Valve's festive treat for "thousands" more DOTA 2 cheaters is a lump of coal and a permanent ban

Valve's making a list, and checking it twice; it's gonna find out who's naughty and nice. And if you happen to be on its Naughty List - which pretty much applies to any one of the "thousands" of DOTA 2 players now identified as being dirty, filthy cheaters - you can expect a cheerfully gift-wrapped lump of toxic coal and a permanent ban in your stocking as your festive treat for 2023.

DOTA 2's annual Frostivus celebrations are now officially underway, meaning everyone on Valve's Nice List - as per its Frostivus 2023 update announcement - can look forward to various festive treats and quality of life improvements. It's less of a jolly holiday for those who've been placed on Valve's Naughty List, however: King Kringle is now doing the rounds with his ban hammer to "pulverise the smurf accounts of all the naughty boys and girls, before handing out penalties to their associated main accounts."

Following Valve's brutal culling of over 90,000 smurf accounts back in September, the company says it's "continued to invest in player behaviour monitoring" and will be handing out still more punishments for smurf accounts and other "questionable choices", including "bad actors...playing like jerks, ruining games and losing behaviour score because of it, then hiring behaviour score farmers to drive it back up."

"If you're on the Naughty List, we've got great news for everybody else and bad news for you," Valve explains, "because this year is gonna be a bloodbath." Accordingly, Valve says its latest crackdown on cheaters has resulted in "many tens of thousands of smurf account bans" in the last day alone - but it's the way it's been handing out those bans that can't help but raise a chuckle. Cheaters who've found their way onto Valve's Naughty List have (thanks PC Gamer) been firing up their game in the last few days only to receive a festive gift that, once opened, reveals itself to be a "Highly Toxic Lump of Coal".

"Your Dota account has been permanently banned for Smurfing, or other violations of the Steam Terms of Service," recipients are told in the absolute mic drop of a note accompanying their festive "treat".

"As we've said before," Valve adds in its Frostivus update release notes, "smurfing (and other negative behaviour) makes matches worse, and we want to make sure your matches are as good as possible as we head into the new year. So we'd like to wish everyone a Happy Frostivus Update! Except smurf accounts, who we assume will not enjoy the update as they choke on their richly-deserved coal-flavoured just desserts."