ATF achieved 14K MMR.
During PGL Wallachia's third day, Sonneiko confronted ATF, put his arms around his shoulder, and threatened to punch him and "put him in the ground". ATF also added that SoNNeikO continued to harass him despite AVULUS' coach and players trying to stop him.
Related articles
PGL penalizes AVULUS with a Level 3 Penalty
The altercation between SoNNeikO and ATF led to AVULUS facing an in-game drafting penalty. PGL imposed a "Level 3 Penalty" which removes 110 seconds from bonus drafting time for their entire series against Team Falcons. This gives AVULUS a major disadvantage and their ongoing win streak may be jeopardized.
Quinn backs up ATF: "[Avulus] should be [disqualified] from the entire tournament"
The issue involving ATF may not be a surprise to most people in the community. He is notorious for being a difficult player who often shows in-game toxicity against others in pub matches. This results in some of the Dota 2 community calling this incident a consequence of his actions. However, Gaimin Gladiators' midlaner, Quinn, quickly came to his defense.
Words in a pub are COMPLETELY different than physical threats in real life. Do not conflate these two it's insane and dangerous. If anything I think the punishment is not enough and [Avulus] should be DQd from the entire tournament. Physical threats are BEYOND unacceptable and should be punished ridiculously hard.
PGL Wallachia S2 continues amidst the drama. The tournament hosts 16 teams in Bucharest, Romania and teams will compete for a slice of the million-dollar prize. Keep up with more Dota 2 news on esports.gg!
