In celebration of Pinnacle’s 25-year anniversary, we are hosting an online Dota 2 event. Ben “Noxville” Steenhuisen discusses some of the biggest teams in his latest preview.
With The International (TI) finishing just three weeks ago, the professional Dota 2 scene is in its yearly state of turmoil, where shuffles happen, fellowships are broken and new all-star teams are formed. Given the timing of the Pinnacle 25 Year Anniversary Show, a lot of teams will view the event as not only a great way to find early form in the season, but also a way to build some momentum.
We’re going to take a look at a few of the most promising and/or interesting teams participating in the event.
B8
Core members: Danil "Dendi" Ishutin, Denis "StoneBank" Korzh, Nikolay "CTOMAHEH1" Kalchev
New players: Tasos "Focus" Michailidis, Vladislav "Mary_y" Krivtsov
Despite already making a roster change this season, B8 are one of the names people will always recognize due to their enigmatic founder, “Dendi”. Last season, the team played in North America, and surprised many when they made it all the way to the Regional Qualifier finals. Although they lost against Nouns Esports, it was a great run, and they would be an interesting team to see develop more.
When B8 first started playing together, the team had a series of dreadful results (for example, a 26-game losing streak in 2020), but over time they have improved. They’ve kept a three-person core team from the TI qualifiers, and brought in “Focus” (most of his pro games were for Brame) and “Mary_y” (who recently played for UALEIKUMNIHAO, but spent more time with Water Rune Enjoyers).
Virtus.pro
Core members: Ilya "Kiritych" Ulyanov, Ilya "squad1x" Kuvaldin, Evgeniy "Noticed" Ignatenko, Oleg "sayuw" Kalenbet, Artsiom "Fng" Barshak
One of the most pleasant surprises last season was Virtus.pro (VP). They’d always been gatekept from Majors by the “big three” EEU teams (Team Spirit, BetBoom and 9Pandas), so they were very unpredictable coming into The International 2023. There, they survived Group Stage elimination, and were able to beat TSM and Entity to snag a top eight finish. While the overall format of this TI was definitely more watered down than previous years, it didn’t seem to diminish the excitement from awesome underdog performances such as VP’s.
The team have stuck together ever since, and are definitely more highly regarded than they were just a few months ago. “Fng”’s leadership is definitely a key component of their success - remember that their squad have played only 94 pro games together, but they often have the cohesion and accuracy that much more experienced teams are lacking.
Team Falcons
New players: Oliver "skiter" Lepko, Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak, Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf, Andreas "Cr1t-" Nielsen, Jingjun "Sneyking" Wu
One of the new all-star teams formed during the player break is Team Falcons - five players from five different countries, playing from the MENA region. “Sneyking” and “skiter” are the only members of the team with significant competitive history, having played together for 483 games (with a 60.9% win rate). “Sneyking”’s most common teammate in his 1,990-game career is actually “skiter” (Leon "Nine" Kirilin and Neta "33" Shapira are a few games behind “skiter” in this regard). “ATF” and “Malr1ne” have played a few pro games together (20 games on Creepwave).
“Cr1t” is the final piece of the puzzle, and he joined Falcons after leaving the EG/Shopify core and his 1,268-game partnership with Artour "Arteezy" Babaev. Within the MENA, their primary competition will be PSG Quest, but they’ve also shown that they can participate in WEU/EEU competitions like the Pinnacle 25 Year Anniversary Show, and will certainly be a worthy contender.
Alliance
Core members: Charlie "charlie" Arat, Ng "ChYuaN" Kee Chyuan, Gustav "s4" Magnusson, Pablo, Handsken
In the last few years, Alliance have been far from the consistent powerhouse they were a decade ago when they won TI. However, despite the ups and downs, they’ve never given up – instead, they’ve continued to discover and cultivate great talent (their brilliant TI9 squad which was poached by Liquid for example), experiment with rosters in South America, the list goes on. Now it looks like they’re going to stick to their guns – keeping their roster intact from last season and hoping to push for better results. “s4” remains their captain (he has 1,346 games played for Alliance - the seventh highest number a player has played for a single team) and Offlaner.
Given the depth of quality in Western Europe (as a Dota region) over the past few seasons, it’s hard to accurately gauge how well Alliance might perform on an international stage – there have always been teams that struggle within their region, but perform admirably against a wider set of opponents.
Keyd Stars
Core members: Guilherme "Costabile" Costábile, João "4nalog" Giannini, Gustavo "fcr" Ribeiro, Danylo "Kingrd" Nascimento, Matheus "KJ" Diniz
Along with teams like Team SMG and VP, Keyd Stars were one of biggest unknowns for TI 2023. Like Virtus.pro, they shockingly survived Group Stage elimination (and even more surprisingly, it was PSG Quest that went home early) - but that’s really where their TI dreams ended. Drawing against Tundra, PSG Quest and TSM was way more than most expected from them though, so the future looks bright for this team.
South America generally has a tumultuous roster shuffle after each TI, but Keyd Stars stuck together through it, and are now in a fine position to kick off the season in the right way.
BOOM Esports
New members: Crhistian "Pakazs" Savina, Jordan "SLATEM$" Vega, Rafael "Sacred" Yonatan, Farith "Matthew" Puente, Romel "Mjz" Quinteros Rojas
Speaking of the big South American shuffle every season, BOOM Esports are now a part of that phenomenon, as they leave the SEA scene for greener (Peruvian) pastures. Although all five players are new to the team, you could see it more as a merger from three different entities: Evil Geniuses (“Pakazs” and “Matthew”), Thunder Awaken (“SLATEM$” and “Mjz”), and beastcoast (“Sacred”). For most of last season, “Pakazs” was an absolute star for Evil Geniuses, and an often-asked question was whether or not he would be poached by a team from any other region for this 2023/2024 season.
“Matthew” also provides some much needed experience to the team, which is essential when you have a player like “SLATEM$” (~79 pro games) and even “Mjz” (who has 743 pro games, but just 90 of those are on LAN). Overall, this team could take time to get their synergy going, since they’ve come from such different teams - but the potential is high if they’re firing on all cylinders.
In conclusion, there’s some great teams in the Pinnacle 25 Year Anniversary Show line-up, and we’ve highlighted just a few of them here. There are a ton of teams here which are newly formed and could be a big surprise - ready to forge their own legacies.
What is Pinnacle: 25 Year Anniversary Show?
Pinnacle: 25 Year Anniversary Show is our latest Dota 2 event, and will take place online from November 20 to December 6, 2023. The total prize pool is $100,000.
Games will be broadcast on the following channels:
