K1 Uses Racial Slur Against Febby During a Ranked Dota 2 Game

Beastcoast's carry player Héctor Antonio "K1" Rodriguez allegedly used a racial slur, directed at former TNC Predator captain Kim "Febby" Yong-min during a ranked game. As the lane progressed, both players seemed unhappy with the way the other played, passing advice and suggestions to one another. Eventually, K1 pushed his limits and took to voice chat and said a racial slur to Febby whilst asking him to pull creeps. Others on the team noted that the racial slur was inappropriate, with one even stating ”bye bye on TI,” but Febby ignored the slur and simply went on to express his discontentment with the lane.

Apparently, this is the same racist remark used by Carlo "Kuku" Palad in 2018, which resulted in his suspension from The Chongqing Major and the WESG 2018.

K1 passes a racial slur remark towards Febby

Febby was paired with K1's Smurf account in a ranked game during one of his recent Twitch livestreams. While he played support on Bane, K1 chose a carry Luna.

Within the first few minutes of the game, K1 asked Febby to just hit the heroes on Bane with high damage, while he concentrated on denying the creeps. Febby, a little angered, responded that K1 would be muted if he didn't stop talking.

As the lane progressed, K1 looked to be unsatisfied with Febby's lane play, remarking in the ally chat, "what are you doing?" He also pinged his level, suggesting that Febby was remaining too close to the creeps on the lane.

As a counterargument, Febby urged K1 to avoid drawing creep aggro too often. “You have no idea. If you attack them, you keep pushing out the waves. Stop attacking them under the f**king creep equilibrium,” he said.

As a result, K1 used his voice chat and uttered the racial slur. “Go pull ******, go pull,” he said. In response, Febby said that he couldn't trade against the enemy's position four Bounty Hunter and that he was done with the lane since he was out of Sentry Wards. “I cannot f**king five Bounty Hunter, I am out of vision. Bye, bye,” he said.

Edit: The original clip that was posted on Febby's channel has since been deleted. However, here's a mirror of the incident.

Meanwhile, KBU.US’s offlaner Kirill "Sunlight" Kachinsky, who was also a part of the team, wrote, “K1, bye bye on TI” likely in response to K1’s comment.

Beastcoast and K1 are yet to make an official statement on the topic, which is gaining steam on social media sites. Febby created a video of the incident for his YouTube channel, but when it was shared on a Reddit thread, he seemingly turned it private.

The remark made by K1 is the identical one made by Kuku in 2018 during a ranked game versus a Chinese player in an attempt to mock the Chinese community. As a result, Valve had barred him from competing in The Chongqing Major in early 2019 since his team at the time, (TNC Predator) “had mishandled the situation on multiple occasions, making the situation much worse than it needed to be,” according to Valve.

Later, Kuku was barred from entering Chongqing by the city’s government, forcing him to miss the WESG 2018 as well. Kuku, however, was permitted to compete at The International 9 in Shanghai later in 2019.

Following Kuku's incident, there have been reports of players making racist and discriminatory statements to one another in ranked games, but the penalties have not been as harsh as being banned from a Dota 2 Major. It remains to be seen if K1 will face any sanctions as a result of this occurrence.