Bane without Nightmare: a critical bug occurred during The International 2026 Qualifiers

Roar Gaming player Loyd LOyd Yong Bing Jie encountered a critical bug during the Chinese closed qualifiers for The International 2026. The player lost the ability to use Nightmare on Bane for the remainder of the map vs. Cloud Rising due to an incident during a teamfight.

LOyd cast his third ability on an enemy Storm Spirit who had Black King Bar active. Storm Spirit, in turn, killed Lion, who was under the effect of the same Nightmare, but cast by Rubick.

As a result, the Nightmare End ability — which becomes active for Bane during “asleep” — replaced Nightmare for the remainder of the match. LOyd attempted to reconnect to the game and even intentionally died to neutral creeps, but this did not resolve the issue.

It should be noted that the bug can be reproduced in the test lobby. However, it is always specifically the hero on the Dire side who loses Nightmare, whether it be Rubick or Bane.

Even though the Roar Gaming support lost his key ability, the team won that map but lost the next two and were eliminated from the qualifiers.

The closed qualifiers for The International 2026 are taking place from 15.06.2026 to 28.06.2026 across five regions. In total, teams will compete for 9 slots in the championship.

As CyberScore previously reported, Tidehunter’s win rate increased by 10% in Patch 7.40 due to a critical bug with Anchor Smash.