image courtesy of StarLadder
Internal issues seem to be overshadowing TNC Pro Team's tournament schedules, as they pull out of the Southeast Asian qualifiers for EPICENTER.
After Vega Squadron's withdrawal from Mr. Cat Invitational yesterday, TNC also announced today their withdrawal from the EPICENTER Qualifiers. Announcing the update on their Facebook and Twitter, TNC attributed the withdrawal to unsolved internal issues in the team, rather than a packed schedule like Vega.
The heart of the Pinoy Dota 2 scene, and with a huge fan following that spans across not only the Phillipines but also South-East Asia, TNC made history in the last International, by eliminating then two-time major winners OG, and a huge favourite going into the tournament, with their signature Huskar-Dazzle strat, a victory that defied all odds and is termed as one of the biggest upsets of The International history. However, things went downhill pretty quickly for them following their defeat by grand-finalists Digital Chaos (the current Thunderbirds squad), as three of their players - Marc Polo 'Raven' Luis Fausto, Nico 'eyyou' Barcelon and Jimmy 'DeMoN' Ho - announced their departure from the team. The new TNC seemed to be a shadow of their former self, however they were able to quickly regain momentum, following the disband of Fnatic and Raven re-joining the team and leading them on to win the World Electronic Sports Games. Recently, TNC showed in their performance in the Kiev Major that they are still a force to be reckoned with, beating Evil Geniuses, Thunderbirds as well as Digital Chaos in the group stage, but the single-elimination format of the tournament didn't suit them well as they lost to their SEA brethren Team Faceless in the first series of the Main Stage.
Now, it seems that TNC is facing some internal issues within the team, as they played their last series of the EPICENTER Qualifiers against Clutch Gamers on the tenth of May, using Joshua 'Owa' Del Serna as a standin for Ryo 'ryOyr' Hasegawawith. With just four days remaining till the Drop Deadline for the post-Kiev shuffle, TNC has to decide on something and make it quick. While many SEA fans were anticipating a return of DeMoN to the team once again, DeMoN himself ruled out the possibility of that happening in his tweet today, which suggests that TNC may be looking for something else. It is quite hard to predict what the future of TNC will be from this point, but we only hope that they come back stronger than ever for the International 2017.
