Top 5 Dota 2 Players playing out of their home region

Some players choose to leave the comforts of their home region and look farther afield where the grass is greener. It's becoming increasingly more common for a player to not play in their home region.
Today, we take a look at five top players who have moved into another region, searching for that perfect roster.
Yeik "MidOne" Nai Zheng
MidOne is a Malaysian mid lane/offlane player. While he has played in his home region, Southeast Asia, with teams such as Fnatic, he's also found himself playing with teams farther away. It started when he went to Europe to play with Clement "Puppey" Ivanov on Team Secret. He went on to win several majors, including the Chongqing Major and MDL Disneyland Paris Major, as well as Team Secret's highest-ever placing at The International, which was fourth place in 2019.
Now MidOne finds himself on another powerhouse European roster: . Currently, this move is particularly difficult because of the shift to online play and restrictions on travel. He is still playing from his home in Malaysia, resulting in high ping and matches starting at obscene times!
Syed Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan
North American's wonderboy, SumaiL found himself on Peter "ppd" Dager's Evil Geniuses roster after some impressive performances in an inhouse league. The team went onto claim first at the Dota 2 Asia Championships 2015. Six months later, they won North America's first aegis at The International 2015.
After SumaiL found himself outside of the EG roster, it was clear that something special would have to happen to keep him in NA. Often NA has been known as a one team region with Evil Geniuses being the dominant force. After a stint on Quincy Crew, he moved to Europe to join MidOne on OG.
Rodrigo "Lelis" Santos
Lelis has become a household name among South American Dota fans. He may be known most notably for his time on SG e-sports, as they placed 5-8th at the Kyiv Major 2017. Lelis' squad beat Team Secret in the lower bracket, 2:1. This performance was the first strong showing of a South American team at an international LAN.
Recently, the South American has found himself competing in other regions. Lelis was on the Ninjas in Pyjamas roster before ppd retired and the team fell apart. After a successful run as a stand-in during the ESL One Birmingham tournament, he has landed himself a place on the North American roster Quincy Crew.
Jian Wei "xNova" Yap
xNova has been on PSG.LGD since January 2018. The team took second place at The International 2018 and third place at The International 2019. The young position 5 player comes from Malaysia. He spent a large portion of his time on WarriorsGaming.Unity, but the team never mustered anything notable. The switch of regions has clearly benefited xNova as the PSG.LGD roster, although struggling at the start of the year, has become one of the most consistently good teams over the past couple of years.
Artsiom "fng" Barshak
Fng, the best hair in Dota, captain of the CIS region, led Virtus.pro to their best-ever finish at The International: fifth-sixth at The International 2015. That record has seen been tied at both TI7 and TI8. However, even fng has left his region in search of greener pastures. He has joined Alliance as a stand-in after Gustav "s4" Magnusson joined the roster, causing a shuffle.
The move from CIS to EU is probably one of the easiest moves to make in terms of logistics and ping; the regions used to be combined! Fng has been a staple of the CIS region as he bounced from Team Spirit to Gambit Esports over the years. Alliance has had a mixed bag of results so it's hard to tell if he'll return to CIS just yet.
But why?
Increasingly more players are leaving home in search of the perfect roster. This is likely due to a multitude of factors. For one, the game is more competitive than it has ever been. The requirements for a team to do well are greater than ever before. This means that players need to search through more teams before they find that special click, requiring more out of each player. It's also likely that as the prize pools and player salaries increase, they have more financial freedom to move around and relocate themselves.