ViCi Gaming land their first victory in the China Spring Tour with Yang making a return to the organization outside the official shuffle period.
Except for the one year spent under the Elephant banner, Zhou “Yang” Haiyang has dedicated his entire professional career to Vici Gaming. He’s been a part of the VG Potential, VG Reborn and VG.J Thunder rosters before joining the main team and becoming one of the strongest offlane players in the world.
In the TI9 aftermath he went through a convoluted transfer dispute to join his former VG teammate, Zhang "Paparazi灬" Chengjun, at Elephant, but the all-star line-up put together with a lot of drama surrounding contractual agreements and payments, failed to live up to the expectations.
After an underwhelming full DPC season, Elephant clinched a spot at TI10 via regional qualifiers, but got eliminated on the first day of the main event in the 13th-16th place. The disastrous year led to full disbandment and all players finding new agreements for the 2022 Dota Pro Circuit.
Yang, however, didn’t seek any team at the beginning of the new competitive year. He skipped the Winter Tour and didn’t join any stack or organization for the Spring Tour either. However, close to the end of the first week in the Spring Tour, ViCi Gaming announced his return to base.
According to the announcement made on Weibo, Yang will act for now as a substitute for Li "Irving" Jian as the DPC rules forbid roster changes mid tour.
“According to the rules of DPC league, Yang, who joined VG during the non-transfer period, will be limited to play a certain number of times. We will make reasonable arrangements for subsequent matches,” said VG” who will be able to play just 5 out of 7 league matches with a substitute.
Yang played his first series with VG today and helped them to land their first win in the Spring Tour with two surgical performances against LBZS. Today’s victory puts VG at a 1-1 overall series score as they lost their opening match, held earlier this week, against PSG.LGD.
VG’s next series will be held against Royal Never Give Up and it is scheduled for next week, on the 22nd of March at 08:00 CET.
Vici Gaming current roster
Shaohan “Erika” Yang
Hongcheng “Xm” Guo
Jian “Irving” Li
Jia Yi “Yds” Zhao
Guanhong “起风了” Chen
sub: Haiyang “Yang” Zhou
headline picture credits: Adela Sznajder|DreamHack
