Why we won't see Elephant in Dota 2

It was painful for many fans to watch one of the Chinese teams fall apart. More recently, Elephant announced that they would save the Dota 2 roster. And now the players are free agents and are looking for a new home. What happened in the organization and why?

A year ago, someone came up with a brilliant idea: to assemble a team of superstars from the Chinese Dota scene. Problems were from the beginning. There was an unpleasant scandal over the transfer of Zhang «Eurus» Chengjun from Vici Gaming.

The team's results were average. However, this state of affairs was attributed to the general alignment of forces in the region, where competition was extremely high. And before DPC season, the team was able to win China Dota2 Pro Cup Season 2 and OGA Dota PIT Season 4: China, which instilled confidence in the success of the organization. Read more about the team's successes in the article «Elephant. Something went wrong».

Dota Pro Circuit 2021 was a failure for the team. The players were unable to take the top places in the league and missed the opportunity to take part in ONE Esports Singapore Major 2021 and WePlay AniMajor.

All the strongest teams in China got enough DPC points for a direct invite to The International 10. Fortunately for Elephant there were almost no worthy rivals left in regional qualifiers. It was necessary to deal with RNG and EHOME. This is exactly what Elephant did, earning a slot in the main tournament of the year.

At TI10 Elephant had to face the best teams from all over the world, after almost a year in their region. Isolation and playing within the same region against the same teams and players affected the results. And Dota 2 has changed. Now teamwork decides in the game. Everyone's personal skill is certainly important, but does not solve absolutely anything. Moreover, the players pulled the game over themselves, thereby destroying the team.

Yes, they won by personal skill. However, this did not always work even against weak opponents. Elephant miraculously made it to the main stage of the tournament, thanks to the bad play by a team from South America.

Unfortunately, in Dota 2 Elephant did not understand anything and were not ready. Lack of team play against the background of individual skill, incomprehensible and unorganized actions on the map - the reason for the defeat of the team. 

Result: 13th-16th place at The International 2021. Was that expected from China's star roster?

Immediately after the tournament, rumors spread that the team had disbanded and Team Aster were interested in buying some players. At that time, the entire team was in Romania due to restrictions related to COVID-19. However, Elephant's manager, Dong «Hide» Hang, denied these rumors:

However, the rumors did not stop. This time it turned out that Elephant was still going to disband and agreed on a transfer with Royal Never Give Up. However, the deal was canceled. There was also a rumor that xNova would move to Elephant Dota 2.

An unpleasant fact was also found out. Of the entire team, only Lu «Somnus丶M» Yao and the manager were able to return home. The rest tested positive for coronavirus and remained in Romania.

A little later, EHOME player Yang «Chalice» Shenyi revealed a lot of interesting information on his stream. Including about things related to Elephant and the team's players:

Meanwhile, some Elephant players were still in Romania. Players outside the home made it difficult for the organization to negotiate transfers.

Hide:

Even then, it became clear to many that the situation had reached an impasse. Conversation between old eLeVeN and Aster's owner about Elephant roster transfer has been leaked to social media. A little later, Elephant manager, Hide, confirms the disbandment.

Then some interesting details came to light. Analyst and translator Leon «Arthur» Lee posted on Twitter the original post and translation.

On November 11, Elephant officially announced a Dota 2 team disband. An important point: all players and the coach became free agents.

The organization admitted their mistakes and apologized to fans. The wishes of the managers did not coincide with reality, which in the end almost led to dire consequences for the players and the organization. Now all the efforts and resources of Elephant will be spent on safely returning the remaining team members who were stuck after TI10 in Romania.

Zhang «Eurus» Chengjun's contract expired. Support Xie «Super» Junhao was on loan and will return to Royal Never Give Up. The contracts with the rest of the players and the coach were terminated.

Elephant explained what keeping players on contract has become meaningless. Free agents will quickly find a new organization or create their own team, and thereby make a Chinese Dota 2 scene better and stronger. The organization wishes them the best of luck and hopes to see them at the next The International.

Now, if players want to take part in the new DPC season, they need to find a team by November 21st. Otherwise, they will have to go inactive and hope for the best.