The departure of Yee Fung 'Mushi' Chai from Neolution.Orange came as a shock to many and as a Malaysian myself, I couldn't help but feel disappointed about the decision he made to leave the South East Asian scene. I messaged Mushi a few hours ago about the matter and the first thing he said to me was "Sorry". I cannot imagine how many apologies he had made today after the announcement and honestly, after calming myself down, I feel that there is no need for him to apologize at all. Here is why.
Orange's performance
In contrary to popular beliefs, Orange actually did not do very well in the months leading up to The International 3. They might have finished first in several GEST events but they did not actually finish first in any major tournaments they joined and they have joined a lot, more than any South East Asian teams. In fact, they struggled to even finish second. The only second placing they got was in RedBull ECL LAN Finals in which they got obliterated by LGD.cn in the grand final.
Achievements 2013
1st - SEA League (2013) - $800
1st - Gosucup Asia V (20 13) - $500
2nd - GEST February (2013) - $500
3rd - Steelseries DotaTalk League (2013)
1st - GEST The Challenge (2013) - $1,000
1st - Asian Gaming League #2 (2013) - RM 1,500
1st - PRIDE Challenge (2013) - €2,000
3rd - G-1 Champion's League (2013) - $4,800
4th - Dota 2 Super League Season 1 (2013) - $8,100
5th-6th - Alienware Cup (2013) - $3,000
1st - AMD Premier League #2 (2013) - $3,000
2nd - RedBull ECL (2013) - $3,261
3rd - The International 3 (2013) - $287,441
Whenever I have a chat with Mushi at some LAN finals, he always tells me they are grateful to even finish third because he does not think his team is good enough or rather, have not practiced enough to beat the Chinese juggernauts. Mushi has also been questioned in many interviews about his drafting capability to which he's usually replied that his team did not execute the draft as he wished them to.
I am not saying that his teammates are performing bad but Mushi is currently at a point where he thinks his team is weighing him down and the only way to move forward is to move house. Why not continue in Malaysia, you ask? The answer is simple: he simply could not find another team that can perform better than the Orange he was leading at The International 3.
The SEA scene in general
The Malaysian Dota scene is rather vibrant and has produced a huge number of great players over the decade but when placed beside China, the scene looks like an ant in a forest. In fact, the same is true for the whole SEA scene. Before you tie me to the cross, let's take a quick look at the stats in terms of prize pool.
During the Warcraft 3 DotA era, SMM pumped about $30,000 into the scene annually and fast forwarding four years ahead the annual prize pool of Dota has not increased at all or very slightly at best. At the same time, China and Europe has started hitting the six-digit mark while the Korean scene, in an effort to bring in more players, is enticing them with more than a million dollars in cash prize yearly. And we haven't even celebrated its first birthday yet!
With such a small emphasis on Esports, it can be hard for young talents with no solid sponsorship from their own parents to commit fully to the game (Esports salary in SEA is almost non-existence). This leads to less talented players, and therefore harder for Mushi to spearhead Malaysia into the top of the Dota 2 scene so right now, we are at a point where Mushi has given up. There is simply no roster change Orange can make to become a better team because Ky.Xy, Ohaiyo, Net and Xtinct are indeed the best of the best.
"The South East Asian Scene is pretty dead to me. There's a lot of fans and there is a community but the competitive scene is not that great. In South East Asia, there are us (Zenith), Orange and MUFC, and that's about it," said iceiceice about the SEA scene. This can be further exemplified in an interview with Mushi during TI3 in which he said they have no training partner for the tournament apart from Zenith. Chinese teams are starting to move away from scrimming on SEA server now with the Perfect World server ready.
The temptation of the dream team
Nobody knows for sure which Chinese team Mushi will be heading to but it is highly speculated that he will be joining DK. DK is currently undergoing massive reformation as they recently removed everyone but BurNIng to make room for a highly anticipated all-stars team. Rumours have it that Lanm, ChuaN, and Sylar will be joining DK alongside Mushi and judging from the roster, the latter will also very likely be the captain of the dream team.
His move to China may be rather new to the Dota 2 scene but this phenomenon is rather usual in other scenes such as StarCraft 2 where western players would travel to Korea with the purpose of honing their skill. Oftentimes, this move is not even the result of having a spot in a specific tournament and is all about working the right practice environment (usually in the form of staying in a Korean training house), learning from the best players and/or their coaches and just blending into the most developed competitive StarCraft culture on the planet. Followers of the scene will recall how most of the westerners who travel to Korea report drastic improvement in their performance and say how the quality experience is next to nothing.
What's more, the practice of going to Korea to live and train well precedes the days of StarCraft 2 and players like Ret and Idra were known for being the best by channeling the benefits this environment gives them. With the coming of SC2 and the growth of the scene, the instances of these pilgramages multiplied rapidly and there are the bright examples of HuK, Jinro, Naniwa and many others who used Korea to further solifidy their positions as top foreigners of their respective times. Fastforward to the summer of 2013 and we see players like Acer's Scarlett being among the best foreigners in the world and certainly the best North American, her skill clearly displayed at the recent WCS Season 2 finals and a plethora of preceding tournaments.
Similarly to the StarCraft 2 players, by moving to China Mushi gets a sweet gaming house, a more than sufficient salary and the privilege of commanding an all-stars line-up. Who can resist that temptation?
