BetBoom Penalized for Abusing Dota 2 Bug at ESL One Birmingham 2024

Controversy strikes ESL One Birmingham 2024 again, as the BetBoom Team was found abusing a Dota 2 bug on the tournament's first day.

Captain of BetBoom Team, Vitalie "Save-" Melnic, found himself at the center of this mess due to a bug that allowed his Shadow Demon to have a level three ultimate when his hero was only level twelve.

BetBoom Team lost the game and the series against G2 x iG despite abusing the bug. However, ESL did hand BetBoom a 'Level 2 Draft Penalty' as per the official announcement made by the tournament organizers on X.

BetBoom Team Abuses Shadow Demon Dota 2 Bug Against G2 x iG Resulting in Level 2 Draft Penalty

On 22^nd April 2024, BetBoom Team went against G2 x iG after drawing a series against Team Falcons, one of the favorites to win ESL One Birmingham 2024.

During the first match of the series against G2 x iG, Save from BetBoom playing Shadow Demon was spotted with a decked-out ultimate at only level twelve, due to a Dota 2 bug involving the hero which he knowingly abused.

The incident did not go unnoticed as keen eyes quickly spotted this bug and started investigating it. 

The bug abused by Save- was originally found by a member of the community, who shared his finding on Reddit a while back.

According to the user, Shadow Demon's ability Demonic Cleanse which the hero attains after consuming an Aghanim's Shard somehow became linked with the hero's ultimate ability Demonic Purge.

This was due to the tag 'DOTA_ABILITY_TYPE_ULTIMATE' being removed from Shadow Demon's file and resulted in players being able to upgrade Demonic Purge to Level 3 as early as Shadow Demon reaching Level 6 by simply leveling up Demonic Cleanse.

Due to the two abilities getting linked because of the bug, every time players put a point to level up Demonic Cleanse even Demonic Purge used to level up.

This is exactly what Save did on his Shadow Demon, acquiring the Aghanim's Shard at Level 10 and completely upgrading his ultimate by Level 12.

Despite abusing the bug in the first game against G2 x iG, BetBoom ended up on the losing side, not just in this game but even the next one, where ESL had levied a 'Level 2 Draft Penalty' against them, walking away with a 2-0 defeat.

Interestingly, this is not the first time BetBoom has found itself struck with a penalty in a tournament. Last year at Bali Major, BetBoom's carry player at the time, Ivan "Pure" Moskalenko, was caught watching a stream during a pause.

This was eventually ruled out as cheating and stream sniping which was strongly advocated for a penalty by Azure Ray, which resulted in BetBoom Team being handed a 'Level Four Loss' penalty.