Is team beastcoat headed for another possible roster change? That appears to be the question Dota 2 fans are asking as the team failed to get a slot at the upcoming EPICENTER Major.
For those familiar with the story, the team was originally known as Team Team, headed by Jacky "EternalEnvy" Mao. The rest of the roster incuded Nico "Gunnar" Lopez, Jason "Newsham" Newsham, Braxton "Brax" Paulson, and Michael "ixmikke88" Ghannam. However, after a lackluster performance with the team placing 5-6th during the ESL Mumbai 2019, Gunnar and Newsham were "kicked" from the team. This action gained the attention of the Dota 2 community, considering that the MDL Disneyland Paris Major was on the horizon.
Eventually, Team Team signed on Eric "Ryoya" Dong and Timothy "tmt" Ong.
Team Team later found a sponsor and officially changed its name to beastcoast. As an organization, beatcoast already had a presence in some esports games. This would be their first time as part of the Dota 2 competition scence.
Their first tournament as the renamed team was the Paris Major. However, even with a good amount of Dota 2 competition experience between the members, the team finished the Group Stage in last place, winning only one game out of five. During the Playoffs, beastcoast was eliminated by compLexity following a match that lasted more than 40 minutes.
This meant that their next shot was the EPICENTER Major. During the North America qualifying stage, the team finished fifth out of eight after the Group Stage. Forward Gaming got the top spot, resulting in an automatic seed to the Major. For beastcoast, the team needed to a big win in the Playoffs for the remaining slot. Beastcoast had two chances and squandered both. In the Upper Bracket, beastcoast lost to Evil Geniuses in games that finished just above 20 minutes. They still had a chance in the lower bracket, but ended up eliminated courtesy of Complexity.
That left the StarLadder ImbaTV Minor S2. The team dominated the open qualifiers to secure a sport at the closed qualifiers. The group then lost to J.Storm in the first round of the Upper Bracket 0-2. Beastcoast was able to regain some composure and beat Young Drug Gaming 2-0. In the next round the group again met J.Storm, and it was pretty much the same story as before, with J.Storm winning 2-0.
With these loses, Dota 2 fans are now asking if EE is going to once again kick out other members. In fact, a thread on Reddit dubbed "Official Beastcoast Disband Waiting Room" has been started. One user commented that beastcoast will not disband even with all the losses, as doing so is impossible if four members are kicked. The comment is a direct reference to what many in Dota 2 consider normal behavior by EE.
Time will tell if beastcoast does go for a roster change. Our best guess here is that beastcoat could well do that, but probably if the team doesn't qualify for The International 2019.
