One of the worst feelings a person can have is when you know a situation is out of your hands and there’s nothing you can do to have control of your fate. That’s exactly the case right now with VGJ.Thunder who have nothing they can do anymore to claim TI8 tickets via DPC points.

The Chinese team sits on the 8th spot in the Dota Pro Circuit ranking with just 135 points ahead of OpTic Gaming and all it will take for them to lose the TI8 spot is for OpTic to win their matchup versus Virtus.pro tomorrow, June 9 at the Supermajor.

A scene veteran and a tireless warrior as the community calls him, Bai “rOtK” Fan is one of the most iconic offlaner Chinese Dota has ever had and one of the most respected captains. He’s been with Vici Gaming since 2013, he placed second at TI4 and he has never been below top six at any other TI he participated. rOtk is a living legend who decided towards the end of 2017 to put his player career on hold to coach VGJ.Thunder. The team did fairly good through the DPC season. Their break out came at Galaxy Battles II: Emerging Worlds, a tournament which should have been a Major but got its status revoked by Valve. Thunder won the event but it did not count in the DPC system. They placed second at the Bucharest Major, which is their best result of the season, second at GESC: Indonesia Dota2 Minor and again second at StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational Season 5 Minor. These were the results that put them on the 8th place in the rankings and all they needed to avoid the Chinese qualifiers this year was to place top 4 at the Supermajor.

Right after VGJ.Thunder was eliminated by Newbee at the Supermajor, coach rOtK posted the following on Weibo:

“I don’t know what to say, but I feel obligated to give some explanation for our recent poor performance. Here is what I see when I’m watching our recent matches: If we are behind, we are just waiting to call the GG; if we are ahead, the throw seems inevitable and it keeps happening over and over again.

I thought having a coach will help the team to improve, to correct the mistakes players made during scrims, but the reality just slaps me in the face: We still make the same mistakes we made in scrims.

I’ve been a drafter for many years and that’s long enough for me to understand that there are good drafts and there are bad drafts, like our game 1 against Newbee. Our lineup had little room for mistakes and on top of that, we picked a garbage tier carry Troll Warlord. But in game 2 our lineup was OK, we had a 10k net-worth lead but we lost the game nonetheless. I’ve always seen myself as a tireless warrior but now I feel like I can’t fight anymore… There’s no more “Let’s beat them next time”. I need to have some rest now as I’m exhausted now from the past one month… Good night”.

rOtK’s frustration is understandable given the fact that for the first time in the entire TI history, China might not have more than one qualifier spot as three teams have already secured their place at TI8.

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