With Dota 2’s TI10 now behind us, teams are likely looking at the success of Team Spirit and trying to figure out how they can replicate it. With many teams underperforming at Dota 2’s biggest event, it should be no surprise to see players and organization part from one another as they both look for better opportunities elsewhere. So far, there are already some large profile moves and free agents that are looking to get involved with teams in preparation for the upcoming 2022 DPC season. We’ll be taking a look at some high-profile departures and roster changes ahead of the DPC, high-profile free agents, and some rumors that have been circulating around rosters of popular Dota 2 teams. 

According to a blog post posted on the Alliance website, Alliance announced that they would be parting ways with captain and position 5 support fng and their mid player Limmp. For the longest time, fng was playing as a stand-in before formally being signed to the Alliance roster. There’s no doubt that fng was responsible for creating the atmosphere that led to Alliance’s steady growth throughout 2021 and had them qualify for The International this year. Of all the players on the roster, fng probably contributed the most, but it is likely fng may want to be looking for opportunities in CIS now that many teams have experienced the level of excellent play and infrastructure that CIS provides players, even at their tier 2 level. 

Limmp’s departure is of no surprise, as some would consider him to be the weakest link on Alliance’s roster. While Limmp does quite well in one-versus-one match ups and in the laning phase, Limmp still needs to develop his decision-making abilities and macro play in order to match up with some of Europe’s more successful mid laners. I don’t doubt that Limmp is skilled, but he still has more to learn and Alliance perhaps cannot sit idly by and wait for him to improve.

Jack “KBBQ” Chen, Quincy Crew’s manager, announced on Twitter last week that Quincy Crew would be undergoing “significant changes.” Chen reassures fans that no one in Quincy Crew is getting kicked from the roster, but that the players should be able to explore additional opportunities as they come to them. 

It’s possible that some of the players on Quincy Crew have attracted the attention of organizations in North America such as Evil Geniuses. Should Evil Geniuses look to shake up their roster, Quincy Crew players are an excellent pool of talent to scout from. It would not be surprising to see either MSS, YawaR, or MSS on the Evil Geniuses roster. 

One significant development with Quincy Crew that’s happened already is the departure of Rodrigo “Lelis/Leslao” Lelis, Quincy Crew’s Brazilian offlaner. Based on this TwitLonger, it seems as though Lelis and other players on Quincy Crew are looking at more stable opportunities that can lead to better placements at The International or just more growth in general. My personal opinion is that Lelis will definitely find his way back onto either an international roster or work with a North American organization and continue playing in NA. Lelis in the offlane shows a lot of promise and teams would be wise to bring him on as a trial member. 

Yesterday, Fnatic announced that they’d be parting ways with Malaysian player ChYuan and Singaporean player Deth, both players who joined late in the DPC 2021 season right before the SEA qualifiers for TI10. Although the team qualified for the The International this year, chances are that their 9th-12th finish at the event did not satisfy the team’s expectations as they were probably looking to at least make top 8 at the event. 

It’s likely that both Deth and ChYuan’s contracts stipulated that they’d play for the team with the explicit intent of doing well at TI10, but this shouldn’t reflect poorly on Fnatic as this expectation can apply to most professional Dota 2 teams. 

It’s likely that we’ll see Deth play on some high-profile SEA teams that will qualify for the upper division in the SEA regional DPC league. ChYuan could easily go anywhere he wants in China and SEA, especially since it’s likely that the Chinese player pool may dry up due to new restrictions for gaming in the country.

Last week, Thunder Predator let go of the entirety of their Dota 2 roster. According to a series of tweets, the Thunder Predator organization celebrated the achievements their roster gained during the year, such as winning The Singapore Major, but it’s likely that the organization was really hoping this team would have performed better at TI10. 

Two days after Thunder Predator let their Dota 2 roster loose, NoPing e-sports also let go of their Dota 2 team. Players of NoPing decided that they would continue playing together as a team but for a different organization with the NoPing organization looking to restructure their Dota 2 division for the upcoming DPC season in South America.  

Two days later, Thunder Predator would announce that they had picked up the former NoPing e-sports roster. Kind of a wild journey.

Brazilian organization SG esports also departed with their players as players announced that they’d be looking for better opportunities. 

As of the writing of this article, several free agents exist in the space that could easily have rosters built around them. 

Two players with a lot of presence and prestige around their names are Ukrainian player Roman ‘Resolut1on’ Fomynok and Maurice ‘Khezu’ Gutmann. Although I personally believe that Khezu does quite well as a content creator and commentator, I still think that he is a capable offlaner with a lot of growth left to achieve. The current patch also suits Khezu’s playstyle, and if the trend for tanky offlaners continues well into 2022 DPC season, teams would do well to bring him onto their roster.

Resolut1on may be looking kind of long in tooth for the CIS region, but his skills as a core player across multiple lanes makes him an agile and versatile pick up for teams in other regions. Resolut1on’s experience in North America and EU really shows how quickly he can adapt to different environments, and it’s likely that a stable and calm team can really bring out his talent and make him shine on the international stage once more. 

A personal pick for me at this stage would be former Vikin.gg support player Adam ‘Aramis’ Moroz. The professional scene typically lacks star support players, and this role can make a huge impact in the early game and help guide the overall flow of teamfights if the support player is especially talented. Aramis is a rookie player that’s helped enable the Vikin.gg roster and made them competitive even against some of Europe’s biggest teams. I sincerely believe that Aramis has a lot of potential if put on the right team. 

As we approach the end of the year, any announcement Valve makes regarding the next season of the Dota 2 DPC is likely to be a catalyst for huge roster changes in the future. Should more high priority roster changes or reshuffles happen in professional Dota 2 ahead of the DPC, we’ll be here to report on it.