Larl explained himself for the first time regarding bug abuse, revealing why he did it

Denis "Larl" Sigitov, the midlaner of Team Spirit , stated that using the smoke bug is prohibited in official matches, but he did it just for fun to check if it still worked.

He opened up on this issue to eScoreNews.

“It's very simple. Take a look at the whole tournament. I didn't even use it once. I didn't care anymore because I thought it was fixed. I was always asking, is this bug fixed or not? It’s important to know even when just playing pubs. In public games, I would 100% use it if someone used it against me. Specially since pubs are so **** right now I mean, why not?”

It was prior to the actual match where I discovered this bug. So, I asked, ‘Is it usable or not?’ The response was, ‘We aren't sure.’ So, I said, ‘Let’s put it to the test.’ After I checked it once, during post game I informed my squad that it worked. Their reaction was, ‘Avoid using it.’ And that was it, I never touched that tool again. It was simply for entertainment purposes.”

Larl accepted he was cognizant of the bug abusing rule set by ESL and did not implement it in the tournament. This did not stop him from trying it once to satisfy his curiosity about whether or not it was functioning. He also confessed that he utilized the public bug on purpose during unsanctioned games to maintain the balance with some of his rivals.

He claimed it will fall on him entirely, if Team Spirit gets disqualified from ESL One Raleigh 2025. But he takes full responsibility for it. At the same time he pointed fingers at Valve, saying, they were to be blamed for the situation for delaying the fix of that bug.

In relation to that, let me remind you that Dota 2 supporters have claimed Larl used the bug during the ESL One Raleigh 2025 qualifiers and demanded ESL to disqualify Team Spirit as they did NAVI Junior .