Linken’s Sphere bug abuse runs rampant in Dota 2 pubs

A game-crashing Linken’s Sphere bug is ruining Dota 2 pubs. Many players including pros have complained about the rampant bug abuse.

A game-crashing bug involving the Linken's Sphere item was detected a few days ago and it is now running rampant in Dota 2 pubs. The community voiced out frustrations all over social media as their pub games have unintentionally crashed or been sabotaged. It seems like many players are abusing the bug to prevent losing MMR.

How does the Linken's bug work?

Linken's Sphere bug crashes Dota 2 games.
Linken's Sphere bug crashes Dota 2 games.

A player buys a Linken's Sphere, uses it on an ally, and immediately sells the Linken's Sphere when the shield is still active. If the opponent breaks the Linken's Sphere shield, the game crashes instantly.

Once the game crashes, the entire history or data of the game goes missing. This means the game is not recorded. Due to this, many people have used the Linken's Sphere bug, which is simple to pull off, to avoid losing MMR and sabotage games.

In the clip below, you can see a player abusing the Linken's Sphere bug to crash a losing game.

Tons of reports regarding the rampant bug abuse

There has been a flood of comments complaining about the Linken's Sphere game-crashing bug. Caster and streamer, Mira "Ephey" Riad, took to Twitter to warn people about the harmful bug. She stated that pub players have even threatened to crash the server using the Linken's bug and it worked.

Into The Breach player, Andreas "Xibbe" Ragnemalm, also mentioned the bug on his Twitter.

TI10 winner and captain of Tundra Esports, Wu "Sneyking" Jingjun, also experienced the bug in his pub game. One of the players in his pub match was griefing and ended up using the Linken's bug to crash the game.

Only a day ago, Dota 2 pubs were in a rough state due to a Confirming Match bug that halted players from completing last-minute Battle Pass quests. There are also other reports of trivial bugs on Reddit which includes a vision bug that allows you to see glimpses of enemies on the minimap.

These are indeed scary times for queueing pubs and hopefully, our beloved janitors can solve it as soon as possible. If you happen to stumble upon bug abusers, do not hesitate to report them in Dota 2 and on Steam.

Stay tuned to Esports.gg for more Dota 2 news and updates!