

Photo from Facebook.

The Premier League posted this statement on their website. Also read the follow-up article on GosuGamers.

Laurent 'Ange' Blum is in hot soup again and this time, he is accused of cheating item creators who made customized items to sell alongside his The Premier League tickets. Rumours have it that the intentional money holding by Ange has led to the removal of all the TPL tickets from the Dota 2 store and has allegedly revoked Ange's license to host anymore tournaments in the future.

A talk with Thiago 't_vidotto' Vidotto

Ange's scheme to take advantage of others comes as no surprise to many in the scene because he was reported to have stolen MYM DotA's share of their prize pool during his time as their manager. Through unknown circumstances, such a big news was never reported on any major news site and as a result, history was allowed to repeat itself, his victim this time being none other than Thiago 't_vidotto' Vidotto.

Vidotto is a 29 year old Brazilian workshop artist who specializes in creating Dota 2 couriers. Some of his work includes the famous Captain Bamboo, BeyondTheSummit's El'Gato and Cyborgmatt's Shagbark. Being relatively new to the scene, he had no idea who Ange is and his notoriety in the Dota 2 scene.

Like many other workshop artists, Vidotto was approached by Ange earlier this year to create a courier to sell alongside the fastly selling The Premier League DotaTV ticket. At that time, Vidotto, a courier designing specialist, was already working on a courier and offered Ange the self-evolving Wyrmeleon in return for an undisclosed share of the ticket sales. It took Vidotto two more weeks to complete the courier.

The ticket for The Premier League Season IV went up on Dota 2 Store on the 7th of February 2013 but Vidotto immediately noticed that his Steam account was not linked to the ticket. Normally, everybody who has worked on a particular workshop item will have their name posted on the Dota 2 store and have money transferred directly into their bank account with every sale made. "He never added me to the ticket. He gave a lot of excuses, like 'it was illegal to do that,'" said Vidotto.

"I started questioning what he was saying because on the first week, he said they made X number of sales and after one month, the number went lower than what it was initially," Vidotto continued. This "strategic" maneuver from Ange means he was already trying to cheat Vidotto for the first time, hiding the real number of sales so he can end up paying Vidotto a lot less than what he is supposed to make.

After heavy delays, Vidotto finally got paid, but he was still unsatisfied with not knowing the real sales numbers. Vidotto's many attempts to obtain the real sales numbers were met with aggressive responses from Ange. This incident combined with many previous incidents probably led to the removal of TPL tickets from the Dota 2 store.

Ange also worked with Anuxi and dondon, two high profile workshop artists, and it is unfortunate that we could not get in contact with them for further clarification on the matter.

The MYM incident



MYM at The International 1. Photo by DPM

In 2011, Ange was accused of withholding prize pool winnings from the MYM DotA team in the months leading to The International 2011. After finishing fourth in the million dollar tournament, the Danish team departed from MYM and spilled the beans.

Earlier today, we got in contact with many members of the late MYM DotA team and while they refuse to give an official statement on the matter, they did previously confirm that Ange has walked off with a fair amount of cash. Till today, some of the members are still talking to lawyers about the money Ange owed them in hopes of getting the money returned.

So what now?

According to our sources, The Premier League has ceased to exist and Ange is now missing in action. Apart from that, ESWC European and North American qualifiers which was suppose to be hosted by The Premier League is currently in limbo until ESWC devises an alternative plan.

As for the teams who have participated and cashed in season five of The Premier League, it is unlikely that they will be receiving any of the prize money they won. According to Joakim 'Akke' Akterhall of Team Alliance, they have not received their $9,000 first place winning from Ange.

We sent a message to Ange on Skype and although he received it, he did not bother replying nor appear online at all.

We also shot an e-mail to Erik Johnson and he replied that he had no comments to add to the matter.