Two Dota 2 players leave Xtreme Gaming

Xtreme Gaming were one of the best Dota 2 teams in China last season. However, they missed The International 11 after finishing second in the regional qualifiers and then fifth-sixth in the Last Chance Qualifier.

The team had great potential thanks to superstars like Zhang “Paparazi” Chengjun. But in the end, it failed to deliver the results expected by the management. Obviously, something had to change, and we recently saw what the change looks like.

Lou “lou” Zhen and Ren “old eLeVeN” Yangwei

These two players were part of the 2021-2022 roster that failed to qualify for The International. The organization decided to let them go and bring in new players. However, we don’t yet know who those replacements might be.

All we know is that the Chinese region didn’t have a single participant in the top three at The International 2022. This pretty much means that everyone in the Chinese Dota 2 scene is unhappy right now. Massive roster moves are likely underway and some of the teams have started to show their cards.

The giants in the region are Team Aster, PSG.LGD, and Royal Never Give Up. The first two of these teams finished the tournament in the top six, but have probably concluded that in order to do better next year, they will need to upgrade their rosters.

In some cases, important players have already left the teams they were playing for. Yap “xNova” Jian Wei moved from RNG to BOOM Esports, while Zeng “Ori” Jiaoyang from Aster decided to retire. At the age of 27, that’s a very early retirement decision. Arguably, he could have played for another five years.

One of the two players who left Xtreme Gaming has already joined Ybb Gaming. The other one hasn’t announced his plans for the future.

Potential replacements

It’s hard to predict who will replace the vacant spots but there’s a good chance that the big teams will swap players. Or perhaps we will see some prodigies step up to the task. China has lots of talented players but they haven’t been tested yet.

And in Dota 2, when you’re 18 and want to compete against someone who’s been in the game for 10 years, the odds of success are quite low. There are very few players who have mastered the game so thoroughly at 18-20 years old that they can outsmart a legendary veteran like Clement “Puppey” Ivanov.

Usually, success comes after many years of failing and it feels as though China is at a stage where they need to go through several years of training young players, even though the results will likely be poor.

Header: Valve Corporation