New Singaporean team formed, hyhy back to competitive Dota



[L-R] xFreedom, KS, hyhy, SCripted, Meracle, Poloson

Hyhy makes his way back into competitive Dota as he joins Meracle and xFreedom to form a team with a very familiar name. Poloson, KS and Scripted will round up the six-man team of Scythe.SG.

Zenith's exit post-TI3 has left First Departure almost unchallenged on their country on the latter part of the year. Despite a string of strong finishes on online tournaments however, FD fared disappointing performances on the two major LAN events that they attended - the GMPGL SEA Grand Finals and the Asian Cyber Games Dota 2 tournament. Their dominance on Singapore will surely be challenged by Scythe.SG, in which three members actually played for them in the previous year.

Those three players exited the team rather abruptly. Galvin 'Meracle' Kang exited the team after a surprising move to China to join RisingStars, and then eventually Malaysia's Titan. Wilson 'Poloson' Koh, the player who used to man the middle lane for FD, departed after the team's early exit in the ACG. The only player who left FD unwillingly was Jonathan 'SCripted' Lee, who had to be removed from the team after a number of unprofessional in-game behavior issues. The latter seems resolute on putting the past behind him, and he will also be using a different in-game alias when playing.

The three members of the team not from FD are the esteemed veterans on the roster. Nicholas 'xFreedom' Lim, who played with Zenith and LGD.int last year, is a well-recognized player and leader, the latter being affirmed after he was chosen as the coach and frequent stand-in of the short-lived team Impervious. The second player, Kok Sin 'KS' Ang, has been around for a while as well. He is known for his stints on Flash eSports and Netolic.SG.

The surprising addition is Benedict 'hyhy' Lim, which will mark the player's return to Dota. The captain of the very first TI's third-place team had been playing competitively on League of Legends (LoL) on the previous year before leaving his team last October. His last competitive Dota 2 game was when he played as stand-in for MUFC on The Asia 2012, held a little more than a year ago, where his team finished second behind LGD.cn.

Generally, Meracle will be playing carry and KS will be playing offlane. The support roles will go to xFreedom and SCripted, while both hyhy and Poloson are middle-lane players. The roles will also be flexible and will be switched around depending on the necessity and on who is playing.

Bryan 'Jupi' Koay, team manager With some of our bigger names leaving for China, I believe this new team will reinvigorate SEA's Dota scene. Our roster hopes to show the world that Southeast Asian Dota is still alive. We have big dreams, I believe that we are passionate enough to reach the next International.

The Singaporean scene was a picture of instability last year, with the only team lasting throughout the whole year (First Departure) experiencing a number of roster changes themselves. One of the common reasons for these roster changes is the National Service (NS) in their country, in which a male citizen would be required to enlist after reaching a certain age. When pressed if this will be an issue for the team, the manager exclaimed that "most of them don't have to enlist yet, at least for now. Even if they are enlisted, it's still possible for them to play." He then claims that it will still probably be around six months before some of the players enlist, which will give them a window to train and compete for the mean time.

Scythe.SG appears to be a prime contender on the wide-open Southeast-Asian scene. The roster looks strong on paper, or at least the organizers would agree. According to their manager, the team was able to get a slot on the first division of joinDOTA league Asia, as well as on the ACG best-of-the-best invitational which will be held this coming March.

Scythe.SG is the name of hyhy's team which won third place back at the The International 1. However, we were assured that the team is just using an 'old Zenith name', and not because of sponsors. Scythe.SG back at TI1 was comprised of hyhy, iceiceice, Roy, xy- and Chawy.

Scythe.SG lineup:

Galvin 'Meracle' Kang

Nicholas 'xFreedom' Lim (C)

Wilson 'Poloson' Koh

Jonathan 'SCripted' Lee

Kok Sin 'KS' Ang

Benedict 'hyhy' Lim