COVID-19 has ruined Dota 2 esports more than once, and its most recent victims are beastcoast, as most of its players were forced to play in their hotel rooms after testing positive, leaving C. Smile facing PSG.LGD alone on their elimination match in the Dota 2 The International.

A day prior, beastcoast reported that three of their players tested positive for the virus, followed by another positive result the following day. Hence, during the lower bracket round where beastcoast met up against PSG.LGD in a Bo3 elimination match, C. Smile had to go to the stage on his own, while the rest of his teammates were playing from their respective hotel rooms.

This is not an unfamiliar sight – just a few rounds earlier, xNova also had to face Entity Gaming on his own while his teammates recuperated from their hotel rooms. xNova's valiant effort facing off against a full stack of opponents in a loss was met by fans with adoring cheers.

Beastcoast as well did not prevail against their opponents – likely due to a variety of factors, but the fact that they're not playing together must have been a big one. For one, the players will have to communicate solely through their intercoms, as opposed to their opponents who could use various facial and hand signals to direct at each other during the match. There is also a psychological impact of not being with your teammates during this very stressful match. Finally, the complaints about the production audio where players complained that they can hear what the casters are saying while the match is ongoing will definitely mar the results of this TI forever, with the teams not actually playing on-site being the most disadvantaged by this, although, it's worth noting that the supposed advantage players get over this may be mitigated by a language barrier between the English casters and the foreign players. It's also worth noting that this issue has already been addressed by the end of Day 2.

Still, in spite of these challenges, C. Smile and beastcoast would beat PSG.LGD in Game 1 of the match. However, PSG.LGD rallied and beat beastcoast 2-1. Just like xNova before him, C. Smile stood on the stage of the SUNTEC Convention Center shaking the hands of his five opponents all on his own. In spite of their loss, beastcoast's performance is just behind Thunder Awaken's in terms of the farthest a South American team has achieved in The International, having finished 7th-8th just behind Thunder Awaken's 5th-6th.

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PSG.LGD themselves would fall in the very next round on the same day, with fellow Chinese team Team Aster.

Even if the crowd response to C. Smile wasn't as strong as it was for xNova (perhaps because of PSG.LGD being a clear favorite for many fans, after all), C. Smile was just as valiant as xNova in facing adversary even on his own. GGWP to C. Smile and beastcoast.