Ban

Bans are a form of punishment given out to players who violate certain regulations.

Communications ban
This form of ban restricts both text and voice communications. It does not affect matchmaking, and will not put players into low priority.

Criteria
Communication bans take the following factors into consideration:


 * Reports from other players
 * Unspecified internal analyses

Ban time escalates according to the following scale:

Resetting
If a player does not receive any bans for 3 weeks since the last ban expired, the ban duration will revert back to 1 day.

VAC ban


This form of ban is performed under the Valve Anti-Cheat system (VAC). It suspends the user from the game entirely. During this time, Dota 2 will be inaccessible.

VAC bans are recorded on the user's Steam profile, and will be permanently visible to all other users.

Criteria
There is one known offense for Dota 2 that warrants a VAC ban, as seen in the table below. According to unconfirmed sources, crashing dedicated servers while playing a matchmaking game can also lead to a permanent VAC ban, as soon as the fact of servers being crashed by one of the players is revealed and confirmed by Valve.

Exceptions
The following will not result in a VAC ban:


 * Using commands in the console.
 * Using commands in the Launch Options.
 * Using cheats in private lobbies.
 * Using a legitimate third party chat program like Xfire.
 * Cosmetic modding (models, textures, icons, sounds, text, etc). However, some mods, particularly those that involve a 3rd party program or changes to the game engine, may be considered too intrusive by the VAC system. Cheats can also be maliciously embedded within cosmetic mods, causing unsuspecting users to get banned. Therefore modders should exercise careful judgment.

Matchmaking Ban
Players who neglect to accept a match, decline a match, or leave a match immediately after connecting will be disallowed from matchmaking for a short time. Players who do this multiple times in a short period will receive longer duration bans. Ban durations will return to normal after a few days of good behavior.