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In a bizarre case, Chinese Dota 2 squad Team Aster reportedly reprimanded its offlane player Lin "Xxs" Jing for wanting to retire. As per the reports, Xu "BurNIng" Zhilei, the team's co-founder, explained that this decision to reprimand the player came from the organization's owner. Since neither Xxs nor Team Aster has commented on the matter, the reason for this rebuke remains unknown. As a long-standing member of Aster, Xxs has been there along with Ye "BoBoKa" Zhibiao since 2018. The team recently competed at The International 11 (TI11) where it finished in fourth place.
Team Aster apparently rejected Xxs's request to retire
The screenshot published on Twitter by user @Tr1H4rd3rDota2Xu shows BurNIng revealing this recent incident involving Aster's offlaner Xxs.
In the case of Xxs, the reason for the organization's decision to reject his retirement wish remains unclear, but it may have been a contractual matter or the organization wanted to keep working with him. While Xxs started his professional career in 2015, he and BoBoKa have proven to be crucial players for Aster ever since they joined the team in September 2018 from Invictus Gaming.
Despite the multiple roster moves Aster has faced over the last three years, Xxs and BoBoKa have remained the rock on which the team has been built.
Despite having shown a tendency in the past to underperform at interregional LANs, Aster improved in this aspect this year. A significant international tournament win remained elusive, but the team did record achievements such as finishing third at PGL Arlington Major 2022, second at ESL One Malaysia, and fourth at TI11. Aster won $1,135,835 USD in prize money at TI11.
The team displayed great strength throughout these events, particularly in the group stages when opponents had a hard time overcoming them. Aster also performed well in the playoffs as well, working on what it takes to handle high stakes pressure, but lost steam near the end.
It remains to be seen if the Chinese team will also follow the trend of mega roster shuffles happening around the whole professional Dota 2 scene. However, in the current state of affairs, Xxs remains a member of the team. Currently, it is unclear what will happen to the remaining players and, since this roster shuffle is likely to last for quite some time, we have a while until we see Aster's final roster for the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) 2023.
