Somnus returns to professional Dota 2

Chinese Dota hasn’t looked good this season and one of the main reasons is that most of the great players and teams simply vanished at the end of 2022. Some of them retired, others disbanded or decided to take a break.

This resulted in an unprecedented situation: there’s not a single Chinese team in the top 12. And the rankings table of Dota Pro Circuit 2023, which will decide who gets directly invited to The International 12, is likely to remain unchanged even after the end of Tour 3.

Because of this, China will send just one or two teams to this year’s edition of The International. In previous years, the region had four to six teams in the race and was constantly in the top four. Often, Chinese teams won the tournament or at least played in the Grand Final.

About Somnus’ decision to return

Lu “Somnus” Yao is only 27 years old and he’s considered to be one of the best players in the history of the game. He competed in one TI Grand Final, finished third twice, and fourth once. He also won multiple tier 1 tournaments, including EPICENTER XL and MDL Changsha Major.

Somnus used to be a PSG.LGD player. After that, he started playing for Elephant and then for Royal Never Give Up. The results that he obtained with these last two teams were not spectacular.

In two consecutive years, he struggled to qualify for the most important events and finished 13th-16th at The International, which means in essence that he was eliminated in the first round of the lower bracket. This is not fun at all for any professional player. And for someone who is used to playing for the trophy, it’s even more painful.

Somnus stopped playing at the end of 2022 but he continued to be a pub player. Dota 2 has changed a lot since he left, but he seems confident that he can come back stronger and compete against the likes of Team Liquid and Gaimin Gladiators, who seem to have no real opponents these days.

Somnus’ new team will be called YBB Gaming and his teammates are well-known players from the region. We know that one of them is Yang “Chalice” Shenyi and the other is Xu “fy” Linsen.

In the case of fy, his ability to lead Dota 2 teams to great results is well-known. Over the course of his career, he played in two TI Grand Finals and finished two more times in the top four.

Header: Valve Corporation