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Left without a team after the Spring Shuffle window and the LGD drama in which he was involved, Liu 'Sylar' Jiajun has joined Vici Gaming, forcing the team to prepare for open qualifiers at the next Major.
Vici Gaming has locked their roster in time for the Manila Major and The International 6, giving two youngsters a chance to prove themselves in the final and most important competitive period of the season. In the run-up to the biggest tournament of the year, TI 6, VG has kept only Xu 'BurNIng' Zhilei from their old roster and signed the majors registration list with two up and coming players on board, namely Xu 'Hym' Zhi and Jiang 'jdh' Donghao.
Today it was made official that jdh has been replaced with Liu 'Sylar' Jiajun. Sylar will take the carry role from BurNIng who will move into the offlane, while Bai 'rOtK' Fan will be switching to position 4 support.
Vici Gaming current roster from position 1 to 5:
Liu 'Sylar' Jiajun
Chen 'Cty' Tianyu
Xu 'BurNIng' Zhilei
Bai 'rOtK' Fan
Xu' Hym' Zhi
According to the Shuffle rules stated on the majors registration list, teams could adjust their line-ups until March 27th, after which rosters must remain locked until The International is over. Making changes to their rosters will cause teams to no longer be eligible for a direct invitation to either the Major or the Regional Qualifiers.
Reading the rules Valve have made public regarding the Spring Shuffle, it’s clear that VG have lost any chance for an invite to the Manila Major, and will have to fight their way through the open qualifiers. However, it’s extremely unclear what will happen with VG if they win the Major or place in the top three.
Although we've already had two Majors and are only two months away from the final such event of this season, Valve have not made public any information on how exactly the Majors are influencing the invites for The International. We only assume that the winners of each Major have ensured themselves a TI 6 direct invite along with their prize money, but that has yet to be confirmed.
This therefore raises a question that should be answered officially by Valve: Do the three majors impact The International invites in any way, or are they here only to create financial stability for the competitive scene?
Forcing the teams to lock their rosters more than five months prior to the last Major of the season implies that their performance at Majors will be taken into account when the nominal invites for TI6 are announced. But, if this is the case, what will happen with VG if they win this last Major? Will they be forced to go through open qualifiers for TI 6 as well?
A number of questions have been raised with VG’s decision to make a roster change after the Spring Shuffle deadline, and until Valve clarifies the situation all the Dota 2 community can do is speculate.
