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tips.gg/Dota 2 News/How the Dota 2 teams form their squads a few days before the Roster Lock

How the Dota 2 teams form their squads a few days before the Roster Lock

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18.11.2021, 18:49

Transfer updates before the start of the new DPC season in Dota 2 continue. Teams continue to announce their updated rosters, and more and more players continue to become free agents. Valve announced that the Roster lock will take place on November 21. That means that all teams should announce their rosters by that date.

MATUMBAMAN is coming home

One more player has left Team Secret. This time it was Lasse “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen who took over the team. Let me remind you that Team Secret finished third at The International 10, losing only to PSG.LGD and a sensational loss to Team Spirit.

If we talk about MATUMBAMAN’s game, it was stable. Lasse always plays a supporting role, even though he’s a carry. He can always create space for his teammates, collect items for survivability, giving priority to Nisha. This is how he plays; that’s his playstyle, which made MATUMBAMAN famous for playing with Team Liquid when he played alongside Kuroky. That said, Lasse has a very wide hero pool. I don’t see any drastic reason for this change in Team Secret, given that they finished third at TI. Basically, the roster with MATUMBAMAN and zai worked. Most likely, the reshuffle in Team Secret had other reasons. For example, the players are already just morally tired of each other and lost motivation to play together, because zai is offlaner Team Secret for a long time.

If MATUMBAMAN’s contract was about to expire, it’s possible that his departure was his own decision, and he decided to try himself in a new place. However, if so, Puppey is unlikely to be too upset because it seems that Clement wants to rebuild the team radically. Puppey is one of the first to experiment with the roster, bringing the players from North America and Southeast Asia to his EU team. We all remember the different rosters of Team Secret with Arteezy, MidOne, MP, and even EternalEnvy.

Lasse found his new home in his old organization – Team Liquid. Of course, this is not the same Liquid roster as before because, to revive the TI7 championship lineup, Matu would have to join Nigma instead of ILTW. Apparently, Nigma does not see a problem in their players, which means their roster will remain unchanged. However, by taking MATUMBAMAN and zai, Team Liquid has yet to announce changes to their team. The only thing known for sure is that qojqva will remain on Team Liquid as a streamer.

The community was actively discussing the possibility of Sumail and iceiceice transferring to Team Secret, but don’t forget about ATF and what his ex-teammate Fishman said. He said that ATF has several offers from top-tier teams that are even more prestigious than the offer from OG. In any case, it will be interesting to see where the 16-year-old player from Jordan ends up. By the way, ATF doesn’t have a very large pool of heroes, but he scores phenomenally, playing as his signature heroes. It’s more of an OG style than a Team Secret style. Maybe if ATF would play with Puppey, he’ll have to train a lot of new heroes. However, any young player develops and progresses rapidly under the guidance of such a legendary captain. But it is only a theory.

As for the carry position, everything is more complicated because Sumail trains to play the mid position. That means Nisha will have to move to the carry position if Sumail comes to Team Secret. I think that would only make Team Secret stronger. Nisha is still young enough to switch roles, especially the move from mid to carry doesn’t seem that drastic. It might even give Michal some freshness to his game. Also, the young Czech player Supream^ was available as a free agent at that time. He recently left his team Chicken Fighters and may already be preparing to move to a top-tier organization

Team Secret has long maintained intrigue and published player teasers in the form of little comics with some puzzles. It’s quite an exciting way to introduce your players.

These puzzles didn’t prove difficult for the community. Team Secret took the most predictable and perhaps correct path in selecting players. In the end, Secret made the official announcement that iceiceice and Sumail had joined the team.

Team Secret roster

  •   Michał “Nisha” Jankowski
  •   Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan
  •   Daryl “iceiceice” Koh Pei Xiang
  •   Yazied “YapzOr” Jaradat
  •   Clement “Puppey” Ivanov

Amazing, iceiceice is already 32 years old, and he is still a highly sought-after as an offlaner that he was easily taken by one of the best captains in the world. This proves once again that Daryl is a terrific player and a true master of his position. And he knows his old friend Clement so too long. That’s will be a plus.

Iceiceice, Puppey and hyhy, 2010

We have no reason to doubt Sumail’s skill. He didn’t have the best season. There’s a perception that Sumail has a hard time fitting in on any team after Evil Geniuses. He’s used to a certain environment and circumstances. However, his experience playing substitute for Team Liquid at the beginning of the season at the One Esports Singapore Major and his experience playing in the OG proves otherwise. Sumail practically single-handedly took OG to the top 8 of The International 10. Just give this guy the right team, and he will crush the Dota 2 scene again.

OG’s rebuild

Ceb has officially ended his career as a professional Dota 2 player. The team released a tribute video to the legendary captain. In the video, Sebastian said that he will help the team by performing managerial functions and applying his entire arsenal of experience and knowledge in the future.

