Teams and players come and go ever so often, especially when in need of a change in pace or better opportunities. Today, we take a look at recent roster shuffles some of which are just baffling.
Prior to this most recent re-shuffle, the Chinese Dota 2 teams have had their own major shuffle last month, which many deemed as, the Great Chinese Roster Shuffle. Chinese teams seem to have significantly improved after swapping players, giving a breath of fresh air to the blooming region.
Let’s see how the remaining roster changes impact the rest of the regions.
Rasmus “Misery” Filipsen
Fnatic is possibly the biggest powerhouse in the SE Asia region ever since they ventured there 6 years ago. Yet, the team seems to be doing everything wrong with their recent decisions, not only impacting their own squad but indirectly killing the competition too.
On November 24, Fnatic recruited Thai offlane player, Natthaphon “Masaros” Ouanphakdee into their active line-up. This coming immediately after Motivate.Trust Gaming won the Summit 13 Asia two weeks ago. It just goes to show how much Fnatic wants to create the ideal team.
Unfortunately, as the saying goes on, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and stacking the world’s best players in a team doesn’t always lead to success.
It’s also indirectly killing the competition in the SEA scene as MTG will need to fill the empty spot in their roster. This is the second time Fnatic poaches their competition this season. Geek Fam disbanded just weeks after their star player, Raven left for Fnatic after winning the ONE Esports SEA League.
Let’s not forget they also dropped and traded away both Nuengnara “23savage” Teeramahanon and Daryl Koh “iceiceice” Pei Xiang in the past few months.
Iceiceice joined Evil Geniuses on November 14 after two months away from the scene. It’s a pleasant surprise for everyone as the good old troll finds a new home. With EG announcing the transfer mere days ago, we are not yet sure how this will impact the North American scene.
EG has dabbled with European play recently and we are not sure if they are willing to return to NA at all. Anyhow, with the upcoming Dota 2 Pro Circuit 2021 coming early next year, watching iceiceice wearing an EG jersey will undoubtedly be a sight!
It isn’t the first time iceiceice ventures overseas to play competitively, but NA is definitely a first in his career.
Over at the European scene, it’s worse than a roster shuffle for team 5men as they ceased operations during an ongoing tournament. 5men were a stack of EU’s seasoned veterans, such as Misery, Ace and pieliedie. Formed just 3 months ago, they had their fair share of ups and downs, but we believe they have the potential to go further.
There was no word from any of its former players regarding the untimely disband, so we can only ponder what happened behind-the-scenes. Plausibly not a good one, since it ended south. EPIC League announced the immediate disqualification of team 5men in the Division 2 tournament.
Team Adroit is another team from SEA to join the disband club. Once again, these teams have performed phenomenally in this season. Their rise to fame came when they qualified for the ESL One Los Angeles 2020 back in March. Furthermore, their journey to victory wasn’t an easy one, as they had to deal with Internet issues during their qualifier matches.
Adroit didn’t have a bad fall season either. They finished in the Top 5 at Dota Summit 13 just a month earlier.
On November 11, Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev joined forces with Syed Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan to form a new EU team. Alongside were former Virtus.pro players, Noone, Solo and Zayac who are exceptional players in their own right. However, as much as the fans enjoyed the reunion among VP players, this stack is just overhyped with nothing to back it.
The EPIC League Division 1 was team Just Error’s official debut, but it has only been errors and flaws throughout every match. From poor drafts to the lack of synergy, this stack of superstars is playing worse than amateurs. As they approach the final week of group stage, they are currently the worst-placed team on the scoreboard, so elimination is probably inevitable.
In the end, the roster shuffle season has always been the time of the year for players to shake hands and form a team good enough to qualify for the Internationals. While some teams may be off to a rough start, we do hope to see these teams make it into the International 2021.
Read next: The three teams that will define Artisan Dota League 2020
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