Just days before The Chongqing Major, Team Liquid announced that their star mid lane player, Amer ‘Miracle-‘ Al-Barkawi, would not be attending the event.
In a post on Twitter, Liquid stated that the reason for Miracle not attending is an urgent personal matter that popped up unexpectedly. This quelled the popular theory that the Polish player was the next in a long line of Dota pros having visa issues in the current season.
The team celebrated their two-year anniversary of forming the current roster on Jan. 2. This current iteration of the roster has been the longest-tenured Dota 2 squad in history, having made zero roster changes in a pro scene that is constantly changing.
Together, this Liquid roster asserted themselves as one of the premier Dota teams in the world, winning The International 2017, placing fourth at The International 2018, and winning dozens of marquee events across all other levels of competition.
With that said, the loss of one of, if not the most important player to their group, might seriously damage their chances at winning their first big event of 2019.
With the last second news, Valve approved the addition of an emergency stand-in for Liquid. Chu “shadow” Zeyu, the former standout of The International 2016 winner’s Wings Gaming, will fill in for Miracle.
Adding another accomplished player with a great track record gives Liquid a pretty good shot to fill the void Miracle normally occupies. But with that said, the loss of one of their most important playersmight seriously damage their team dynamic and chances at winning their first big event of 2019.
Along with the last-minute addition, Liquid will now be given a 40 percent penalty onto whatever points they receive from the event due to the substitution during the LAN portion of the Major. According to their tweet, they are talking to Valve about it, so that penalty may yet be negated.
Matches for the event start Jan. 18 at 8pm CT, but Liquid will have their first match on Jan. 19 against recently rebranded The Pango.
