Virtus.Pro admit to cheating, replaced by AD FINEM at the Summit 5

After a day of fevered speculation about cheating in The Summit 5 European qualifiers Grand Finals, Virtus.Pro have finally laid their cards on the table to admit their guilt. The Russian team has knowingly and deliberately broken the rules when they had Vega Squadron’s Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko replace their own Ilya “ALOHADANCE” Korobkin without announcing the admins. AD FINEM will take Virtus.Pro’s place at The Summit 5, this July, in Los Angeles.

Virtus.Pro’s Ilya “ALOHADANCE” Korobkin lost his Internet connection during the third game of the European qualifiers Grand Finals, on May 29th. At that point, the series was tied between Virtus.Pro and AD FINEM, 1:1, and the Russians were slightly ahead in the third game. The match was paused for close to 20 minutes, under the pretext that ALOHADANCE was on his way to an Internet Cafe. Ultimately, the admins forced an unpause, Virtus.Pro played the rest of the game with four players and ended up losing.

Simultaneously, Vega Squadron’s player Vladimir “No[o]ne” Minenko – who was streaming on his channel at that time – abandoned a public game and ended his stream abruptly, stating that he was about to stand-in for Virtus.Pro. The inculpatory VoD was later removed from his channel.

Before the fourth game of the Grand Finals series got underway, ALOHANDANCE tweeted out that his Internet connection was back on. An unusual item build on his Juggernaut caught the community’s eye and speculation that No[o]ne was in fact the one playing from ALOHANDANCE’s account started to flourish.

Virtus.Pro took the series, 3:2, and appeared to have secured the European spot for The Summit 5.

In an apparent attempt to jump before they were pushed, Virtus.Pro subsequently admitted to breaking the rules and tweeted out they were “withdrawing” from The Summit 5, hours before the official announcement from Beyond the Summit.

We apologize to our fans, BTS, our opponents, and the entire Dota 2 community. We admit to breaking the rules and we understand that we can not continue in the tournament.

— Anton Cherepennikov – CEO of Virtus.Pro

According to Cherepennikov, the Russian organization will analyze the situation thoroughly.

It is still unclear whether the Virtus.Pro players will face any repercussions for an incident that appears to have been a calculated, planned act, with steps taken to conceal the deliberate rule-breaking.

Vega Squadron have also admitted to their player’s misconduct, stating that the organization has already “applied necessary disciplinary sanctions”. The aforementioned sanctions have remained unspecified.

No[o]ne initially agreed to help a team from his own region without knowing that he couldn’t be a stand-in on this tournament as he already took part in it. Of course, he made a mistake and realizes it.

— Vega’s CEO – Alexey “Vega” Kondakov

AD FINEM, who will make the trip to LA in Virtus.Pro’s place, seem motivated to prove that they deserve The Summit 5 European spot, despite losing to Virtus.Pro in the qualifier’s finals: “We don’t really feel that we deserve it, since we lost in the grand final. Virtus.pro admitted their wrongdoing but we will show you on The Summit 5 that we deserve to be there.”

The Summit 5 will take place between July 13-17, at the BTS house, in Los Angeles, California. Eight teams – four directly invited (yet to be announced) and four qualified ones – will make the trip to LA.

Fnatic wiped out MVP.Phoenix, 3:0, in The Summit 5 SEA qualifiers finals, securing their regional spot at the main event. Digital Chaos went head to head with one of NA’s strongest teams – compLexity Gaming, and prevailed, 3:2, in The Summit 5 NA qualifiers finals, while Wings Gaming will be representing the Chinese region, after taking down VG.Reborn, 3:2.