Who can replace symetricaL and salvage Alliance’s season?

Roster shuffles are often considered signs of a team bleeding in losses. The next worst scenario would be replacing a player while the DPC (2021-22) is ongoing. Alliance took the difficult decision to replace Moiez “symetricaL” Lin into the fifth week of DPC Western Europe Tour 3. They also added that they will play the rest of the DPC Tour 3 with a stand-in, leaving fans to ponder about potential candidates.

Crippling DPC season for the Hall of Famers

Regardless of performance, Alliance will always be in the discussion among the best Dota 2 teams. Sure, the International 3 (TI3) was awhile ago, and pales in comparison when comparing the prize pools or OG’s two-time victory. However, TI3 has its place in many fans’ memory as Alliance pioneered the art of Rat Dota, aka split-pushing. Well, at least that’s what the powerhouse’s former and founding offlane player, Henrik “AdmiralBulldog” Ahnberg proclaimed to be.

Fast forward to the year 2022, and Alliance has had one too many roster shuffles, each one worse than its predecessor. It isn’t an exaggeration when we claim that DPC 2021-22 was arguably the worst season for them. They were demoted to Division 2 bracket during the first Tour but managed to get back into Division 1 just in time for Tour 3. Once again, another blunder, as Alliance sees themselves playing in Division 2 next DPC season.

Still, they got invited to ESL One Malaysia due to their old accolades and reputation. If there an event where they can bounce back this season, its gonna be there.

New Alliance offlane player

Alliance still hasn’t announced who will be their offlane player replacing symetricaL. They are currently playing with a stand-in, who goes by his IGN “Eternal Sadness”. Not much is known about the temporary offlane player, but he handles his lane better than its predecessor. This once again boils down to the topic of symetricaL’s poor laning phase, which indirectly affects other cores. Offlane players have the responsibility of surviving their difficult lanes so that they have their ultimate ready for the objective taking.

Alternatively, an offlane player can dominate his lane overwhelmingly, forcing the opponent to carry out. Indirectly, these responsibilities make space for the hard carry to farm consistently.

Potential blast from the past?

Besides the current stand-in, fans have their wildest guess on who may take on the offlane role. For instance, AdmiralBulldog is a good candidate if he wants to come out of retirement since it has been five years since he retired. Gustav “s4” Magnusson, while not traditionally the Alliance offlane player, is active on the role during his tenure with Evil Geniuses, and even now, under goonsquad. As much as we hate to break the bubble, they are unlikely to play for Alliance due to the circumstances. There’s still a massive player pool out there, not only from Western, but Eastern Europe too.

Nevertheless, Alliance has to decide on their replacement soon, so they can get adequate scrim time with a complete roster.

ESL One Malaysia is just around the corner

It’s been a while since we had one of those “who picked this second-grade team for a world-class tournament.”

Alliance’s direct invite to ESL One Malaysia is a classic example, which Samuel “Sammyboy” Anderson called out. Of course, Sammyboy from Wildcard Gaming lives up to his name by being notoriously toxic in the North American scene. Yet, this time, he does raise a relevant debate for ESL One Malaysia to respond.

Who dafuq is @theAllianceGG paying to get a direct ESL Malaysia invite lol

— Sammy (@SammyboyGG) July 3, 2022

Alliance is by no means a relevant team after their poor performance going into the fourth week of DPC. Hence, ESL One’s announcement on Alliance’s invite was baffling, considering there are better alternatives, such as TeamSoloMid, Evil Geniuses, or their regional rivals, Tundra Esports, Team Secret, or even Entity. The gist of the outrage is that Alliance should not be in the running for invites to a $300,000 tournament.

There will always be two sides to a story, where on one hand, fans sympathize with Alliance’s poor performance. Then, there are the masses who took the liberty to bash Alliance for their season-long disappointment. Even so, such practice isn’t the worst thing to happen to any competitive team in Dota 2 Esports. If you underperform, for three consecutive Tours at that, you are surely expecting a wave of angry and trolling fans on social media. Until Alliance redeems itself as the former TI champion they are known for, we certainly won’t be expecting the hate to subside soon.

Alliance may have lost their opportunity to play in Division 1 of the next DPC season, but TI11 regional qualifiers are still open.

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