South America as a region was one of the standout stories from The International 11 since three different teams made their mark on Dota 2’s biggest stage, including an underdog story in Hokori. But after signing with Alliance last December to form an SA roster for the organization, things went a bit sideways.
Not long after TI11 ended, rumors of Alliance potentially moving to sign an SA roster began to surface as multiple orgs looked to the growing region. That eventually came to fruition as the European team signed Hokori, creating Alliance.LATAM, and secured a talented group of players who looked to be on the rise.
Under their new banner, the team performed admirably against SA’s swapped-around titans—beastcoast and Evil Geniuses—finishing in third place at the end of the Dota Pro Circuit 2023’s Winter Tour and just missing an invite to the Lima Major.
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Despite a strong opener with its retained TI11 squad, the team made a roster move to swap Thiago “Thiolicor” Cordeiro for former Hokori mainstay Yelsthin “Elmisho” Hurtado. After that, the squad couldn’t put things together until week three of the Spring Tour, falling behind and eventually losing tiebreakers to end up in fifth place and well off of where they wanted to be.
Not long after the Spring Tour ended earlier this month, Alliance announced it was dropping the entire LATAM roster and evaluating its plans to remain in SA after dealing with what management claims were roster issues regarding team stability that didn’t “reflect [Alliance’s] vision and values.”
“When we entered the region the main criteria we had was to have a stable team with a stable roster,” Alliance CEO Jonathan “Loda” Berg said. “Our goal was always to keep the five players of Hokori, so when we agreed to make a change after first DPC season this year it was with the clear direction that no more changes would be made after this. Sadly our direction was not respected and when the team approached us to kick 4nalog as well as one more player, it was clear that this was no longer what we signed up for.”
As a result, the three players who were planning to continue on together in the next season have reformed Hokori for the DPC’s Summer Tour. This likely means the team’s captain Brayan “Gardick” Cárdenas retained the DPC slot and nothing will change beyond the two new players who were signed and the team’s name.
Gardick remains as the team’s captain and position five player, bringing carry Edward “Lumière” Valencia and offlaner Pablo “Vitaly” Roman along with him. In addition, Ricardo “Alone” Fernandez is jumping back to SA after playing in NA with Wildcard Gaming during the Spring Tour, and the team is snagging Miguel “Michael-” Gomez from Thunder Awaken.
