As week two of the Dota 2 2021 DPC Season 2 came to a close, Team Liquid announced a rather surprising roster change. Liquid revealed that it had signed Syed Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan to serve as a stand-in for Samuel "Boxi" Svahn.
In a tweet, Liquid said that Boxi was taking time away from playing Dota 2 to be with his family. The team did not give additional details on this matter except that they wished “Boxi and his family the best.”
Finally with a Team
Liquid signing SumaiL as a stand-in is indeed a good decision since he isn't someone many players should take for granted. As a quick background, SumaiL started his professional esports career with Evil Geniuses. He was part of the EG roster that won the Dota 2 Asia Championships 2015, making him the youngest player to win a Valve event. When EG won TI in 2015, SumaiL became the youngest player to win TI.
However, since that win, it has been up and down for EG. The highest place it reached in succeeding TIs was third in both 2016 and 2018 tourneys. By 2019, SumaiL was put on inactive status and by 2020 joined OG. That wouldn't last long as SumaiL left OG in July of the same year.
The Current Roster
The latest roster for Liquid was signed in September 2019. Although the new roster has performed well, it has yet to reach the level of the previous roster. Still, in 2020, the team won ESL One Germany 2020 and placed second at the OGA Dota PIT Season 1: Europe/CIS.
For Season 1 of the 2021 DPC, Liquid made it to the Wild Card stage of the Singapore Major. In that same tournament, they landed on the Group Stage and later on placed in the Lower Bracket for the Playoffs. Sadly, their journey ended after getting eliminated by Vici Gaming.
For Season 2, Liquid currently has a 1-1 standing, losing to Alliance in the first game but able to win against Team Nigma in the second game.
With SumaiL joining Liquid, it would be interesting to see what strategy the team would use. For example, what position is SumaiL going to be in? We’ll get to see how SumaiL fares as part of Liquid in their upcoming match against Brame on April 27.
What are your thoughts on this move by Liquid?
