With the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor less than two weeks away, two members of the Fighting PandaS did the unthinkable. Over the weekend, Jacky "EternaLEnVy" Mao and Jingjun "Sneyking" Wu made the decision to leave the team without even giving their reasons.
The team was first announced by EternaLEnVy in August of last year. It was originally named the Fighting Pepegas before being changed to Fighting Pandas by October. The team managed to enter the ESL One Hamburg in October, but were eliminated after the Group Stage. The team later managed to qualify for the MDL Chengdu Major and even enter the Playoffs at the Upper Bracket. However, the squad ultimately lost to Vici Gaming, resulting in a drop to the Lower Bracket. There they took on beastcoast and were eliminated after a 0-2 loss.
With the move, that leaves the team with three members in Jonathan Bryle "Bryle" Santos De Guia, Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling, and David "MoonMeander" Tan. While the news could be surprising to some, it wasn't that shocking for many in the Dota 2 community. Generally, EternaLEnVy has been known to kick team members regardless of what tournmanent is coming. Back in April 2019, EternalEnvy kicked two members off of TEAM TEAM just a month before the MDL Disneyland Paris Major. You can read more about that here.
What is surprising is that it was EternalEnvy himself who left the team. Rumor has it that both he and Sneyking are joining a new Dota 2 team. Giving weight to this rumor is a tweet from Sneyking himself, who said that "further announcement/details will come later."
Many are looking into the possibility of the two joining Cloud9, who recently formed a Dota 2 team based in Southeast Asia. You can read more about Cloud9 here.
Over at Fighting PandaS, MoonMeander assured fans that he will be sticking it out with bryle and Aui and that they are looking for stand-ins in order to compete in the upcoming Minor.
Today we found out EternalEnvy and Sneyking has chosen to leave Fighting Pandas. We will look for standins for the Kiev Minor, thank you so much for your support. Me, bryle and Aui will be sticking together
— TSM MoonMeander (@MoonMeanderated) February 23, 2020
A look at the Majors and Minors Registration of the Dota 2 2019/2020 DPC Season appears to show that the team may have found their stand-ins. Oliver "Skiter" Lepko and Maurice "KheZu" Gutmann look to have signed on to Fighting PandaS. Skiter last played for Ninjas in Pyjamas before leaving the team in December 2019. As for KheZu, if his name sounds familiar it’s probably due to his time with Team Secret when he replaced Lee "Forev" Sang-don. He is currently playing for GODSENT.
While the two are indeed on the registration site, there has been no official word from Fighting PandaS confirming them being part of the team. We’ll probably have to wait for the Minor to see who the official stand-ins are.
