America’s Dota 2 hopefuls Shopify Rebellion crashed out of The International 2023 in stunning fashion, marking one of the worst TI placements in Artour “Arteezy” Babaev’s career. Following SR’s exit from the tournament, Andreas “Cr1t-” Nielsen shared his insights about the team’s performance throughout the year.
SR had a relatively decent start to 2023 with a fourth-place finish at the first major of the year. The team failed to hold its ground in global competitions after its Lima Major performance, but it looked like there was a glimmer of hope as they placed second in DreamLeague S21 just before TI 2023.
According to Cr1t in his post-game interview following the team’s elimination from Seattle, their performance in DreamLeague might have adversely affected their TI chances, indicating that the team wasn’t functioning as intended.
During the interview, Cr1t didn’t seem surprised by the outcome. “We didn’t do well in the group stage,” Cr1t said. “We put ourselves in a spot where this can happen.”
While there have been instances of lower-bracket Cinderella runs in TI history, Cr1t’s comments suggested that Shopify Rebellion might have anticipated their premature exit from the event.
Their elimination—especially at the hands of another North American team TSM—added insult to injury. This outcome not only marked Shopify Rebellion as the first North American Dota 2 team to exit TI 2023 but also positioned them as the worst-performing among North America’s top three teams, potentially warranting a disbandment as suggested by Sébastien “Ceb” Debs.
“This has to be a disband, right?” Ceb said. “That team has been together for a while now, three years or more than that.”
The two-time TI winner compared SR to Nigma Galaxy as the core group of players have been together for more than four years. Despite working through many problems, SR failed to achieve international success.
Even if SR’s players decide to split ways, Johan “N0tail” Sundstein believes Arteezy and Cr1t could decide to stick together. While SR players have shared their disappointment in letting their fans down for the moment, this result’s impact could show on the team in later months when the roster shuffle season starts.
