Dota 2 fans have been given an explanation of why Chinese veteran Zhang “Faith_bian” Ruida returned to the competitive Dota 2 scene after retiring for a year.
His retirement and return brought varying degrees of worry and excitement, but the latter has been mild because a lack of new talent in the region could be the cause.
Faith_bian has already featured for his team at BetBoom Dacha Dubai, and on Saturday, in an interview, he gave insights on his decision to return from retirement and his new nickname.
He said his return to pro Dot is due to the lack of new players in China. Faith_bian lived abroad in Munich after their initial retirement and also served as an analyst in 2023. He said he wouldn’t have returned if new faces were forming strong teams in the region.
“It seems like there are no new players to play Dota 2 in China; there are not enough new players. Maybe it’s because people don’t have time to play, or they prefer to play mobile games. There may be lots of different reasons, but the result is there are no newcomers. We have high-rank players, yet they are not playing on the Perfect World server because there are no players to play against.” Faith_bian said.
However, Faith_bian believes that the top Chinese teams will work even harder this year as the region is not in a good state right at the moment. This is because other players like Ori and Ame are competing again after retiring temporarily. He also hopes that the active pros can show off the game’s appeal to potentially attract more players.
Meanwhile, Faith_bian and Azure Ray resumed their BetBoom Dacha Dubai playoff run against Team Liquid on Sunday, Feb. 11. Alongside LGD and Xtreme; Azure Ray will hope they can put China back at the forefront of the Dota 2 pro scene once more.
Daniel Ademiju Idowu
