Changes continue to hit the professional Dota 2 scene following the results of The International, and the latest teams to be affected play for some of North America’s top esports organizations.
Both Cloud9 and Team Liquid managed to place within the top 10 at Valve’s The International, the annual Dota 2 tournament which this year boasted an overall prize pool of close to $11 million.
Cloud9 has now announced that WehSing “SingSing” Yuen will be leaving the team. Yuen joined the team earlier this year and helped the squad to make the top eight at DreamHack and ESL One events before their fifth-place finish at The International. It was the second-highest finish by a team from outside China, behind third-place finishers Evil Geniuses, and it netted Cloud9 just over $655,000.
While Yuen called his stay with Cloud9 “one of the most exciting and fun periods of my life,” he also mentioned in a posting on Facebook that he would soon be joining a new team, though he did not provide further details on the move.
Cloud9 has not yet announced a replacement for the Dutch player.
This move follows another recent departure in the North American Dota 2 scene.
Team Liquid were hailed by many as among the biggest positive surprises at The International, as the team stormed through the event’s first phase to qualify for phase two and come within a single match of making it to the main event at Seattle’s KeyArena.
Team Liquid had already parted ways with Jimmy “Demon” Ho when they announced that Peter “Waytosexy” Nguyen would also be leaving the team.
While Nguyen has not chosen to retire from Dota 2, he did make clear his desire to step away from the game for a time. Nguyen said in a statement released by Team Liquid that he would be focusing on school for the foreseeable future, though he was careful to emphasize his continued involvement in Dota 2 and his intention to return to the game’s professional level of play in the future.
Team Liquid is now left with only three players, two short of a full roster.
