Shopify Rebellion successfully qualified for the Berlin Major after a dominant run in the second tour of the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit. However, the team’s prospects at the upcoming DreamLeague Season 19, a highly-anticipated tournament taking place a few days before the Berlin Major, have been thrown into jeopardy due to visa issues affecting their mid-lane player, Abed Yusop.
With the star player unable to join the team in Europe, Shopify Rebellion will have to rely on a substitute player, Kasra “Mikey” Mesbah, a 17-year-old pub-star who was ranked number one in Europe around December 2022.
While Abed’s absence is a devastating loss for Shopify Rebellion, his misfortune will serve as the biggest opportunity Mikey could possibly hope for. After occupying the number one spot on the ladder for a while, the youngster had already started drawing eyes for his gameplay.
Shortly after ranking first on the leaderboard, Mikey was asked to stand-in for Entity, where he successfully performed his duties and received praise from the team’s captain, Dzmitry “Fishman” Palishchuk. At the time of writing, it isn’t known whether Abed will be able to travel to Europe and he’s working against a timer as the Berlin Major starts on Apr. 26.
But still, there’s also a chance that Abed might make it to the event in time for the end of the group stage or the start of the main event. If the latter is the case, Mikey’s performance will be crucial when it comes to ensuring SR makes it through the group stage without getting eliminated. Considering DreamLeague Season 19 is one of the most important tournaments of the year since it’s a stepping stone to Riyadh Masters, this is a tournament that SR doesn’t want to misfire.
The Berlin Major begins only three days after DreamLeague, so SR will have a limited time figuring out how they will proceed before the Major begins. At the Berlin Major, teams must place in the top eight to score any DPC points and take home a portion of the prize pool, SR will be walking on thin ice to squeeze the most out of the Berlin Major if Abed doesn’t arrive in Europe in time.
