Roughly a week before MDL Macau 2019 is set to start, one of the premiere teams attending had to pull out due to medical complications.
LGD Gaming, The International 2018 runner-ups, announced through posts to both their official Twitter and Weibo accounts yesterday that they would be pulling out of the upcoming event. The reason for the very sudden cancellation being the health of their offlane player Yang “Chalice”‘ Shenyi.
Chalice underwent what the team is calling a minor surgery following the team’s successful qualification for the next Dota Pro Circuit Major, DreamLeague Season 11. Everything seemed fine initially, but Chalice later suffered postoperation ulceration that led to an infection.
This is not the first time LGD has had to pull out of an event because of health-related reasons, and it isn’t even the first time Chalice has been at the center of those withdrawals. It happened as recently as December 2018 when the team pulled out of DPL Season 6 citing player health as the reason.
The team was already playing with one stand-in, that being Guo ”XM” Hongcheng from LGD’s youth team CDEC. XM was called up to replace Lu “Maybe” Yao who was granted an extended leave from the team for personal and physical reasons following their fourth-place finish at the Chongqing Major.
That break has so far seen the midlaner getting married and enjoying his honeymoon.
LGD probably decided that allowing their remaining players to rest along with having some extra time before the DreamLeague Season 11 Stockholm Major begins to find a solution to these holes in their roster was worth more than playing in a non-DPC event. As of now, the team is sitting at a strong fourth place in the DPC rankings as the season approaches the halfway mark.
There has been an outpouring of support from both other organizations and the fans in the Dota community who are all wishing Chalice the best and a speedy recovery.
Newbee will be taking LGD’s spot in Macau after finishing fourth in the Chinese qualifiers for the event. The once dominant team has struggled over the past year to get anything going in the Dota pro scene.
MDL Macau will host eight teams from Feb. 20 to 24. Those competitors will be battling for their share of $300,000.
