Royal Never Give Up lose 8 straight games, drop to lower bracket at TI11

This TI is shaping up to be one of the most exciting events in the Dota 2 scene as of late. It can be boiled down to several great matches that we have been seeing all throughout the group stage between several evenly-matched teams. This includes the great performance by Team Liquid and Team Secret after their LCQ wins all the way up to the upper bracket at the main stage. But not everything has been great so far.

Day three of the group stage was quite a tumultuous one for viewers and players alike. With the wave of infections going on, first with Thunder Awaken’s position four player Matthew being hospitalized after a stomach infection, following up with several players from team Royal Never Give Up getting infected with COVID. While it was only their midlaner Somnus who was confirmed to be positive for COVID-19, a further series of tests revealed that every player in the team with the exception of xNova was infected.

Following the news of Somnus’ infection, additional tests showed that Ghost, kaka, and Chalice were infected as well, leading to four of the five players playing from isolation. This has definitely led to some problems with their teamwork and coordination and that was reflected in their eight straight losses on day three of the group stage yesterday.

This clip was taken from the player cams of teams OG and RNG during their group stage matches with each other. OG came up successful in their final series of the day and were in a great mood after their initial loss to Liquid earlier in the day following a botched reconnection feature that didn’t allow Misha to reconnect for two hours in their series against Team Liquid.

While OG seemed to have recovered after their losses, things weren’t as good for RNG. The clip also shows xNova, the position five support player for team RNG, sitting alone in their team’s room while the rest of team RNG play from isolation. This has hurt their team a lot and has left them to compete in the lower bracket after a great start in the group stages at the beginning.

Despite the initial hiccups, it seems like RNG have stayed true to their moniker of never giving up, promising to come back stronger in their lower bracket run. How well they perform is yet to be seen, but we wish them all the best and hope for a quick COVID recovery for their players.