It’s the season of giving in Dota 2, and Valve put on its Santa hat to deliver Frostivus gifts to all. While some players received cosmetics, others drew the short end of the stick and got a Toxic Lump of Coal, which translates to a permanent ban from Dota 2.
Following the update, many players flocked to Reddit, and among them was a high-profile name: Mason Venne. The ex-EG player Venne talked about his ban in a lengthy post that most community members briefly skimmed.
In the post, Mason explained how his behavior score fluctuated despite his attitude in games making him play with certain core features disabled, like voice chat. Frustrated with the situation, he admits to making the mistake of buying a boost to improve his Dota 2 behavior score.
In November 2023, Mason, the controversial Dota 2 streamer, was accused of boosting to fix his behavior score, and his actions finally caught up to him in patch 7.35. After the initial shock, Mason couldn’t hold back his tears as he realized he was permanently banned from the game he played for the last 13 years.
Despite apologizing for his actions and expressing his desire to redeem himself, Dota 2 community members weren’t having it with Mason. Comments like “I ain’t reading all that but congrats, or sorry that happened to you” and “100 percent deserved” almost received more upvotes than Mason’s original post, indicating zero community support for the streamer.
With smurfs spamming community forums with threads asking for forgiveness, players who are late to the patch have been hesitant to open their gifts. Valve’s Frostivus Gift quickly turned into a Schrödinger experiment, but most players were happy to see Valve tightening its policies against smurfs.
