BoBoKa Reveals Why Aster Pursued SumaiL’s Signing

The Team Aster support player says the lack of quality mid lane players in China prompted his team to look at foreign talents for the Berlin Major

It's been almost a decade since Zhibiao Dominik “Black^” Reitmeier, a Western player, made his way to China to join a local team. For this reason, Team Aster’s announcement of bringing in Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan as their stand-in at the Berlin Major caused quite a stir in the Dota 2 community. Despite facing communication challenges and having only a few days to practice with SumaiL before the Major, Team Aster pushed through and secured a spot in the playoffs. And as it turned out, this was only the start of a promising partnership – both SumaiL and Aster had plans to continue playing together for the rest of the DPC Season.

ASTER announced that they have made agreement with NGX that SumaiL will keep playing with them till TI12 ends. And they are in talks with NGX About SumaiL’s future too. pic.twitter.com/xF8PL1Ibkd

— CN Dota In A Nutshell (@Tr1H4rd3rDota2) May 8, 2023

Gosu Gamers talked to Aster’s Ye “BoBoKa” Zhibiao following their elimination from the Major. BoBoKa disclosed how the team decided to recruit SumaiL.

“We have a shortage of mid players in China for sure. The midlaners who were tier one material and those who were good enough to play this kind of tournaments, they are all retired in China. So we had to look somewhere else, to think outside the box. We think that SumaiL is still the king, he is very good, and we can work around the communication issues.”