Also, earlier, OG reported that Sockshka is officially stepping down as an assistant coach. Misha, meanwhile, will officially stay on as head coach. Earlier insiders were talking about Misha becoming the new OG captain, but the organization is silent now.

Also, OG will probably negotiate a move with ATF, a 16-year-old offlaner from Jordan. However, as I wrote earlier, ATF has many offers from other teams right now. We can safely exclude Team Secret and Team Liquid from this list since they already have new players for the third position.

So far, there are only two players left on the OG roster:

  •   Topias “Topson” Taavitsainen
  •   Johan “N0tail” Sundstein

There is an essential question. If Misha is still the OG captain, playing in the 5th position, what will N0tail do? I think Johan realizes that the role change will be too late for him. The only option is to give Misha the captain’s chair or make Misha play another position. Misha has played all the teams in the fifth position before. The lack of experience can be a significant obstacle for Misha to show quality play in other positions, for example, playing in the 4th position. The gameplay of these positions is dramatically different and requires completely different skills. It’s also worth remembering that Misha will have to play the role of captain. Perhaps soon, we may see the news of N0tail’s departure from the team, at least as a player in the main roster.

Apart from ATF and Misha, there are no other obvious candidates for the OG team yet. OG doesn’t play puzzles with the community and hint at how their team will be rebuilt. So we are left to speculate and rely on insider knowledge from the community.

So far, all the processes in the OG remain a mystery, but roster lock will be held on November 21, and wait for the announcement is not long. I don’t think OG will miss the next DPC season with a slot in the top division.

Alliance took three players and coach

Alliance is also, like OG, without three players. Fng, s4, and Limmp left the team. By the way, since Limmp left Alliance, I would advise other teams that don’t have a mider to take a better look at Linus. He’s a really talented and stable mider who can beat even titans like Sumail, Somnus, and Abed on the lane.

The Swedish team released a video called “The Process,”. It was a little teaser of possible Alliance’s players. In the video, Loda sits as a detective and a board of evidence looking for players to join his team. The video has many references to players, such as RAMZES666 and SumaiL.

Alliance officially announced their new roster on November 18 at 7 p.m. CET. Lelis, Aramis, and Supream^ joined the team. Yes, this is the offer from tier 1 organization that Supream^ was waiting for. Another Czech team member of Hippomaniacs has found himself in one of the best European esports organizations.

Lelis announced his departure from Quincy Crew sometime after the end of TI. Apparently, Loda was impressed with Lelis’ performance on Nature’s Prophet at TI10 that he remembered old times. The Brazilian will now play on a European team. It’s also significant progress for the South American scene. Not only America but also Europe will be increasingly filled with legionnaires from Brazil and Peru.

Aramis is the former support of the Vikin.gg team. These guys rocked at the beginning of the last DPC season and had all the prospects to make it to the Major. However, there is too much competition in Europe. If even Nigma couldn’t always make it to the top tournaments, what about teams like Vikin.gg and Tundra Esports? Already at the end of the season, it was clear that Vikin.gg players were likely to be good candidates to join the top-tier teams that would change their lineups after TI. Interesting fact: Aramis has not only fluent English but also fluent Russian.

In theory, Aramis could end up on some team from Eastern Europe (CIS) and play in that region. The Israeli player may have had offers from such teams, but his choice fell on Alliance.

Okcya became the new coach of the team. The Finnish player hasn’t reached high results, but he had coaching experience on one of the LAN tournaments. Niklas coached the experimental Vega Squadron squad with Madara and Dendi in DreamLeague Season 10. Now Alliance has given okcya the opportunity to show himself in all his glory and realize his full potential.

Alliance’s updated roster

  •   Nikolay “Nikobaby” Nikolov
  •   Ondřej “Supream^” Štarha
  •   Rodrigo “Lelis” Santos
  •   Adam “Aramis” Moroz
  •   Simon “Handskeen” Haag
  •   Niklas “okcya” Koskinen (coach)

Also worth noting is the shift of Handsken to the position of hard support. Previously, Alliance players said in interviews that Handskeen shares the duties of captain and coach. Well, Alliance has a coach. And as a captain, he should move to the fifth position to focus on strategies and tactics. Let’s see if Handsken can realize his potential in this role.

Chinese reshuffle: Show must go on

Elephant’s story is over

The Chinese reshuffle is also in full swing. So far, Chinese fans have already lost one team that made a splash before TI10. Elephant have completely disbanded their roster. And although the players assured that they will play together for at least another year, it seems that something prevented them from keeping their stellar lineup. But who’s going where?

Xtreme Gaming – the new player of the Chinese Dota scene?

