October 23, 2022, 08:36 PM
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South American Dota 2 team Beastcoast has had several members and a coach come down with Covid-19, forcing all but one of the team members to be replaced by stuffed toys during The International 2022 (TI11) .
On Oct. 23, only Jean "C. smile" Salazar was able to make the stage, with his four teammates playing remotely in isolations rooms.
One of these is not like the other pic.twitter.com/Ny1tTkzHBj
— Beastcoast (@beastcoast) October 23, 2022
This is the second time something like this has happened in the tournament, with a similar matchup held on Oct. 20 between RNG and Entity. The RNG team, decimated by Covid, played remotely except for Malaysian player Yap "xNova" Jian Wei.
On that occasion, the team was replaced by teddy bears wearing the team's jersey.
For Beastcoast, team members who were down with Covid were replaced by stuffed dogs wearing toques with the team logo pasted on.
holy shit k1 was ICE COLD during that fight pic.twitter.com/gVIohntLRX
— Beastcoast (@beastcoast) October 23, 2022
One of Beastcoast's players had complained of a sore throat after their last match against Evil Geniuses, according to ONE Esports. As a result, the team had undergone rapid Covid testing, which confirmed several team members had contracted the virus.
— Beastcoast (@beastcoast) October 22, 2022
But while they could continue to compete from isolation rooms, Beastcoast was handicapped because tournament organiser Valve had not made provisions for a coach to be involved, meaning the team would be be uncoached for the game.
Despite this, Salazar and team pressed on, battling to a close fought 2-1 loss to Chinese team PSG.LGD.
Gotta fist bump your homies on LAN even if they're not there 😔 pic.twitter.com/5IXQ2CAD98
— Beastcoast (@beastcoast) October 23, 2022
According to Yahoo, the 3 matches were played over 2 hours, with PSG.LGD coming from behind to take the final game.
The loss eliminates Beastcoast from the competition in 7th-8th place, but the team has won US$430,000 (S$608,000) for their efforts.
Thanking their supporters, Beastcoast urged them to back South American team Thunder Awaken.
Thank you for the insane amount of support that we got during this TI run, we hope we have made everyone in SA and around the world proud of us.
— Beastcoast (@beastcoast) October 23, 2022
Continue to support Thunder Awaken in their upcoming game, SA forever. Until next time.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA pic.twitter.com/vpMI6MhDWV
Having been assured of a 5th-6th place finish, PSG.LGD will progress to the next round. They have also won at least US$600,000 (S$850,000).
TI11 continues until Oct. 30.
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Top image via @beastcoast/Twitter
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