B8 Esports made yet another big change to its Dota 2 roster earlier this week, but it appears that the organization overlooked one key element of the Dota Pro Circuit: ownership of their regional league spot.
In the team’s most recent move, B8 moved Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov, Yaroslav “Limitless” Parshin, and Sergey “[T]SA” Timchenko to the inactive roster, leaving the team with only its co-founder and Dota legend Dendi on the active roster. That apparently changed earlier today when fans saw that Dendi was kicked from the roster of B8 on Valve’s official DPC team registry.
According to the updated registry, Dendi was kicked by former B8 player and CIS veteran Aleksandr “Nofear” Churochkin because he officially owned the slot registered to compete in the upcoming DPC season. This is because he was the captain of the XactJlepbI that merged with B8 ahead of the 2021 DPC’s second season.
B8 merged with XactJlepbI, a team that already had a slot in the lower division secured because they avoided relegation, to avoid being relegated out of the league following an eighth-place finish in season one. This move was criticized at the time because it allowed B8 to skip open qualifiers entirely after a poor showing, but it was allowed and B8 proceeded to finish sixth in season two of the regional league.
But because the spot B8 was playing with was technically XactJlepbI’s registration, Nofear still owns the spot and kicked Dendi—and will likely be able to retain control of it heading into the 2022 DPC. Or at least that is how B8 is approaching the situation, noting that the player in question, likely Nofear, did not want to negotiate for the DPC spot.
“The slot under which we played for the last six months is registered by someone who didn’t want to negotiate. Yes, this situation seems weird,” B8 said. “We don’t want to argue nor waste time on it now. Our main focus is the Dota 2 roster.”
The organization is now going to double down on its rebuilding efforts, with hopes that this will be an experience that will help everyone involved grow.
If this move stands, Dendi and B8’s new roster will need to play in the open qualifiers for the lower division of the CIS regional league when the next DPC season opens its doors. If they fail to qualify, they will be unable to compete in the DPC until the next round of open qualifiers and will be relegated to playing in smaller events for several months.
