Soniqs Offlaner Leslão Accused of Racism

As the final day of the The International 11 group stage comes to a close, there is more disappointment on show for fans of North American org Soniqs. The team found themselves going 5-13 in the group stage, meaning that they were eliminated from group A along with their Russian opponents BetBoom.

Despite playing some top tier Dota and being able to call themselves one of the top 20 Dota teams in the world , they finished their TI journey lower down than last year. But surprisingly, that wasn’t the news that fans’ attention was most drawn to after it emerged during a game that offlaner Leslão used an offensive, racist term when naming his effigy, which appeared on screen during their final match.

Inappropriate and hurtful

During one of Soniqs' final games of their TI11 run, the observer briefly hovered over Leslão's effigy  in the base and revealed the racist message to the audience of thousands of viewers. Fans took straight to social media including Twitter and Reddit to call out the offlaner and voice their frustrations. Not long after, Leslão himself took to Twitter to issue an apology.

According to him, he had "carelessly written it many years ago" and forgotten about it. Some fans have doubted whether this is true, saying that Valve should be able to confirm when the  title was set. Leslão also acknowledged that the term is "inappropriate and hurtful" in the apology. While no official statement has been released by Soniqs yet, it would be very surprising if there was no further fallout from the org.

Not the first time, hopefully the last

While it seems that some fans are ready and willing to accept the apology, this is not the first time that a professional Dota 2 player has been at the centre of a racism controversy. During the regional qualifiers, South American player for Infamous, Leostyle was further accused of racism after using the same offensive term to name his monkey courier. Something that was also picked up on by fans during a pro game.

Unfortunately, there were very few consequences for Leostyle, with some fans questioning the severity. Infamous simply received a penalty on their pick priority in the South American regional qualifiers. It seems safe to say that if Soniqs had not been eliminated from the TI11 group stage today, they would have faced a similar penalty. However, with no more upcoming games for the rest of the year, it's unclear whether Soniqs will be impacted in the coming DPC leagues.

Image source: Liquipedia