Dota 2: Top Players That Won’t Be At TI9 Part 2

In Part 1, we looked at two of the biggest Dota superstars who won’t attend this years’ TI. If you missed it, feel free to read it here. Having said that, let’s take a look at other top players who won't be making the trip to Shanghai.

Danil “Dendi” Ishutin

When fans think about professional Dota, Dendi is often one of the first players that come to mind. A couple of years ago, people considered the Ukranian superstar to be the best player in the world. He was THE midlaner that everyone looked up to. In addition to his incredible skills, Danil also has an incredible personality. No wonder why even today, more than 15k people still watch his streams daily.

Unfortunately, it all went downhill for him after a few years at the top. Natus Vincere, his former team, was just unable to recover after several years of attempts to claim the top spot in Dota. Despite that, Dendi stayed up there until the very end, which was yet again another sign of his incredible loyalty to the team that made him famous (of course, he was famous in DotA as well, where he played mainly in DTS).

After this heart-breaking departure, SEA’s newly formed team offered him a chance to play again. He took it with no hesitation, but the results were just not there. Even though there were some very well-known names there, the team was unable to qualify for big events.

What now?

There is no certain information regarding Dendi’s future in Dota 2. However, I personally believe that we will definitely see more of him in the near future.

Chai “Mushi” Yee Fung

If there is one player from SEA who has earned legendary status, it has to be Mushi. The career of the Malaysian superstar is full of achievements. However, in the last year, he and his team were unable to prosper, which means that we won’t be seeing him in Shanghai this year.

Probably one of his most prominent moments was during TI 6 when Mushi and his team finished 4th. The performance from Fnatic back then was top definitely top-notch. In fact, in the post-TI 5 team shuffle, Mushi and Ohayio were all set to rebuild Fnatic. That’s when they added DJ, 343 and MidOne and started to dominate SEA.

During this DPC season, there were some efforts from Mushi to bounce back in the pro scene. However, similar to Dendi, he did not have much luck. Hopefully, he will be able to bounce back in the upcoming 2019-2020 DPC season, which starts after TI 9 ends.

David “MoonMeander” Tan

MoonMeander became very popular mainly through his streams and play back in the day. In fact, he used to be a professional HoN player before he came to Dota. However, similar to many other top HoN players, when the pro scene began to decay, he had no other choice but to switch to Dota 2.

David’s first notable team was compLexity Gaming, where he stayed for around one year. Even though the teams’ results back then were good, they only managed to get a top 12 finish at TI 5, which is not that good for a top tier team. That’s why in the post-TI shuffle, he joined the newly formed team Monkey Business. In early November of 2015, David and his team was acquired by an organization called OG, and the rest is history.

However, OG’s TI 6 run was a disaster, which is why MoonMeander departed to join Digital Chaos. The NA squad’s performance was very stable throughout the entire season, but they shined the most during TI 6 where Digital Chaos they finished second.

Liu “Sylar” Jiajun

When you think about some of the top Chinese core players, Sylar undeniably stands out. He started his professional career back during TI 2 with the incredibly strong LGD Gaming. In the end, the Chinese finished third thanks in a large part to Sylar.

Nearly the same happened during TI 4, this time with Vici Gaming. With the help of Liu, they finished second after a very unexpected loss against Newbee in the Grand Final.

During this DPC season, Sylar played for two teams – Team Aster and Team Sirius. Both of them had the potential to become a powerhouse but they just did not live up to the expectations. In addition to that, TI 9 qualifiers did not go as planned for either of Sylar’s teams.

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