Team Liquid gets former TI champion shadow to stand-in for The Chongqing Major

Liquid suffers a major blow just before the biggest event of 2019 so far.

Cale Michael

Published: Jan 17, 2019 06:11 pm

This article is over 5 years old and may contain outdated information

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.

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We would like to confirm that Miracle is unable to attend the Chongqing Major. He was excited to play; unfortunately, an urgent personal matter occurred at the last minute. We request that fans respect his privacy during this time, and we will provide updates when possible.
— Team Liquid (@TeamLiquid) January 16, 2019

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.

Today marks @LiquidGh_'s two year anniversary with us!

In honor of that, we took a look at how our team gets better together:https://t.co/SakW0QoxFT
— Team Liquid (@TeamLiquid) January 2, 2019

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.

We'd like to announce that Valve has approved our emergency stand-in, Chu "shadow" Zeyu. We are still working with Valve to figure out the DPC points situation, and we will let you know as soon as we find out #LetsGoLiquid
— Team Liquid (@TeamLiquid) January 17, 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.

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Author

Cale Michael

Lead Staff Writer for Dota 2, the FGC, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and more who has been writing for Dot Esports since 2018. Graduated with a degree in Journalism from Oklahoma Christian University and also previously covered the NBA. You can usually find him writing, reading, or watching an FGC tournament.