Shakedown in Shanghai: the Nanyang Championships

Evil Geniuses drop out of the running for the Nanyang Championships. Organizers pull from the Chinese qualifiers to fill the vacancy.

Rumors of EG declining their invite to Nanyang first filtered through the twitterverse to my mobile device earlier today.  Maybe they read the part in my recent article about how getting down with the sickness in Asia could harm their chances at TI6. Maybe, as the hashtag suggests, EG is having the same problem with visas that Fnatic did.

But with the tournament scheduled to begin in four days, this second adjustment to the roster of participating teams is almost unbelievable. Add in China’s contentious visa policy, and the pool of possible replacements for EG is slimmer than the list of people willing to feed my house plant when I leave for the weekend.

The powers that be have decided that EG’s place will be taken by a second team from the Chinese qualifiers. From the looks of that  bracket, unless both teams simultaneously meltdown like EHOME did recently, that team will be either Newbee Young or CDEC Youth. This stacks the tournament with teams from either SEA or China, which I’m totally cool with – except for the fact that we were promised a tournament with “8 of the world’s best DOTA 2 teams.”

CDEC Youth is ranked 21st worldwide by gosu. Newbee Young 31st! What about these numbers says “world’s best” to you?

We’re having blame for dinner, so take a no thank you bite

It’s easy to blame all this on the organizers or the Chinese government. Those are nameless, faceless entities that are magnets for public disapproval and rage. But I’ve traveled a little internationally, and visa prep is done months in advance to prevent just this sort of thing.

If this were the first time EG bowed out of Nanyang, I might not ask any questions. Second time running? That’s a little strange, isn’t it? I’m not saying the EG had anything nefarious in mind when they declined, and the issue may very well have been outside their control, but the team made a commitment. Fans were looking forward to this. Heck, after reading Tony “Detroit” Onica’s post about EG’s performance in the Americas TI6 qualifiers, I was looking forward to it.

Now? No such luck. I ask you – how fair is that?

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