- B8 Esports makes more changes to their Dota 2 roster
- Aleksandr “Nofear” Churochkin comes in the stead of Dendi
- B8 explains why the change happened and what the near future holds
B8 Esports makes more changes to its Dota 2 roster, as Dendi is removed from the team due to ruling on league spot ownership.
B8’s Begins Roster Changes Because of “Spot Ownership”
B8 Esports has made a massive change to its Dota 2 roster earlier this week, but it appears they have overlooked a crucial feature of the Dota Pro Circuit: ownership of their regional league spot.
The organization recently moved Yaroslav “Limitless” Parshin, Sergey “[T]SA” Timchenko, and Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov to the “inactive” roster. This left the team with only Dendi on the active roster, who is also the team’s co-founder. However, on October 26, this changed as fans noticed that Dendi was kicked from the roster of B8 on Valve’s official DPC team registry.
According to the registry, Aleksandr “Nofear” Churochkin, the former B8 player and CIS veteran, kicked Dendi, because the former officially owned the slot registered to compete in the upcoming Dota Pro Circuit season.
Churochkin was the captain of XactJlepbI, which merged with B8 ahead of the 2021 DPC’s second season. This is why he had the spot. XactJlepbI and B8 merged earlier this year.
The former already had a slot in the lower division secured because they avoided relegation. B8 initiated a merger to avoid dropping to a lower league after they finished in eighth place in season one. At the time this move was criticized because with it B8 skipped open qualifiers entirely after a poor showing, but the merger allowed the team to finish sixth in season two of the regional league.
B8 Sheds Details on What Is Happening
The spot in which B8 was playing was technically XactJlepbI’s registration. This means Churochkin still owns the spot. Dendi was removed and Churochkin will likely retain control of the spot well into the 2022 Dota Pro Circuit. This is what B8 themselves said in a Twitter post, without elaborating if the players tried to negotiate something.
The organization said that it simply has no time to fix the issue, as it is trying to rebuild for the next seasons. “We don't want to argue nor waste time on it now. Our main focus is Dota 2 roster.” They wrote.
If this change remains, the organization and Dendi will have to play in the open qualifiers for the lower division of the CIS regional league when the next DPC season starts. In case of failure to qualify, the organization will be unable to compete in the DPC until the next qualifiers, and will only be able to play in smaller events for the next few months.
