Big changes for Newbee; Mu set to retire

Big changes for Newbee are underway as Zhang “Mu” Pan is set to retire. The news of the mid player’s retirement comes less than a month after Newbee’s captain and carry Chen “Hao” Zhihao announced his break from competitive gaming for the upcoming Fall Major 2016 season or longer. Newbee has yet to announce or register their new roster. Teams have until September 18th at 12:00 PDT to complete their rosters before the registration is locked.

Newbee will look quite different going into the Fall Major 2016 season.

Zhang “Mu” Pan’s plans for retirement have been announced. The extremely talented Chinese veteran had been playing with Newbee since 2014, taking home the Aegis at TI4 along with teammate Chen “Hao” Zhihao. The two players seemed to be the core of the organization, always standing out with the plays and incredible performances.

Hao announced that he will be taking a hiatus this upcoming year for at least six months or even longer. He acknowledged that the break could be indefinite and apologized to fans for the ‘disappointing’ results.

Newbee took 9-12th place at TI6 after being eliminated by Team Liquid 2:1 in the second round of the lower brackets.

The organization has not yet announced or registered their new roster and have four days remaining to do so for the upcoming season.

Zhang “Mu” Pan

Zhang is known for his high risk, high reward playstyle. In 2012 he joined TongFu as their mid player along with Hao and SanSheng, where they won the 2012 Eastern Qualifiers and placed seventh at The International 2. They were then invited to TI3, placing fourth at the event.

In September 2013 TongFu lost 3 members in a reshuffle however, in February Mu would go to Newbee where he would be reunited with both Hao and SanSheng and go on to win TI4.

Mu stayed with Newbee since then, taking 13-16th at TI5 and Frankfurt Major, 9-12th at Shanghai Major and 3rd at the Manila Major as well as second place in various Major LAN tournaments during the spring season.

Newbee

For the Spring season Meng “Xiao2lei” Lei and Zhang “le” Xuanhao moved to Newbee.Young, and Damien “kphoenii” Chok and Hu “Kaka” Liangzhi joined the team. Kaka had last played for EHOME and kphoenii is an Australian player who played for MVP.Phoenix and EHOME.King.

Newbee put an end to EHOME’s last hopes to participate in EPICENTER Moscow. The TI4 Championship team convincingly wiped out EHOME 3:0 in the EPICENTER Moscow Chinese qualifiers to secure a spot in the closed qualifiers. The Chinese stars had first swept through CDEC 2:0 then bested ViCi Gaming Reborn then LGD Gaming 2:1 before advancing to the Grand Finals.

Their incredible performance in the qualifiers was displayed most recently when they went through the entire Manila Major Chinese Qualifiers with an astounding 12:0 record, having not surrendered a single loss.

Their streak continued through the EPICENTER Moscow LAN where they continued to win and set a new record of 29 consecutive wins until OG defeated them in the upper brackets. Eventually the Chinese team went on take an impressive second place finish in the event.

Their strong performances and top placements didn’t stop there, they continued to seize a spot on the podium taking a highly commendable third place at the Manila Major, second at National Electronic Arena 2016, first place at Nanyang Dota 2 Championships Season 2 and second place in Dota2 Professional League Season 1.

current Newbee roster:

Damien “kphoenii” Chok
Hu “Kaka” Liangzhi
Wong “ChuaN” Hock Chuan