LGD Forever Young’s offlaner He “Inflame” Yongzheng announced yesterday on his stream his decision to retire for an indefinite time period.

Inflame’s unexpected decision leaves the Chinese team without an offlaner with just three days to go until the rosters will become locked for The International 2018. Sources close to LFY report that for the past several days LGD Forever Young and their sister team, LGD Gaming, worked together to finalize their rosters in time, and while LGD will not witness any crazy shuffles, LFY will also wave goodbye to their captain Leong “DDC” Fat-meng.



LFY’s decision to drop DDC is a bit surprising to say the last. DDC has served the LGD Gaming organization for a long time. The team clinched a third place finish with DDC in their ranks at The International 2012, went with him at TI3 as well, but the results were beyond sub-par. In spite of their TI3 performance, LGD continued with DDC and reached top 6 at TI4. In the post event shuffle, DDC was transferred to EHOME and made the trip with them at TI5 to reach top 6 once again. In the post TI5 shuffle, DDC rejoined LGD Gaming and stood with the team until after the Shanghai Major, from March 2016 when he left for Vici Gaming.

After a bottom four finish with VG Reborn at TI6, DDC was brought back in the LGD family but this time he was given the captain role at LGD Forever Young. DDC’s work ethic, passion, and extremely good leadership skills pushed LFY above their sister team LGD and delivered TI7’s most exciting finals. We are talking of course, about the main event upper bracket finals LFY vs Newbee and LFY vs Team Liquid lower bracket finals.

TI7 can be regarded as the most successful International event for the LGD organization.Their teams finished fourth and third last year in Seattle and DDC gained enormous respect from the Chinese Dota fans. Oftenly called “Ticket- 盖 “ in the Chinese community, which roughly translates to ticket insurance, a reference to his capability to push LFY to victory through all the recent qualifiers, DDC absence from LGD Forever Young will be surely not taken easily by his fans. If letting him go was the wise decision or not, it remains to be seen.

DDC’s support position in the team will be taken by Yao “Yao” Zhengzheng, former LGD Gaming offlaner. Yao is a very accomplished player in his own rights, however, it’s uncertain if he will take the in-game leadership as well or not. With Yao joining LFY in the support role, the team is yet to find their offlaner. The mid lane role will be fulfilled by Xie “Super” Junhao who returns to LFY after the brief mid laners exchange between IG and LFY from last month.

LGD Forever Young current roster:

– Du “Monet” Peng

– Xie “Super” Junhao

– ???

– Tue “ah fu” Soon Chuan

– Yao “Yao” Zhengzheng

