The coach of Natus Vincere commented on the disqualification of NaVi Junior from ESL One Raleigh 2025

The coach of Natus Vincere's Dota 2 roster Vitaliy Sword_Art Petkin commented on NAVI Junior's disqualification from ESL One Raleigh 2025. He shared his opinion on his personal Twitter account.

According to Petkin, only PGL had previously informed participants about the ban on using the smoke bug. However, many tournaments' rules lack a clear definition of what exactly is considered abuse of this mechanic. After the ESL tournament in Bangkok, all participants should have understood that this tournament operator considers this issue a bug.

The juniors decided to take a risk and got what they deserved. They used the bug/feature not only against AVULUS. However, there are no complaints about AVULUS themselves — it is their right to file an appeal, and it is up to ESL to decide how to proceed in this situation

The coach also emphasized that the main questions in this situation concern Valve and why the bug has not yet been fixed. Despite the smoke bug being known for a long time, it remains unclear how many teams have used it in official matches.

Teams have known about the smoke trick for a year now, and God knows who and how many times it has been used in official matches during this time

It should be reminded that on January 22, NAVI Junior was disqualified from the upcoming LAN tournament in America for using the Smoke of Deceit bug during the closed qualifiers.

Earlier, CyberScore.live reported that all participants of ESL One Raleigh 2025 have been determined.