After a fifth-place exit from The International 2023 on Oct. 28, rumors about a potential roster shuffle for Team Liquid’s Dota 2 lineup have swirled. And while a move is happening, the team’s coach has now confirmed only one player will be replaced.
Immediately following Liquid’s 2-1 loss to Gaimin Gladiators in the TI12 lower bracket quarterfinals, zai announced his intention to take a break from competing—and hinted at potentially retiring from Dota entirely.
Other than a few jokes from other players and Liquid’s coach, Blitz, there wasn’t much concrete information to go on after zai’s comments. But now that the post-TI roster shuffle is in full effect, rumors of a rebuild involving one or more players being replaced from Liquid started popping up.
In response, Blitz has essentially confirmed zai is stepping away from the team in some capacity, but Liquid will not replace any additional players. This means they are only filling the offlane role unless something unexpected happens.
Blitz’s joke tweet about only kicking zai right after their elimination was partially true, though we still don’t know if he will part ways with the team entirely or simply move to the inactive roster for the foreseeable future—similar to Ame with LGD Gaming or Topson with OG.
If this holds true, Liquid will retain star midlaner Nisha and the trio of miCKe, Boxi, and Insania for another season. That threesome broke the Dota 2 record for most games played together by a group of three players during TI12 and it appears they will only add to that mark moving forward.
Even if zai is the only loss for Liquid this offseason, it is still a sizable blow to a team that placed third at TI11, brought in Nisha following MATUMBAMAN’s retirement, and then was a top-three team throughout the 2023 season.
As for who Liquid might bring in to replace zai, Blitz said the team has talked to “every single free agent offlaner” already and will announce their signing ahead of the WEU qualifiers for ESL Kuala Lumpur 2023, which begin on Nov. 16. According to the coach, the signing is “more or less done.”
Dota reporter koozya, who Blitz called out by name in his statement, noted that Liquid specifically had talks with Tundra’s 33—though that should be taken lightly based on Blitz’s comments despite Tundra’s roster likely being free agents. Based on what Blitz said, we should hear about Liquid’s new signing at some point in the next two weeks.
