For those who might have missed the most important news from the past week in the competitive Dota2 scene, here is a short recap.
The CIS shuffle
Na'Vi drop three from their roster
On the back of some rather poor performances, Na’Vi have decided to drop three players from their roster, namely Ivan ‘Artstyle’ Antonov, Akbar ‘SoNNeikO’ Butaev and Dmitry ‘Ditya Ra’ Minekov. At this moment in time the current Na’Vi roster consists only of Danil ‘Dendi’ Ishutin and Victor ‘GeneRaL’ Nigrini. These two players will form the basis of the new squad but no names or information has been given to who will be filling the three open spots.
Team Empire lose their carry once more, Alohadance becomes free agent
Warning their fans that this is not the only change that will be made at Team Empire, the Russian organization announced the departure of their carry of nearly two years, Ilya 'ALOHADANCE' Korobkin.
Fng and Iceberg are out of Vega Squadron
The team’s captain, Artsiom 'Fng' Barshak, and the mid laner, Bogdan 'Iceberg' Vasylenko, have been let go by the team, but their replacement are yet to be announced. According to Vega Squadron, the two new additions are already secured but their names will not be made public until they sign their contracts.
The Boston Major substitutes
Hao registers as substitute for Newbee
Chen 'Hao' Zhihao's fans are given a glimpse of hope of a possible return to competitive Dota for The TI4 Champion.The new Newbee have done extremely well so far with their two amazingly skilled youngsters, Xu 'uuu9' Han and Song 'Sccc' Chun and it’s hard to believe that Hao’s recent registration for the Boston Major as substitute can mean that he will replace one of these two. However, Uuu9 and Sccc are supposed to travel to United States of America for the first time in less than a month and Hao might have been added to the team just in case the notorious visa problems for the Chinese teams strikes again.
compLexity Gaming acquire their substitute
With the Boston Major quickly approaching, coL could have been in a dire situation had Valve not added a substitute ruling into the DotA 2 competitive scene. But due to this they were able to acquire Jaron ‘Monkeys-forever’ Clinton as a sub for jk after just a few days, meaning that they would still be able to field a team in the Major.
Forev back to MVP Phoenix
MVP Phoenix is one of the invitees for the Boston Major and the substitution rule that Valve introduced recently will allow Lee 'Forev' Sang-don to take part in the event. According to QO, Forev will sub in for the Boston Major, playing core position (most likely offlane), while Kim 'Febby' Yong-min will go back to his support duties.
EG, DC, and OG among teams that announce their sixth player
Starting off from Evil Geniuses and perhaps the most exciting substitute for this Boston Major will be no other than the Old Man himself - Clinton 'Fear' Loomis. OG, who were directly invited to the Boston Major, have also added their coach Sébastien '7ckingMad' Debs as a substitute member of their roster. In a surprising turn of events, Digital Chaos have replaced their substitute player - Jake 'SirActionSlacks' Kanner - who was part of the squad which were the grand finalists at the International, with William 'Blitz' Lee, who has also been coaching the team.
A legendary player returning to the Major in the form of a substitute is the addition of Xu 'BurNIng' Zhilei in iG Vitality, who managed to qualify for the major through the Chinese qualifier. Another Chinese team that has announced their substitute for the Boston Major is LGD.Forever Young who have registered one of the all-time best midlaners, Lu 'Maybe' Yao, as their sixth player for the Boston Major.
Tournament news
NP goes to ESL One Genting
NP’s schedule is getting packed with more and more events as they just secured another LAN presence from themselves, this being their third tournament they qualified for. After they formed, in the post The International shuffle, NP came on top in both Boston Major Americas qualifiers and The Summit 6, and now they get an almost free ticket to ESL One Genting 2017 as compLexity had to forfeit the grand finalsdue to roster issues.
Team Faceless are the new Champions of ProDota Cup South East Asia
Faceless advanced into the playoffs from first place in group B where they dropped only one game. In the playoffs, they took down Entity, Rave and Rex Regum to reach the grand finals with a one game advantage. Their final opponents were the Indonesians from Rex Regum who managed to bounce back from the lower bracket by defeating Rave.
Team Secret are the ROG Masters Champions
Team Secret left no doubt who deserves to be the champion of the first edition of ROG Masters League after a flawless 3-0 against Execration.
Wings Gaming are the Northern Arena BEAT Invitational Champions
After NP had battled their way through the daunting lower bracket, they found themselves going head to head against Wings Gaming in the Northern Arena BEAT Invitational grand finals.
Virtus.Pro withdraws from DreamLeague Season 6
Dream League announced that the Virtus.Pro have decided not to continue to the LAN Finals of Dream League 6 due to their congested schedule. Virtus.Pro will be replaced by Alliance, who accepted the invitation to fill the vacant spot on a short notice. The Russian team will not receive any of the $10,000 they earned for each of their wins in the league stage (10-4) and the money will be added to the total prize pool of the LAN Finals
