It’s been an absolutely horrible competitive season for two of the Chinese teams that otherwise were expected to have at least a decent run and clinch a spot at TI8. CDEC were once TI runners up while LFY finished third at The International just last year.

The 2017-2018 Dota Pro Circuit was abysmal for both of them, and neither LFY, nor CDEC Gaming will make their showing in Vancouver this coming August. As sister teams of the same big LGD Gaming organization, CDEC and LFY are now reported to merge in one team which makes a lot of sense if we take into consideration Valve’s multi-team ownership rule for the next season. But, merging two rosters in one means that at least five players will be dropped.

According to a close source to both of these teams, there are two options for LFY’s carry Du “Monet” Peng. Reports from China are citing that EHOME are interested to pay a transaction fee for him, also giving in exchange Chen “Cty” Tianyu and they are also interested in a potential acquisition of the LFY’s support Tue “Ah Fu” Soon Chuan.

Despite the poor results in the TI8 qualifiers, xiao8 will continue to coach EHOME in the next season and, according to our source, Monet is his first choice. So, a very possible roster for EHOME would be Monet, the current mid laner of Keen Gaming, Zhai “荧“‘ Jingkai, Zhang “Faith_bian” Ruida and Ah Fu, if LFY will let him go.

With LFY and CDEC merging it’s more likely that the new team will run under the CDEC Gaming tag. The final version of the new roster will depend a lot on who will go to EHOME and who won’t, however, if the rumors turn true, we might witness an interesting swap.

He “Inflame” Yongzheng, LFY’s offlaner will be replaced with a youngster who is regarded as one of the best new talents of the Chinese scene. Shen ‘无敌‘ Chao actually entered the esports world by playing another lesser-known game, but he soon crushed all his opponents, therefore he left that game and decided to switch to Dota2. Just like Monet and Maybe a few years ago, he made himself noticed in the CDEC league and now he is most likely set to make his big break out.

This new team’s coach is reported to be Yao “Yao” Zhengzheng, who once again wants to take an extended break from the competitive play. Yao has always referred to LGD as his family. He’s been part of this organization since 2011 and this would be his third attempt of retiring from effective play. He took some time to rest after TI5, came back only a few months later and joined CDEC from where he bounced between LFY and LGD with a good period of staying inactive at beginning of this season.

As it happened every year, all these pre-TI shuffle rumors will be confirmed or not immediately after The International will be over. Until then, stay tuned for more updates on teams’ plans for the next season.

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