Beyond

Xiang “Beyond” Zhenghong was born on June 14, 1996, in China. He is a position-three offlaner who has spent most of his career fighting through China’s lower divisions, development teams, and qualifiers before finally reaching The International.

Beyond is not a superstar offlaner in the Faith_bian or Xxs category. His story is more about persistence. He played professionally for almost seven years before reaching TI—and then qualified twice in consecutive seasons.

Early Life

There is almost no reliable public information about Beyond’s life before professional Dota. His recorded career began in 2017 with FTD.Future and For The Dream, followed by a move to iG.Vitality in 2018.

Those early years were spent almost entirely inside the Chinese development scene. Beyond was good enough to remain relevant, but he struggled to find the roster that could finally push him onto the international stage.

Career

Beyond represented iG.Vitality, Blaze, CDEC Gaming, Dandelion Esport Club, and Ybb Gaming before joining Team Zero in 2023. It was hardly a glamorous route, but each project kept him inside China’s competitive system.

Team Zero finally changed everything.

The organization began as Xtreme Gaming’s secondary roster before becoming independent in July 2024. Against expectations, Team Zero survived the Chinese qualifier and reached The International 2024. They finished 13th–16th, but for Beyond, simply reaching TI after years in Tier 2 competition was already a major breakthrough.

In 2025, he joined Yakult Brothers, finished sixth at DreamLeague Season 26, and later attended The International 2025 after the team replaced the withdrawn Gaimin Gladiators. Yakult Brothers finished 9th–13th, giving Beyond two consecutive TI appearances with two completely different underdog rosters.

That is honestly the most impressive part of his career. Plenty of more famous Chinese players missed both events. Beyond found a way to get there twice.

Yakult Brothers

Beyond has already played two separate periods with Yakult Brothers, including the roster that attended TI2025 with flyfly, Emo, BoBoKa, and Oli. He was never the team’s main star, but he gave four mechanically demanding teammates a stable position-three player who could initiate, build utility, and survive without receiving perfect conditions.

The requested Lou–Emo–Beyond–Kaka–Tianming lineup would use him in exactly the same way: hold the difficult part of the map and make sure the team’s greedier cores have room to play.

Playstyle

Beyond is a versatile offlaner whose established hero pool includes Centaur Warrunner, Doom, Batrider, Timbersaw, Brewmaster, Beastmaster, Dark Seer, and Pangolier. He can play the traditional Blink initiator, the aura builder, or the greedier third core. His biggest strength is flexibility rather than domination. Beyond is normally not the player destroying the lane and taking over the entire game—but he usually gives his team something useful in the draft.

That might sound boring. It is also exactly what many unstable Chinese stacks need.

Interesting Facts About Beyond

Beyond reached his first International in 2024, almost seven years after beginning his professional career.

He then attended TI2025 with Yakult Brothers, making it two consecutive Internationals.