Earlier today two members of South Korean Dota 2 Team MVP.Phoenix - Taewon ‘March’ Park and Sun Yeob ‘QO’ Kim - were registered as participants of said team’s roster for participation in Valve’s upcoming series of Major tournaments. This comes as somewhat as a surprise, of course, since both players had expressed interest in leaving the competitive scene after the conclusion of The International 5 (regardless of their result). March has indicated several times over the past few months that by this time he would be forced into retirement, as a result of his impending need to complete a stint of military service, while QO has made known on more than one occasion his intentions of turning his attention to the completion of his academic studies.
It is important to note that both players were registered as “Primary” participants within their roster, meaning that they are expected to satisfy their player role full-time and are excluded from acting as merely a substitute or ‘stand-in’ member. Here is Valve’s official formulation of this rule:
“First, the administrator of a team issues either Primary Member invites or Substitute invites to players. Then these players can review their invites and choose to accept one of them. Once they’ve done so, the player is a confirmed member of the Pro Team and is locked until prior to the next trade period.”
However, an insider source has indicated to us that a meeting is being held today amongst all remaining members of the MVP roster in the hopes of addressing how exactly the franchise wishes to move forward this season. From this the possibility arises that MVP.Phoenix will cease to exist and that MVP.Hot6 will take their place as the franchise's flagship team, a consequence which would render March and QO's current registration on the Phoenix roster as being effectively meaningless.
