Former TI winners Team liquid will not have the services of Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi at the upcoming Chongqing Major. The Chongqing Major starts on the 19th of January 2019 and will continue for a period of nine days till the 27th of January. It features some of the best teams in attendance and has prize money of $1 million.
However, for Team Liquid, they would not be able to field their mid-lane player, Miracle at the event. The team referred to an ‘urgent personal matter’ as the reason for his absence from the event. So we don’t know what exactly the issue is. There have been unsubstantial rumours of his visa being revoked by the Chongqing government.
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
Team Liquid also announced that the will be using former Wings Gaming player Chu “shadow” Zeyu as a stand-in. Wings Gaming won The International 2016 in a surprise run. However organisational issues saw the team fall into oblivion. While some of its former players have retired, some are just playing on smaller teams without much recognition right now.
The Dota Pro Circuit Points.
Team Liquid is still resolving the issue of the Dota Pro Circuit points situation with Valve. Valve has imposed a penalty on teams for using stand-ins at the Valve sponsored events. However, they have granted teams such as NIP permission to use stand-ins without a penalty cause of the visa issue.
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
We will see whether they will grant Team Liquid a concession in this case. The Chongqing Major will be live on Twitch here.
