The European side of the Dota Pro Circuit was shaken by the news that one team made use of a rule change that allowed coaches to talk to players during games. The integrity of the organizers are now called into question.

The DPC is a competition that pits teams in every region against each other. It is the competition that paves the way for The International, Dota 2's biggest competitive stage. DreamHack and ESL, the organizers for DPC, were called out for a rule change that they made. After releasing a vlog on their youtube channel, viewers noticed that Dota 2 team Alliance was talking to their coach during the game. This is something that is not allowed in almost all other Dota 2 competitions. Coaches were only allowed to talk to players during drafts and breaks.

Dota 2 Pro Circuit rule change enabled coaches to communicate with their team during a game

However, the change seemingly flew under the radar of other teams. According to a tweet by OG CEO J.M.R Luna, the rule change was emailed to team managers. Although, the email did not have the impact as it should as JMR said in the tweet “This one's ONE paragraph in an email to managers. Not at all the way to address a change of this magnitude!”

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Following the frustration from teams and fans, ESL addressed the issue on a tweet. The rule change was reverted backed to the original. ESL supported this revision by saying that the change “does not align with Valve's stance on coaching”. They also apologized to teams for failing to update the rulebook for the reason that they Valve was not fully informed of the changes.