Two big announcements from 2 top Indian Dota organizations this week, both rolling out information regarding their new rosters. Last year we saw India’s 2 best teams, Invisible Wings and Beyond Infinity merge to form Entity Esports. Unfortunately, since then Entity just hasn’t had the best of results and decided to bring in some new blood to get things going. Aggressive 5, who were last seen playing together at the ASUS ROG Masters in Kuala Lumpur will also be fielding a new roster, just ahead of the Dota 2 season in India.

Aggressive 5

Pede ‘Padling’ Nagi has yet to find success in a big tournament but is still notorious for his skills and being one of the few players to hit the 7k mark last year. He generally handles the core role and will most probably be playing the carry role for A5 but knowing his proficiency in the mid lane, we could end up seeing him there from time to time. Signature Heroes: Meepo, TA, SF Dhvanit Negi was one of the breakout stars of Indian Dota last year and with impressive performances in the mid lane helped A5 qualify for the ASUS ROG Masters. He even stood in for BI at the ESL India Premiership finale with some fabulous displays from the offlane position earning him the title of ‘Rookie of the Year’. Will be on the position 2 role for the most part. Signature Heroes: Meepo, OD, Invoker. Prasad ‘Battosai’ Nalawade will be making his official comeback to competitive Dota with A5 after having been dropped from the BI roster during its merger with IW. He previously played for Elunes and then the BI squad with some very consistent display from the offlane. Signature Heroes: Slardar, Faceless Void Shahbaz ‘Pinkman’ Hussain still remains a bit a mystery with not too much information about him out there. Hailing from Hyderabad, he seems to be one of the better players from the region having played for Roar Esports at IeSC. Generally known to handle the offlane, Pinkman will be on the position 4 this time around. Omkar ‘Pasoll’ Urunkar: The captain of the team, Pasoll has been playing in the Indian Dota 2 circuit for quite a while now. He generally handles the 5 position and will most likely be doing so again as well. With experience and maturity at his side, the younger members will look towards Pasoll for guidance and leadership and hopefully he can be the one to lead the team to greatness. Signature heroes: Warlock, Oracle, Dazzle

A5 is most likely going to be the top all-Indian Dota 2 squad with both Entity and Cobx’s unannounced Dota 2 roster set to rope in players from the SEA region. Hopefully this band of young guns can stick together and provide some good competition and create some nice storylines as they go head to head against the bigger teams. They are currently playing in the EPICENTER SEA Open Qualifiers.



We have played together before but they were standins for our team. With the addition of Padling, Battosai and Pinkman this is A5's strongest lineup. We sync good and all of us share the same goal of being the best. - PasoLL

Entity Esports

Balaji ‘Blizzard’ Ramnarayan will retain his spot in the new Entity lineup as he takes over the carry role once again. He has been a consistent performer for both BI and Entity and it’s hardly a surprise that the organization have put their faith in him again. Signature Heroes: Morphling, Luna, Slark Jeet ‘Swifty’ Kundra will also continue playing his part in the squad as he takes helm of the mid lane once again. He has been with the organization for a while now and fans will be glad to catch the talented mid laner in action once again. Signature Heroes: TA, Tinker, Invoker Avelino ‘Ab1ng’ Parungao is going to join the 2 Indians and this Filipino carry player comes with an impressive past. He played for Rave before representing Clutch Gamers where his performance on the carry position helped establish his team as one of the best in SEA. While they did fall short in the Kiev Qualifiers, Ab1ng showed some pretty impressive stuff. He will however be switching roles and moving to the offlane position. This 19 year old is certainly one of the rising talents in the SEA scene and should EE find the means to utilize his skill set properly, they could become a really formidable team. Interesting to note that Ab1ng moves from CG, a team partially owned by Kanishka Singh, who initially owned IW and was supposed to be part of the joint management behind Entity but eventually pulled out. Job ‘jobjobjob/jobeezy’ Ramos brings his support skills along with his leadership qualities to the side as he has been announced as the new skipper for the Dota 2 squad. He has been a part of the SEA scene for a long time now having captained Philippines based Arcanys Gaming for the majority of his career. Carlo ‘BDz’ Manalo will be on the support position and he too has made his way down here all the way from Philippines. Apparently he has been trialing with the team and they seem to have some good synergy together. Excited to see what he brings to the table as not much is known about him at this point. Signature Heroes: Earth Spirit, Rubik Alex ‘Entruv’ Prawira has also been roped in to coach the team. He is an Indonesian high tier player with previous experience with coaching. He will be staying and training with the squad as they prepare for some of the bigger tournaments coming their way.

We are also eagerly awaiting the announcement of Cobx’s new Dota team which will also be a mix of Indian and SEA players if the rumors are true.

With a substantial amount of money at stake this year, teams will be looking to stabilize their rosters and bring some consistency into their lineups. With tournaments like Cobx’s online league Ucypher announced and other tournaments like Dew Arena and Nazara Games’ tournament on the cards, it is already shaping out to be a long, tiresome season. And that’s not all; teams will also be focusing on international tournaments with Open Qualifiers being held for most big tournaments now, newer sides will look towards establishing themselves in the SEA region to begin with.Entity Esports have long been hinting that they are going to be signing some players from outside India and we finally have confirmation of this with their latest announcement. Indian Dota 2 fans have been yearning to see an Indian organization at a big ticket LAN and with the hopes pinned on Beyond Entity since the last year. After the merger, all eyes were on EE and there some initial buzz with them qualifying for the ASUS ROG Masters. But the subsequent departure of Crowley and some even more lackluster performances at online tournaments meant that the organization had to look beyond the borders to help salvage a sinking ship. Aggressive 5 meanwhile, haven’t had many results to show since their formation and will look to the current bunch of players to actually get the ball rolling. However their players have played at the top tier of Indian Dota standing in for other teams at the ESL India Premiership Masters tournament.said that the change was necessary to be at par with other teams ifrom the SEA region. Their number goal for now would be to focus on qualifying for TI.With this we now know thatandwill not be in the lineup anymore. However, it is very likely that these players all continue playing professionally, especially No Chanc3 who has been getting huge praise from the community of late. The community seemed genuinely surprised at No_chance3's omission but word has it that the details for his new team are to be announced pretty soon.