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It turns out all the speculation revolving around OG needing a replacement player has come true. The organization confirmed that Anathan “ana” Pham will be extending his break from competitive Dota 2 until the 2020-21 Dota Pro Circuit.
As the team’s captain Johan “N0tail” Sundstein appeared on stage at the DreamLeague Season 13 Major, OG posted a short video showing the players celebrating their International 2019 win. At the end of the video, the footage faded out to show ana with an island behind him with a simple caption announcing that he will not be returning for the current season.
“Our carry player and Io god ana will extend his break and come back for the next season,” OG said. “Rest well Anathan!”
Ana’s extend break isn’t as surprising now as it might have been before the start of the new year; most of OG’s other players have been active on social media and their Dota 2 streams recently while there has been nothing but radio silence from ana.
There’s no news as to why ana would want to take an entire season off, but the remaining OG players all seem ready to come back to compete for a third straight Aegis. We might learn more about the decision when N0tail and the boys gather for the TI9 True Sight documentary premiere on Jan. 28.
As of now, the only solid rumor that has been surrounding the team points to former-Team Secret player Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng joining the roster for the 2019-20 season, but there is another move that makes a lot of sense.
Syed “SumaiL” Hassan is another tier-one free agent that is currently available and he has recently been hinting at moving regions during his streams and with his pub games. While his fit isn’t absolutely perfect, adding him to the current OG lineup would be as close to a lateral move as the organization could probably manage.
There is always the potential for a late-season return if ana decides he wants to come back early, but right now it appears the three-peat won’t happen with the original squad that OG won over the last two seasons.