According to rumors, Eurus has already found a home in a team from the lower division – Xtreme Gaming. Chinese insiders say that this team has received a lot of investment from the bosses of Vici Gaming. The businessmen have poured a solid amount of money into Xtreme Gaming. By the way, Eurus himself has changed his nickname to the old one (Paparazzi) and trains to play mid lane. On the website, you can also see that Pyw is already registered as an Xtreme Gaming player. It looks like Dy will also join Xtreme Gaming. After a while, the information was confirmed, and the insiders were right. Dy and Paparazzi appeared on the team registration site as part of Xtreme Gaming. It looks like it’s going to be very hot in China.

Chinese social media is full of theories, so who else will join Xtreme Gaming? The most likely options are J (清净), a young player from China, and Srf, who has been playing offlane for a long time.

Estimated Xtreme Gaming roster

  •   Zhang “Paparazzi” Chengjun
  •   Wang “J” Wenjun
  •   Sun “Srf” Runfa
  •   Xiong “Tank” (Pyw) Jiahan
  •   Ding “Dy” Cong

Vici Gaming needs new players

After Pyw and Dy left, old_eLeVeN also left Vici Gaming. Now there are technically two players left in the team.

  •   Yang “poyoyo” Shaohan
  •   Zeng “Ori” Jiaoyang

Insiders say that the presence of two players is nothing more than a formality, and we should wait for the announcement of Ori’s move to another team. Simply put – Vici Gaming bosses have decided to keep only poyoyo in their roster. They have a difficult task to form the squad almost from scratch. And there are more and more free agents in China.

EHOME is empty

The last players who were formally in the EHOME squad have left the team. Sylar and Chalice have officially become free agents. True, they may have already been signed by some organizations. So far, EHOME has not announced a new roster or given any hints about who will be playing under their tag this season.

Royal Never Give Up is in talks with Somnus

Now that we mention Chalice, we can also think about the insides, which this player enthusiastically told the audience on his streams. We already know from Chalice’s words that RNG has already formed their roster and that Chalice will play in the third position. Also, the team took one of the most promising players in China – God King.

As a result, the preliminary composition of RNG may look like this:

  •   Zhong “God King” Liushuai
  •   Yang “Chalice” Shenyi
  •   Chong “FelixCiaoBa” Wei Lun

We can’t say with absolute certainty that Setsu will stay in the team, but it’s still a possibility. However, not so long ago, the Chinese player RedPanda said on his stream that RNG is in talks with Somnus. If they are successful, he might join the team. Another option for Somnus is a transfer to Team Aster.

By the way, one of the best captains, namely xNova is also looking for a team. Perhaps RNG should take a closer look at him as well?

SEA teams are ready to fight

Earlier in one of our articles on reshuffles, we told you about BOOM Esports, OB.Neon and other teams from SEA region have already formed their rosters, but we remember that not all organizations have shown their cards yet.

TNC Predator showed their lineup.

One of the anticipated announcements in the SEA region is the TNC Predator roster. The recipe for a promising team for TNC is not new. They simply took a strong captain, who, by the way, played in North America and added young and skillful players to him. Febby became the new captain of TNC. Otherwise, TNC took little-known young players who were about to turn 20 years old. Their new mider Yowe had a great showing playing on the Execration team.

TNC Predator roster

  •   Levi “YoungGod” Lagaret
  •   Yuri “Yowe” Dave Pacaña
  •   Lee “X1aOyU” Qian Yu
  •   Prieme “PlayHard” Ejay Maque
  •   Kim “Febby” Yong-min

The updated roster looks good. Perhaps the team should consider hiring an experienced coach. Then the chances of TNC winning the regional DPC will improve. However, let’s not forget that the other teams are not sitting idle either. Also, new esports organizations are opening up their lineups in the SEA region.

Talon is here

Dota 2 is a new discipline for Hong Kong-based organization. Today Talon has teams in such disciplines as League of Legends, PUBG, Overwatch, Rainbow Six, and others. By the way, their LoL roster is very successful even in the face of intimidating competition. Perhaps the biggest sensation was the captain of Talon Esports’ Dota 2 lineup. Tal “Fly” Aizik is the captain of the newly formed team. Yes, Fly left Evil Geniuses and went to Southeast Asia. The team also includes very famous SEA players like kpii and Gabbi. The organization also has two young Indonesians, former BOOM Esports players.

Talon Esports roster

  •   Kim “Gabbi” Villafuerte
  •   Rafli “Mikoto” Fathur Rahman
  •   Damien “kpii” Chok
  •   Brizio “Hyde” Adi Putra Budiana
  •   Tal “Fly” Aizik

Of course, few expected Fly to leave Evil Geniuses, but it will be a sight to see how the captain will play in his new environment with new people.

