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.
Image Credit: PGL South American Dota 2 just got dealt one of its worst blows in God knows how long. At the Dota 2 tournament at the Esports World Cup , one of the biggest tournaments of the year, PlayTim e’s mid-laner Gonzalo “DarkMago” Herrera and coach Juan “Vintage” Angulo were provisionally suspended by ESIC over suspected breaches of its Anti-Corruption Code.
We would later learn that the “integrity issues” they were suspected of led to hints of possible match-fixing. As a result, the pair were removed from the Esports World Cup hours before the team’s scheduled match against Vici Gaming.
With both barred from competing in the tournament, PlayTime was unable to field substitutes in time. As a result, the South Americans were handed a default loss in the elimination game, meaning they were sent packing from the $2 million event without even playing the series.
Normally, this would just be another unfortunate case in Dota’s relatively ugly history with match-fixing, but given how the South American scene has been developing over the 2026 season, this case does sting a lot more for the region.
For many years, people have clowned on the South American Dota scene, seeing it as the game’s forgotten child. Historically, the region looked like group stage fodder – they’d earn one slot to the biggest events and get eliminated without seeing the light of the playoffs stage.
However, the narrative has changed quite a lot in recent years, especially during the 2025-2026 season. South America now has LGD Gaming (formerly Heroic) and a secondary force: PlayTime, who have looked like a real Tier 1 contender.
For the first time in a while, South America was no longer sending one team to the big stage; it was sending real contenders – plural. We would consistently see one South American make the playoffs of a big event. If it weren’t LGD Gaming, it would be PlayTime finishing an S-tier tournament within the top eight.
Many other fans and I expected Valve to finally give South America two slots for The International this year. But no – Valve only handed the region one slot, and LGD Gaming took it from PlayTime this time around.
Image Credit: Michal Konkol / BLAST Missing TI might have changed everything TI is obviously the biggest event of the year. Even though the prize pool has seen a significant dip over the years, it’s still the one that actually matters most.
With PlayTime missing out on that slot to LGD Gaming, the Esports World Cup had pretty much become their last tournament of the season. Whatever happened in Paris was, in a very real sense, the last thing that would define their campaign until post-TI.
The thing is, there’s always going to be a massive roster shuffle surrounding TI. Teams that failed to qualify for it are pretty likely to make ch…