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In place of Royal Never Give Up’s Malaysian carry Daniel “Ghost” Chan Kok Hong, Anathan “ana” Pham will be competing in the PGL Arlington Major this year. Unfortunately for Ghost, who competed for RNG at the Riyadh Masters 2022, he was unable to get his visa cleared in time to participate in the US$500k competition.
According to the announcement made by the Chinese team via Weibo, ana will serve as the team’s substitute. The 22-year-old substituted for Team Liquid’s Lasse “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen at the Riyadh Masters while making a temporary return to play for OG last year.
There are problems with visas affecting more than just RNG’s team. Six teams have had to find replacements for their usual players up to this point, including OG finding their last-minute replacement in Ceb for Misha, while Xtreme Gaming, another team from the same country, has decided to forego their slot at Arlington entirely.
RNG currently has 738.42 points, which places them in 15th place in the Dota Pro Circuit 2021/2022 standings. If they finish in the top three, the Chinese team will ensure that they have a spot at The International 11 even if they did not receive one of the direct invites. If they get any fewer than that, they’ll need some other results to go their way, but there’s still a good possibility.
The once-and-future powerhouse region of China will be represented at the Major by only three teams. Given that PSG.LGD has already been assured of a spot at The International, it is now the responsibility of RNG and Team Aster to earn their spots at the tournament, lest they be forced to compete in the challenging Regional Qualifiers against a number of other strong teams.
Royal Never Give Up now has:
- Anathan “ana” Pham
- Lu “Somnus” Yao
- Yang “Chalice” Shenyi
- Hu “Kaka” Liangzhi
- Yap “xNova” Jian Wei
- Xie “Super” Junhao (Head Coach)
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