Road to TI6: 5 Dota 2 Roster Changes That Will Impact the Manila Major

When the "Accept" button is clicked in Dota 2, it's a team game. When the PCs are turned off and there is money on the line, though? Anything goes. 

This gets proved time and again with the ceaseless shuffling of professional players among top-level Dota 2 squads. With few exceptions, everyone is expendable. Anyone could be left without a home if a suitable replacement appears.

Teams boot players. Other teams pick up said players and boot somebody else to make room. It's an endless cycle that creates savage competition among the pros and endless drama for fans to consume. With that in mind, it's no surprise professional Dota 2 teams look radically different today than they did a year ago.

While it's often sad to see, however, those transfers, trades and transactions make for exciting possibilities as dream teams and dream matches become a reality.

On the eve of the Manila Major, it's worth taking a look at the biggest, most impactful roster changes over the last six months and evaluating how they could affect the next big tournament.

UNiVeRsE Dumps EG, Joins Team Secret

Team Secret's underwhelming performance at TI5 was one of 2015's biggest stories, and the roster purge that followed gave team captain Clement “Puppey” Ivanov the opportunity to construct another Dota 2 supergroup.

After initially bringing in Cloud9 alum Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao and former mousesports support man Johan “pieliedie” Astrom, he completed the team in March by bringing back Artour “Arteezy” Babaev and finally adding longtime Evil Geniuses No. 3 Saahil “UNiVeRsE” Arora.

While UNiVeRsE found a good home in EG (and EG found a steady solo offlaner in UNiVeRsE), the Dota 2 competitive world is merciless, with UNiVeRsE leaving the team a few days before the March roster locks. How well, and how quickly, he can jell with Team Secret will be a major storyline heading into TI6 and will be a huge factor in how Secret performs at the Manila Major.

There's absolutely no question UNiVeRsE is an amazing player, with his 2015 being one of the best individual years in recent memory. That said, synergy is of the utmost importance in Dota 2, and the new Team Secret just hasn't looked as good as the last one. Since UNiVeRsE joined the team, it has struggled to emulate the success it had with previous offlaner Rasmus "MiSeRy" Filipsen, posting a poor performance at ESL One Manila and a last-place finish at EPICENTER. 

Team Secret has a big platform in the Manila Major to show what it's capable of. If they can put on a good show and take one of the event's top prizes, they will quickly establish themselves as one of the top teams in the game. If it's another bottom-half finish and, worse, those difficulties reach into the build toward TI6, there will be a lot of people chuckling about how this roster change shook out.

Agressif Graduates from CDEC Academy, Joins LGD Gaming

CDEC nearly completed the greatest underdog story in competitive gaming history at TI5, when they turned a wild-card entry into a run to the grand final. Throughout that entire endeavor, Sun “Agressif” Zheng anchored the team in their No. 1 spot. In March, however, he left CDEC to join Chinese juggernaut LGD Gaming and could be the man to finally get that outfit over the hump.

LGD has long been a staple of the competitive Dota scene, earning a spot in four consecutive Internationals, finishing as high as third place. Releasing longtime carry Liu “Sylar” Jiajun and bringing in Agressif helps to shake up the existing team while maintaining the system that has brought them so much success over the years.

Agressif joins a strong lineup that includes veteran Lei "MMY!" Zengrong, former teammate Lu "Maybe" Yao and the returning Zhang "Xiao8" Ning. That's a formidable group that should be able to make quite the splash at the Manila Major and could be regarded as one of the favorites entering TI6.

BuLba Fills the Hole in EG's Heart

It has been a tumultuous six months for the TI5 champions, but unsurprisingly, Evil Geniuses have once again managed to pull together a remarkably strong team. Four of the five players that won TI5 will return wearing blue (even if they made a stop or two along the way). The sole newcomer? Sam “BuLba” Sosale.

Longtime Dota 2 fans have seen some high highs and low lows throughout BuLba's gaming career. He is best remembered for posting one of the all-time greatest individual performances in the history of the game at TI3, leading Team Liquid to a seventh-place finish with a shocking upset win over LGD Gaming. On many other occasions, however, he has struggled to make his presence felt.

Right or wrong, BuLba's contributions will be weighed doubly in the team's successes and failures. To this point, EG has performed reasonably well, most notably taking third place at the WePlay Dota 2 League's Season 3 tournament, which included a 2-1 win over Team Empire. But that could change in a few weeks' time.

The Manila Major will offer the first real sample of what BuLba is capable of on this new EG team. If his playmaking skills translate to a championship-caliber outift, we could be looking at the first team to post back-to-back TI wins.

ChuaN Finds a New Home in Newbee

Consistency is a rare thing in Dota 2. Players can leave teams on a moment's notice, and it's quite rare that players spend more than two years with any given team. Because of that, it is still strange to see Wong "ChuaN" Hock Chuan playing on a team other than Invictus Gaming. 

The Malaysian Sensation took IG's reins and exploded onto the competitive scene with a first-place finish at TI2, and he has been a rock for Chinese Dota ever since. Unfortunately, that sudden celebrity, coupled with Invictus' steady decline thereafter, visibly wore on him, and by 2014 he was openly discussing retirement.

The divorce from IG was finalized in December, and with that came the announcement ChuaN was joining Newbee. The TI4 champions crashed and burned at TI5 and struggled for months to find the right combination of players to complement their aces, Chen “Hao” Zhihao and Zhang “Mu” Pan. Their new lineup, which includes ChuaN alongside former EHOME players Damien “kpii” Chok and Hu “Kaka” Liangzhi, has shown a great deal of promise to this point.

Newbee took first place in the Manila Major China Qualifier and followed that up with a second-place finish at EPICENTER. The team seems to be gaining momentum heading into the Manila Major and should be able to do some big things there and moving forward.

Digital Chaos Is Built in a Day

Caught in the middle of the drama between Evil Geniuses and Team Secret was Digital Chaos. Founded in August 2015 from the castoffs of bigger Dota 2 teams, they had mixed success in their formative months, performing well in minor-level tournaments while consistently struggling against top-level teams.

Then came the March roster locks and everything fell apart. Theeban "1437" Siva left to become the new coach of Team Secret. BuLba joined Evil Geniuses. Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling joined him.

Within two days, Digital Chaos went from being a legitimate team to being just one man. While it wouldn't have shocked anyone if that marked the end of the DC experiment, team execs managed to pull together a five-man squad on just 24 hours' notice. While surviving that shakeup can be viewed as a miracle unto itself, the overwhelming success that has followed feels like something even greater than that.

Since adding Aliwi "w33" Omar, David "Moo" Hull, Rasmus "MiSeRy" Filipsen and Martin "Saksa" Sazdov to the previous squad's sole survivor, Roman "Resolut1on" Fominok, the team has broken off four straight first-place finishes in qualifying tournaments, including the Manila Major Americas Qualifier.

That's a legitimate accomplishment, but they're about to take a massive step up in competition. Set to face the likes of Team Liquid, Na'Vi, OG and MVP Phoenix rather than familiar foes such as Shazam and compLexity Gaming, it will be worth keeping a close eye on how Digital Chaos performs against elite competition. If they have just a modicum of their recent success at the Manila Major, they'll instantly become one of the most popular teams heading into TI6.