It has been almost two months since Team Liquid claimed the Aegis at TI7, and since then roster shuffles have been in full swing. Though parting ways with an old team can be difficult, it also opens up new opportunities. During these shuffles, many players understandably choose to accept offers from other well established teams. However, some times these players decide to form completely new teams from a large pool of free agents. The latter of these choices is incredibly exciting. While often composed of well-known players within the DotA scene, it is impossible to guess how well teams work together until they play. This uncertainty makes watching tournaments much more exciting whenever one of these wildcards is thrown into the bracket. The TI8 season has already seen its fair share of these new rosters, and here are just a few worth keeping an eye on.

Optic Gaming

Shortly after confirming their departure from Evil Geniuses, Ludwig “Zai” Wahlberg and Peter “PPD” Dager announced the formation of a new team with this tweet.

Briefly named “The Dire”, the team was recently picked up by Optic Gaming due to their remarkable talent. As “The Dire”, they qualified for the Dota 2 Minor Beyond the Summit 8 after winning King’s Cup America. The team also placed second in both the PGL North American Qualifier and the Star Ladder i-League Invitational qualifier.

Most of the players on this team require little to no introduction. Per Anders Olsson “Pajkatt” Lille has played MOBAs professionally since the original DotA. Rasmus “MiSeRy” Filipsen and PPD have proven their drafting talents during their time as captains of Digital Chaos and Evil Geniuses respectively. As these two begin to learn from each other, drafting against Optic Gaming will surely be nightmarish. Interestingly enough, this team composition shows Zai stepping back into the offlane position for the first time since his Team Secret days in early 2015. His performance during that time on heroes such as Broodmother and Dark Seer was impressive, and I am glad we get to see more of it.

Quinn “CCnC“ Callahan is the wildcard on the team. Most recently CCnC played for Team Freedom and narrowly missed appearing in TI7 after finishing third in the NA Qualifiers. Despite playing the game professionally since late 2015, he has few notable tournament results. Formulating an opinion on the young mid-laner is difficult with so little base material, but his teammates clearly see potential. Regardless, CCnC now finds himself in a position to learn from the wealth of experience around him, and that journey is going to be something worth watching.

mID OR fEED

Another new team captained by ex-Digital Chaos vet Martin “Saksa” Sazdov was announced via twitter.

Aliwi “w33” Omar is a world class mid-laner best known for his Invoker, Wind Ranger and Meepo play. It’s interesting then that he is giving up mid to play a four position support role in this line-up. The remaining three members of Mid or Feed have a fair bit of history themselves. KheZu has played in two Internationals, though his teams failed to place well in either. Cancel spent most of his competitive career with Complexity before leaving following a string of poor team performances. Timado recently left the South American team Infamous in August, who he played with in TI7. While these players don’t have many major LAN victories yet, they have the individual talent to make waves.

Since this announcement was made, Saksa has removed himself from the roster after saying he felt “burned out” on his twitter. This is a shame since w33 and Saksa would have been a great foundation to build a team around. Fortunately they have already found a replacement. After the recent disbandment of his own squad “No Diggity”, Troels “syndereN” Nielsen will captain Mid or Feed moving forward. SyndereN is a 4 time TI competitor himself, though most of his notable tournament placements occurred before 2013. However, his time as a caster and analyst demonstrated his deep knowledge of the game, and that is an invaluable tool in today’s competitive space.

Spartak Esports

Russian esports organization Spartak Esports makes its debut in the DotA 2 circuit with the following roster.

Spartak Dota 2 roster for this season: 1) .Ark

2) 633

3) yoky-

4) Chuvash

5) Misha (captain)#dota2 #spartakesports pic.twitter.com/yCqzRMoO69 — Spartak Esports (@spartakesports) September 12, 2017

It is not surprising if these names seem unfamiliar. For starters, Egor “.Ark” Zhabotinskii and Evgeniy “Chuvash” Makarov have each been active competitors for less than two years. Also, while Maxim “yoky-” Kim and Stanislav “633” Glushan have histories with teams like Virtus.Pro and Empire, the remaining members have played mostly on minor league teams.

But Spartak Esports does have a few things going for them. .Ark, Chuvash and team captain Mihail “Misha” Agatov have all played together at length on the Russian team Commanche. As any DotA player knows, competing with people you enjoy playing with has a profound effect on mindset and morale. DotA players also know that a solid mindset and good moral will not win games without technical skills to back them up. Will this team allow Spartak Esports to compete with top tier teams like Evil Geniuses, Virtus.Pro and Digital Chaos? Only time can tell us the answer.

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