Perma-banned Cheng “vtFaded” Jia Hao and Wong “Gy” Kok Guan were allegedly spotted in the ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 qualifiers where Geek Fam players noticed their presence.
Using the name Wizard King, the vtFaded stack advanced to the open qualifier finals, where a victory over Geek Fam would have secured them a spot in the closed qualifiers.
According to SEA Dota 2 fans on a Nov. 12 Reddit thread, Geek Fam called out vtFaded and Gy as both teams joined the lobby, resulting in Wizard King abandoning the match altogether. After not coming back for the game, Geek Fam was handed a default win, but Wizard King was still allowed to play in the third-place match, where they suffered a devastating loss against IHC Esports.
VtFaded and Gy were permanently banned by Valve in 2022 when Team Orca was disqualified from DPC SEA 2021/22 season, Division 2. The players were both involved in match-fixing and playing in multiple teams under different aliases in an active DPC season.
The players used smurf accounts to avoid being noticed, but it was their playstyle that gave them away. At the highest level of competition, players often have fixed positions for certain items and habits that make them more identifiable to other players.
Similarly, TI11 winner Neta “33” Shapira was caught by his opponents for illegally standing in for a team in an ESL Turkey tournament in 2017. Despite playing on another account, 33’s item positions and gameplay style gave him away, and he received a temporary ban from playing in ESL Turkey events.
It’s currently unclear whether the suspected vtFaded squad will appear in the second open qualifiers since ESL could be investigating the matter. The second round of open qualifiers in SEA starts on Nov. 14, where two more teams will advance to the closed qualifiers, which is set to take place on Nov. 16.
