New EternaLEnVy roster drama erupts over TI10 qualifiers

When it comes to Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao, a new team means a new cast of characters for another dramatic roster breakup. The latest such drama is currently underway with Black N Yellow.

EternaLEnVy took to social media to accuse Black N Yellow’s Daniel “zero” Yun of effectively dissolving the team out of spite rather than letting former members attempt to qualify for The International. This will effectively leave all five members of the team and several others without any opportunity to qualify for The International 10.

“Me, [Luke “YamSun” Wang], and [Jose Esau “esK” Perez Coronel], three players from BnY, together with Danylo “Kingrd” Nascimento and David “Moo” Hull have been scrimming…with the hopes of playing The International qualifiers together. But although we have three of five members of BnY we will be unable to compete as zero holds the “ownership” of the team,” EternaLEnVy said.

EternaLEnVy then stated he was frustrated at the situation as well as the lack of open qualifiers for The International 10, which he labeled as being “against the spirit of Dota.” To say that EternaLEnVy’s plea fell on deaf ears would be an understatement. A number of Dota 2 pros came out to take a swipe at him over this turn of events:

zero then took to social media and told a familiar story for anyone that has followed EternaLEnVy for any length of time. According to zero, the team immediately began making preparations for EternaLEnVy attempting to kick players off the team after adding him to the roster.

“After our first series loss to [SimplyTooBased], EE immediately stated feelings of not wanting to play with the team and that he felt he did not believe in the team…The current situation is that EE does not want to play with me and Jubei (because he thinks we suck) and has gutted my team and tried to take the BnY slot with a three-fifths claim,” zero said.

With Jubei and zero not having enough members of the team in order to compete in the qualifiers and EternaLEnVy not having an official spot in the league, that will seemingly leave all the players including the likes of Moo and Kingrd without a shot at The International. 

There’s a chance Valve steps in to make some adjustment to this system to give some or all of the affected players a further opportunity at qualifying for The International, but odds are that the company won’t be particularly enthused about the idea of invalidating the newly implemented Dota Pro Circuit for what EternaLEnVy admits will be a one-off appearance for his new team.

What happened to EternaLEnVy?

EternaLEnVy has been a Dota 2 journeyman since departing Fnatic in 2018. Though he remains skilled enough to frequently find himself on competitive teams, he often spends just months or even weeks with them at a time.

This started with a short stint as Complexity Gaming’s captain at the start of the 2018-2019 season, which was followed by him jumping between ready-made teams and creating his own stacks under the name of Flying Penguins. At the start of the 2019-2020 season he reunited with occasional teammate Kurtis “aui_2000” Ling to form Fighting PandaS. EternaLEnVy then left to join a new squad sponsored by Cloud9, which lasted fewer than two months.

From there, he played alongside Clinton “Fear” Loomis’ business associates before going into a competitive hiatus. He reemerged halfway through the 2021 Dota Pro Circuit season in order to join Black N Yellow, and now that team’s future is also in peril.