CIS gets visa for Ayo, remaining team members get rejected

Visa woes have not left Chinese Dota 2 team CIS and with only a week to go before The International 2014 (TI4), the team’s chances are beginning to look grim. With the exception of Fan “Ayo” Tianyou, third time isn’t a charm for CIS as it once again failed to secure the team’s visas for its trip to Seattle, Washington. According to a post on He “Inflame” Yongzheng’s weibo:

Here’s the English translation of Inflame’s post:

The first time [we applied, we had] four team members plus the manager. The manager passed. The second time [we applied, we had] five team members. We all failed. This last time, [we had] five team members, but only Ayo passed. He was interviewed by number 13, and after 15 minutes, I was also interviewed by him (number 13), but failed [to get approval]. Don’t mention the other materials. He didn’t even look at the invitation letter.

(See: CIS fails to get visa for a second time for The International 2014)

From what we can gather from the translation, both Ayo and Inflame were interviewed by the same person or office (number 13), but only Ayo received an approval despite having similar reasons for flying to Seattle. It also seems that extra supporting documents did not help to improve its chances for its third application.

In spite of the situation, Lin “June” Shiyang, on the other hand, chose to be optimistic, but was also “preparing for the worst” as stated in his weibo post:

Here’s the English translation of June’s post:

This time, for visa [application], only Ayo passed. No luck for the others. Don’t worry, everyone. It looks like after two or three days, there’s still another chance. There’s no use for us to be annoyed. We’ve already prepared everything we needed to, as well as paid attention to what we have to. We also tried looking for people to help. If we can’t go to the competition, then there’s nothing else we can try. We’re already preparing for the worst. But being rejected three times is kind of weird, let’s do it one more time!

CIS is supposed to head to TI4 as one of the four teams to participate in the play-in series after finishing second place in the Chinese qualifiers. With this International’s prize pool of $10 million being the largest in eSports history, it would be quite disappointing for CIS not to be able to attend because of visa issues.