PPD withdraws from Dota 2 TI10

Peter “PPD” Dager has announced on Twitter that he wouldn’t be attending the Dota 2 TI10. PPD was part of the event’s English broadcast talent team, consisting of the 32 best Dota 2 talents.

PPD’s decision to withdraw from the TI comes when Bucharest, the city hosting the Dota 2 TI10, is witnessing an alarming rise in Covid cases.

Notably, on October 1, it was announced that the entire Chinese broadcast talent crew for the Dota 2 TI10 would not be traveling to the venue and would instead be working remotely from China.

This, coupled with Team Aster’s whole contingent turning covid-positive, makes the road leading to TI10 look rather grim, with the group stage only less than a week away.

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PPD announces that he will not attend TI10; will more Dota 2 talents follow suit?

PPD’s announcement comes shortly before all the Dota 2 TI10 English broadcast talents arrive in Bucharest. He stated in his tweet:

“It was a hard decision that I hope everyone will respect.”

The caster jokingly added:

“DON’T LET OG WIN AGAIN!!!”

With all that said, it is still unclear whether PPD will join the TI10 broadcast online. For example, Owen “ODPixel” Davies did casting from home in an otherwise on-site WePlay Animajor event.

The covid situation in Bucharest is undoubtedly a cause of concern for anyone attending TI10 in person. Moreover, as news emerges from Dota 2 teams already in Bucharest, the lack of any bubble created for them sounds like a recipe for disaster.

With members of Team Aster and Invictus Gaming already catching Covid, the TI10 seemingly has a messy road leading up to it. It remains to be seen if more broadcast talent will decide to withdraw from the event.

Either way, this should be a significant cause of concern for Valve, and steps need to be taken to address the issue at hand.