Four days before the Boston Major group stage is set to get underway, on December 3rd, iG Vitality find themselves in a grim situation. Two of their players – Gao “dogf1ghts” Tianpeng and captain Su “super” Peng – have had their US visas denied for a third time and are thus unable to make the trip to Boston.
According to iG’s announcement, the organization is up against the clock, considering their substitutes options and running them by Valve:
We have just had the third US visa interview for our iG.V boys, three of them got approved, however, dogf1ghts and super got rejected. We are currently working with Valve regarding the substitutes.
Currently playing for iG’s main squad, Xu “BurNIng” Zhilei is the official substitute for iG Vitality. The main squad failed to advance past the group stage of the Boston Major Chinese qualifiers, missing the playoffs slightly after tying with EHOME.KEEN for 4th place.
Around the same time last year, Su “super” Peng was playing for iG’s main squad and the team was forced to withdraw from the Frankfurt Major, due to complications in obtaining required travel documents for the player.
Now, as a part of iG Vitality, Su “super” Peng had all his travel documents straightened out, but was still denied a US visa, much like his teammate, Gao “dogf1ghts” Tianpeng.
According to iG, getting a visa approval depends largely on “the mood of the officer”.
Wang Theatre
The Boston Major main event will be held between December 7th-11th, at the Wang Theater, in Boston, USA, with a set prize-pool of $3,000,000. Sixteen teams will compete in the main event hosted by PGL and Valve. Wings Gaming, Digital Chaos, Evil Geniuses, Newbee, EHOME, Execration, OG and MVP.Phoenix have been directly invited to the event. Team NP compLexity, LGD.FY, iG Vitality, Ad Finem, Virtus.Pro, Team Faceless and WarriorsGaming.Unity have all qualified for the event. The group stage is set to take place between December 3rd-4th.
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