A Dota 2 team has returned after a match-fixing scandal threatened to end their careers.
Arrow Gaming was among the most successful teams of the year in the Southeast Asia region. They had qualified for The International 4 and made the finals of multiple regional competitions.
But an ugly match fixing scandal broke out in October, with players on the team denying and later admitting to involvement in a scheme to bet large sums of items on matches the team would then lose.
The team has now made a return to the competitive Dota 2 landscape. Their new name gives a hint of the PR campaign they’re hoping to run under: “We Are Sorry.”
We Are Sorry will make its competitive debut in the Vietnam Champion League. As terms of their entrance, no matches to be played will be added to any of the popular Dota 2 betting websites.
How this could affect the team’s participation in future events is unknown. Tournament organizers such as those at The Summit removed the team from competition following the revelation of their match fixing.
The Synergy League took things even further than that. Following a judgement that former Arrow Gaming member Yi Liong “ddz” Kok had falsified screenshots in order to try and prove his innocence in the scandal, the league made the decision to ban the team for life.
The Arrow Gaming scandal was entirely separate from the match fixing that plagued the Star Ladder competition, where two Filipino teams were banned for the offense, with hints that more teams were involved.
There is precedent for such returns as these to Dota 2 competition after revelations of match fixing. Aleksey “Solo” Berezin, perhaps the most infamous offender, was playing at the highest levels of European competition with Team Empire until recently deciding to step down from the team.
