Tidebound are back in competitive Dota 2. The Chinese organisation has named its roster for the 2026-2027 season, with Ning “xiao8” Zhang as coach and four of the five players who represented the team at The International 2025.
According to GosuGamers, the lineup was revealed on Tidebound’s official Weibo account. It ends a 10-month absence. The side had not competed since December 2025, a few months after finishing seventh-eighth at TI 2025.
The returning players fill four of the five positions. Xuanang “Shiro” Guo plays carry and Cheng “NothingToSay” Jin Xiang takes the mid lane. Hao “plAnet” Lin and Yiping “y`” Zhang cover the position 4 and position 5 support roles. The one new face in the starting five is Haiyang “Yang” Zhou, an experienced offlaner who completes the team.
The full 2026-2027 lineup:
Coach: Ning “xiao8” ZhangCarry: Xuanang “Shiro” GuoMid: Cheng “NothingToSay” Jin XiangOfflane: Haiyang “Yang” ZhouPosition 4: Hao “plAnet” LinPosition 5: Yiping “y`” Zhang
Several of these players arrive from teams that had a difficult TI 2026. GosuGamers reports that xiao8 and NothingToSay were most recently at Xtreme Gaming. xiao8 left that organisation before TI 2026, while NothingToSay was released in early September once Xtreme Gaming failed to progress beyond the group stage.
Shiro and y` come from Vici Gaming. That team no longer exists. It disbanded after being knocked out in the TI 2026 elimination stage, leaving both players free to reunite with their former Tidebound teammates.
The move fits into a wider reshuffle across Dota 2 in the weeks since TI 2026, as organisations rebuild for a new competitive year. For Tidebound, the approach is familiar rather than experimental: rather than starting from scratch, the organisation has gathered a core that already knows how to play together at the game’s biggest event, and paired it with an offlaner and a coach who both bring years of top-level experience.
Tidebound has not yet confirmed which events the new roster will enter first. The 2026-2027 season is the stated target, and the team now has a complete five-man lineup with which to begin qualifying.
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