Owen thrives on the thrill of competition, particularly in Valve titles. He reached a peak of 8,500 MMR in Dota 2 and remains a regular contender on the Southeast Asian leaderboards. Beyond his main forte, he has extensive experience in the Counter-Strike 2 esports scene and a deep understanding of esports betting.
Olivia Richman is a seasoned esports journalist who has worked with Inven Global, Esports Illustrated, Esports.gg, and more. As an editor and writer at Esports Insider, she loves telling unique esports stories, especially within the FGC. When not working and gaming, Olivia loves collecting Kirby plush, eating sushi, and driving her cars at the track.
The Dota 2 scene was unpleasantly greeted with groundbreaking news days before The International 15, with LGD Gaming’s prodigy Santiago “TaiLung” Agüero Gustavo getting banned from the tournament and all future PGL events for life.
The 17-year-old Peruvian was heavily suspected of potential competitive integrity issues – so bad that his own team had to reportedly snitch on him.
A case like this has, of course, sent shockwaves to the community, particularly those in South America. Filipe “Astini” Ribeiro , a Brazilian Dota 2 coach, had a lot to say about the matter, so I decided to shoot him a message, and he responded.
He didn’t hold back, and honestly went even further than I expected – things go even deeper than match-fixing in South America. Here’s what he had to say.
Astini is a pretty high-profile coach from South America, having worked with numerous teams from the region, but he has also gone international. You’ve probably heard of him from his most notable stint with PARIVISION, where he helped the team place in the top three at TI14 last year.
He’s worked with numerous South American players before, but Astini told me he had barely interacted with TaiLung directly. He only remembers one possible interaction.
Astini’s friend, CaioGordo, told him about Osito (TaiLung’s former in-game name) and Máximo “Wits” Orozco Alza (now PlayTime’s carry) when they were 14 and 15 years old. He did a 30-minute coaching session with a team that had one of the two prospects, and he can’t even recall which one.
Fast forward to his most recent ban, and plenty in the community have sympathized with TaiLung. People argued that maybe the teenager didn’t understand the consequences, or could be influenced by others into doing what he did,
“This ‘was just a kid’ narrative is a very weak argument to defend criminals,” he told me. “The biggest streamers in Peru were banned for matchfixing. They know what happens. They just think they won’t be caught and that the risk-reward ratio pays off.”
According to him, TaiLung wasn’t this naive teenager who found himself in a bad situation – the kid knew what he was getting into.
Why is South America plagued with match-fixing? TaiLung’s case isn’t the first time something like this has happened in South America. Literally just last month, we had PlayTime’s scandal involving Gonzalo “DarkMago” Herrera and Juan “Vintage” Angulo while they were competing at the Esports World Cup.
If you’re a Peruvian pro like TaiLung or DarkMago, playing for top squads like LGD Gaming and PlayTime, you’re probably getting paid salaries in USD. Getting such salaries should already be more than enough to put you in a comfortable spot living in South America. So, why do they still get involved?
“Peru esports c…