A Spring edition of Hainan Master Invitational was announced earlier today, January 14 on Weibo, with 12 expected to travel to Haikou, China this March.

According to the official announcement, nine teams received a direct invite to the tournament, and they are expected to be joined by other three squads coming from regional qualifiers held in CIS, Europe and China. The regional qualifiers are set to commence tomorrow, January 15 in CIS, on the 27th of January in Europe and at a yet to be announced date for the Chinese teams.

Hainan Master Invitational – Spring invited teams announced by the organizer

OG

PSG.LGD

Vici Gaming

Team Secret

Evil Geniuses

Fnatic

Invictus Gaming

Virtus.pro

EHOME

The announcement features some of the finest Dota 2 teams, including OG, the double TI champions, but the truth seems to be very different than what the tournament organizers are releasing to the public view. Immediately after the news broke on Weibo, Team Secret Manager, Matthew “Cyborgmatt” Bailey announced on Twitter that this is “fake news” and that nobody from Hainan Master has actually contacted them. He also mentioned that Team Secret will not attend the tournament.

This is fake news. Majority if not all of the teams on this list have not even been approached yet by this TO.@TeamSecret will not be attending this event. https://t.co/qPaNVbLc4z — Matthew Bailey (@Cyborgmatt) January 14, 2020

VPEsports contacted PSG.LGD, who told us that they also haven’t been contacted by the organizers and that they have no information about this event. An official statement is expected to be released by them as well.

Hainan Master Invitational – Spring LAN portion of the event is announced to unfold March 3-8, which is in a direct schedule conflict with the Dota Pro Circuit. The third Minor in the DPC schedule is set to take place between 3rd and 7th of March.

VPEsports is working on getting as many details as possible about this whole situation, so stay tuned for further updates.

