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Last season's champions have decided to make a u-turn and give Nanyang a miss. Credit: ClickStorm Last season's champions have decided to make a u-turn and give Nanyang a miss. Credit: ClickStorm

Sorry we won't be able to attend nanyang, I was looking forward to the tournament and China. Hopefully more chances to visit will come soon — Ludwig Wahlberg (@zai_2002) July 2, 2016

I would like to thank the organizers for direct inviting us to Nanyang Championship. While we are very excited to go to the tournament, I am sad to announce that we will be unable to compete in it due to unavoidable visa issues! I would like to thank the organizers for direct inviting us to Nanyang Championship. While we are very excited to go to the tournament, I am sad to announce that we will be unable to compete in it due to unavoidable visa issues!

Due to some ongoing issues with the event, our team has unfortunately had to withdraw from the upcoming Nanyang Championships tournament. — Team Secret (@teamsecret) July 3, 2016

Poor timing: Nanyang Championships suffer heavy lossesThe first Nanyang Championships were held in Singapore, but for Season 2 the organisers decided to hold them closer to home in Shanghai, China from the 6th-10th July. The event starts in just 3 days but over the course of the last 24 hours, three of the directly invited teams have announced their withdrawal; EG, Secret and Fnatic.Evil Geniuses encountered problems obtaining a visa forSumail ' SumaiL ' Syed Hassan due to not having enough time to complete the process which takes longer as SumaiL holds a Pakistani passport.Meanwhile, according to GosuGamers Fnatic 's decision to withdraw is to do with "unavoidable visa issues". Fnatic would have had to travel to China, before heading all the way to America for the Summit (13th-17th July), and then trekking to the LAN stage of the second Starladder i-League Invitational.This would have resulted in a long period of travel only a few weeks before The International kicks off in late July. According to Fnatic managementDjardel ' DJ ' Mampusti* could not obtain a Chinese visa. However, the withdrawal will provide the team with some much needed rest after a stressful SEA qualifier for TI as well as ESL One Frankfurt.Fnatic's announcement on Gosugamers came with this quote from Eric Kohr, their manager:Secret drop out due to "ongoing issues" with the eventEarly this morning there was further bad news as the defending champions Team Secret announced they too were dropping out of the tournament. This came as a suprise to many, as there will be few more opportunities to solidify as a team outside of the bootcamp and many were disappointed not to see their favourite players attending. Talking on Twitter the team said there were "ongoing issues" with the tournament. The full tweet can be found below, and no replacement has been announced as of yet.What is the Nanyang Championships?The Nanyang Championship is a tournament put together by KeyTV, who announced back in May the first invite went to the then struggling Team Secret. Many argued the reigning champions were undeserving due to recent poor performance and many noted the lack of an invite for Team Liquid and their exclusion from the qualifiers, assuming they opted to take time off ahead of TI.Invites also went to Fnatic, EG and Newbee, whilst Planet Odd* and WarriorsGaming.Unity all came through their respective regions' qualifiers. As of writing the it boasts a $100,000 first prize +12% of ingame ticket sale profit, whilst the prizepool stands at $200,000 (not including bonuses from DotaTV ticket sales).The Participating teams are as follows: LGD-Gaming (Fnatic replacement)*We previously wrote that MidOne could not obtain a visa, that information proved incorrect and has been amended.