Nouns Esports announced its halfway-complete Dota 2 roster today, keeping Rodrigo “Lelis” Santos and Nicolas “Gunnar” Lopez from last year’s roster while adding Tal “Fly” Aizik from Shopify Rebellion.
In the process, Nouns decided not to renew contracts with Moo, Yamsun, and K1, but the roster remains incomplete for the moment as the organization couldn’t find a permanent mid-laner and a position for one player.
With the ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 Major’s closed qualifiers starting this week, Nouns decided to jump into the new season with stand-ins to avoid risking their qualification chances.
Fly comes from a somewhat successful year with Shopify Rebellion that ended with a disaster as the team failed to advance to TI 2023’s later stages. Considering the roster lived through the same fate multiple times together, it ended up being the final straw that initiated a disbandment as Shopify Rebellion released half of its Dota 2 roster.
For the qualifiers, Daniel “Stormstormer” Schoetzau and Yuma Langlet came to Nouns’ rescue. While Stormstormer was already moved to Entity’s inactive roster, Yuma could be a loanee from Nigma Galaxy as he was still a part of the active roster.
Though these two players could also become a permanent part of the roster after the qualifiers, North America is currently the slowest region in the roster shuffle season. Most teams in Europe and SEA have already finalized their rosters, but NA titans like TSM and Shopify Rebellion are yet to announce their roster, while Nouns could only finalize half of its roster.
With the poor regional performances in 2023, the two regions could also lose some of their qualifier spots for major tournaments, making them less appealing for players looking to relocate for a fresh start. Depending on the region lock rules, NA might have a prolonged roster shuffle season that might extend into 2024.