Eastern Europe reshuffle

This region is also not without change. The most surprising thing is that the changes affected the teams that achieved good results and could continue to work.

Virtus.Pro changes players

We have previously reported that Nightfall and Save- will leave VP. We also wrote about the tests of different players for the first and fourth positions. It looks like VP has completed their search for their new carry. Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko from Russia is unknown to the general public. Ivan is only 17 years old, and he played open qualifications at ESL One Fall 2021 with a mix. The player has almost no experience in the competitive scene. If we talk about Nightfall or Save, they already played in tier-3 mixes before coming to VP, participated in qualifications, and got experience. Pure is like a blank sheet of paper. However, he has very high MMR and individual skills.

Now VP has to get a player to the fourth position, though earlier attentive viewers noticed that Kingslayer is coaching at offlane in public games. This could mean that DM could also leave VP. Actually, DM was the first candidate to leave VP, but for some reason, the organization decided to say goodbye to the other players. In any case, that’s not all the news we know about Virtus.Pro and we await the full announcement of the updated roster.

For now, the Virtus.Pro lineup looks like this:

  •   Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko
  •   Danil “gpk” Skutin
  •   Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin
  •   Illias “Kingslayer” Ganeev

The Russian-speaking community heavily criticized the VP management for such decisions. Maybe in the future, we will find out the motivation of VP’s officials making such decisions. Or VP may be looking to mimic Team Spirit by recruiting very young players. Although Nightfall and Save- were not age players at all. On the contrary, maybe they are now at the peak of their form. That’s why the change in VP looks strange. Either way, we’ll be able to conclude their play in the new DPC season.

CIS Rejects are back

Do you remember a team like CIS Rejects? It was assembled by one of the most famous old school captains – Goblak. At that time, this team had a young and unknown guy with the nickname RAMZES666 and a young and promising mider Iceberg. Later, in December 2015, Team Spirit signed this roster.

Ex CIS Rejects was signed by Team Spirit. Players from left to right: RAMZES666, AfterLife, ALLWAYSWANNAFLY, Iceberg, Goblak. Shanghai Major 2016

Now that names are on everyone’s lips again because five very famous players decided to get together and call their team by that name – CIS Rejects. By the way, RAMZES666 is also present in the new lineup of CIS Rejects, while Goblak has long been a talent of the Ukrainian studio Maincast. Although fng said he would never play in the CIS again, fate still pulls Artsiom to the native region. By the way, the CIS Rejects’ mid laner is a young and very promising player, who was on everyone’s lips all last season – depressed kid. In the community, he was often compared to gpk and was named the new future star of the EEU region. He is only 17 years old!

The roster of the CIS Rejects team

  •   Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev
  •   Gleb “depressed kid” Zyryanov
  •   Pavel “9pasha” Khvastunov
  •   Vladimir “RodjER” Nikogosyan
  •   Artsiom “fng” Barshak

The roster looks really powerful. Although Pavel is an older player, it seems he is still motivated to play Dota. Fng will finally be able to do what he couldn’t do in Alliance, namely to realize himself as a full-fledged captain. If they find success, these players won’t be without an organization for long. Some team will want to sign this roster as soon as they start having problems with their current roster. EEU region law: once problems start, change the roster. Virtus.Pro confirms this fact. In any case, it will be interesting to see how these guys play.

Team Empire updated the roster

Another team that has already announced its lineup is Team Empire. The only known player in the new roster of Team Empire is Ghostik. Team Empire is a special team for Andrii, because with this team Ghostik achieved the most incredible heights – top8 at The International 2017. Of the other players, the general public may know only [T]SA, who previously played together with Dendi in his team B8. By the way, both players are not young, so the lineup requires young players.

Renewed Team Empire roster

  •   Alexander “Lightless” Potapenko
  •   Vitaly “Mannik” Brezgin
  •   Andrii “Ghostik” Kadyk
  •   Sergey “[T]SA” Timchenko
  •   Oleh “Kaori” Medvedok

It is difficult to predict the success of this roster because we are well aware of the precedents when the name of the players does not play a role. Proof of this fact is Elephant, who could not show anything at TI10. And the opposite proof is Team Spirit, who were able to win the TI at a time when no one even suspected that it was possible for them. They gathered in November 7, and now they are already playing the tournament Dota 2 Champions League Season 5.

Overall, the results of reshuffles are not always predictable. We see the birth of new teams, the arrival of new organizations in Dota, and unobvious transfers. The roster locks are only a short time away to see some more exciting rosters in the coming days. The restrictions associated with the COVID pandemic are slowly coming to an end. This is especially true for countries like Sweden. That’s why all Dota 2 fans are waiting for more LAN events than last season. The 2021-2022 season could be a real thaw after a long two and a half years of online. And changes in the teams’ rosters will make the game even more enjoyable.

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