One of the CIS region’s top carry players is heading to Southeast Asia, following in the footsteps of a number of players from the region.
The trend involving CIS Dota 2 players migrating to Southeast Asia was first started by Andrey “Mag~” Chipenko, when he left Vega Squadron—his team of two years—to play for Mineski. He was followed by others from the region, such as Egor “.Ark” Zhabotinskii, and Khaled “sQreen” El-Khabbash.
This time, it’s hard carry player Vladimir “Chappie” Kuzmenko’s turn to take a “SEAside vacation”. Earlier today, Malaysia-based Filipino team Clutch Gamers announced on their official Facebook page that Chappie will be hopping on board for the Pro Circuit season.
Last month, Chappie was listed as inactive on Team Empire’s roster, replaced temporarily by CIS veteran Airat “Silent” Gaziev in the carry position. Around three weeks later, Empire announced that Silent would be joining the team full time.
Chappie qualified for The International 7 with Empire earlier this year, but was unable to attend the event itself due to visa issues. Known for his stream antics such as going AFK with Shadow Amulet, he is also regarded as a legitimately talented carry player.
Clutch Gamers thrust themselves into the spotlight in the middle of last year, after qualifying for a handful of premier international tournaments such as Epicenter, the Mars Dota 2 League, the Manila Masters, and The Summit 7.
Unfortunately, they were unable to post decent results at the events they qualified for, usually going out in the bottom spots early on. With Chappie now contributing his talent to the team, perhaps this time they can make good on their qualifier runs by improving their results at the LANs themselves.
With plenty of events still remaining in the Pro Circuit, Clutch Gamers have time to work the chemistry out with their newest member.
As of now, it is unknown what will become of Jio “Jeyo” Madayag, who currently fills the team’s hard carry position—or if there will be any other changes in the roster going forward.
