A new wave of bans has occurred in Dota 2: for which Valve has blocked tens of thousands of gamers

Valve has launched an update that brings the winter event Frostivus to Dota 2. Until January 15, players can enjoy special quests filled with gifts and rewards. But this is not the only thing that may interest users, because many of them will now simply not be able to enter the game.

An unpleasant Christmas present

As the company announced on its blog, several significant steps have been taken in the last week to improve the game, including a huge wave of bans against cheaters and “smurfs”. Smurfs are advanced players who create new accounts to play against lower ranked users. In this way, they get easy opponents and easy matches that do not correspond to their skill level, reports 24 Kanal with reference to Insider Gaming.

The company says that has suspended 65,594 Smurf accounts. But the total number of bans is even higher, because other types of offenders have also been banned, including the so-called “griefers”, who deliberately create problems or harm their allied players in order to spoil their gaming experience.

While most of our bans and penalties are usually done behind the scenes, it's become a Frostivus tradition to lift the curtain a little and talk about this ongoing work. So, this holiday season, we hope you're looking forward to cleaner, friendlier, and fairer gaming, free from the 65,594 Smurf accounts we took action against this week – the company wrote in the announcement.

Valve noted that a significant number of players who were banned had high MMR ratings.

What you need to know about Frostivus

As part of the winter event, players were introduced to a new treasury, as well as a holiday story. In addition, the developers added a “Forge”, where you can exchange so-called “Extracts” for valuable rewards and bonuses for “Crownfall”.

There are 4 Extracts: “Crystal Joy”, “Essence of Friendship”, “Concentrated Whim” and “Holiday Spirit”. These resources can be exchanged for great gifts: voice lines, stickers, emoticons and loading screens. Some of the more interesting rewards – a festive courier, a new skin for the Tormentor, 5 tokens for each act of “Crownfall”, a capsule with stickers and coins for discounts in the event store. You can also get 5 treasure chests from last year's “Frostivus” event.

The current Treasure contains 17 unique hero sets, as well as characters for Puja and Anti-Mage. In addition, an incredibly rare reward is the Arcana for Windranger. Almost every set includes a bonus, such as an animation, a loading screen, or, in the case of Marcy, a pet.

Frostivus ends on January 15th.