Chinese fans have begun regarding EG’s Syed “Sumail” Hassan as the mythical Year Beast, foretold by an ancient prophecy to appear during the Chinese New Year to steal the crowd-funded DAC prize pool.

“The victory of American team Evil Geniuses can only be explained by one of their players being the Year Beast,” said one Big God fan, who admitted to leaving after Loser’s semifinals. “If you rearrange the letters of ‘Sumail Hassan in China’ you get ‘Assail Humans in China’ — this scares me more than fully soundproof booths.”



EG’s victory along with Secret’s third place finish earned foreign teams 51% of DAC’s $3 million prize pool, the largest western heist of Chinese Dota 2 goods or culture since Dendi stole ravage from multiple Chinese teams at TI2.

“I can confirm that Sumail is not a mythical Chinese deity, but I’d rather he was,” said EG’s Charlie Yang, aka the manager formally known as ‘Monolith’. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get two brown kids onto a plane with a giant sword?”

“I don’t care if Sumail is the Year Beast,” said EG captain and American sniper Peter ‘PPD’ Dager. “All I know is he’s definitely not Arteezy, who probably would not be mistaken as the Year Beast because he did not win this tournament like I did.”

When questioned about smuggling the DAC prize pool out of China, Dager gazed into the sky and declared, “Prize money is eminently contraband.”

Chinese fans will get a chance to get their riches back during Dota 2’s upcoming New Bloom Festival, where they may be forced to fight Sumail directly.