On 17th January, Valve announced a fresh round of bans as part of their continuous effort to put an end to smurfing and other illicit activities. This move had a negative effect on many professional Dota 2 players. Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk claimed on Telegram that although many smurf accounts had been restricted, Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi's smurf account did not. However, in reaction to Yatoro's post, Miracle's smurf accounts were quickly banned the following day.

Miracle's Smurf is banned as a result of Yatoro's outrage

Over the past year, Valve has been enforcing wide ban waves in an effort to combat smurfing and lower the number of smurfs in Dota 2. The 17th January ban wave had an impact on numerous Dota 2 pros, such as Yatoro, Alimzhan "watson" Islambekov, and Alexander "TORONTOTOKYO" Khertek. When the affected Dota 2 players found out about their account bans, their responses varied.

Following the ban, Miracle was criticised by Yatoro on Telegram for not having any of his six smurf accounts banned, with the comment, "O no [my] smurfs banned." After realising Miracle-’s accounts weren’t banned, he added, “Okay, so Miracle didn't result in any smurfs being prohibited. I suggest Wonder Boy get four gold coins every second, not one of the six smurfs; Valve will accept. How do you feel about Miracle Smurfs?”

After Yatoro's statement gained a lot of attention on popular community forums, Miracle's Rank 13 smurf account, which has over fifteen thousand matches, was surprisingly banned a few hours later.

Miracle wasn't the only professional athlete to experience it recently. Many well-known pros from various nations, including China, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and others, had their smurf accounts banned as well. Up until now, the following players have been impacted:

• Muhammad Alimzhan "Watson" Islambekov
• Ilya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk
• Sergei "Arteezy" Babaev
• "TORONTOTOKYO" Alexander Khertek. 
• Theodore "Yuragi" Golubiev
• Dzmitry Palishchuk dubbed "Fishman"
• Nikolaenko Egor "Nightfall" 
• "StingeR" Vargas, Steven
• Asaf "Danial" Alibaev
• Dmitry "DM" Horovitz
• Xu Jensen "fy"
• Zefeiriou, Kharis "SkyLark"
• "dEsire" Athanasios Kartsabas 
• "Miracle-" Amer Al-Barkawi

In a blog post titled "Smurfing is Not Welcome in Dota," Valve declared that as of 1st September, 2023, it had "permanently banned 90,000 smurf accounts that have been active over the last few months," kicking off the campaign against smurfing.