Dendi Leaves Na’Vi after 8 Years – Important Dota 2 Transfers and New Teams

As an esports bettor, being aware of the most important player transfers and the newly created teams before the start of a new season is of great importance in making good betting decisions. When you bet on Dota 2 for example, you bet on the name of a team. But that team may or may not be as strong as it used to be. Depending on its roster changes, it might be stronger or weaker than its previous iteration. And that weighs a lot when trying to predict its future failures or successes.

This article deals with the most important preseason Dota 2 transfers and some of this esport’s newly created teams. Some of these teams are actually really strong, so you definitely won’t want to make the mistake of assuming they’re just underdogs you’ve never heard of. Many bettors make this error, thinking that because they’ve never heard of a team before, that team must surely be a complete outsider that isn’t worth analyzing.

Key Dota 2 transfers and departures

Every year, after The International ends, a lot of players feel like a breath of fresh air is needed in order for them to find the motivation to keep growing and competing at the highest level during the next season. And that feeling is even stronger for those who haven’t achieved their ambitions during the competitive year that just ended.

For the 2018-2019 competitive season, here are the most important Dota 2 transfers and departures that have been announced so far:

Dendi left Na’Vi

While this may not hold much importance at this point from a practical perspective, Dendi’s departure from Natus Vincere is iconic for the state of the game and the state of Na’Vi as an organization. It is still unclear what the famous Dota 2 midlaner intends to do next, but one thing is certain: Na’Vi will not be the same without him. We will see a very different Natus Vincere from now on and its strength is yet to be determined.

kaka left Newbee and joined Keen Gaming

Everyone knew it was coming, even though nobody knew exactly who was going to leave the team. Ultimately it was kaka and the results were felt immediately. Newbee failed in both qualifiers for the first two Dota Pro Circuit events of the new competitive season. Unfortunately for kaka, his new team failed as well, leaving everyone worse off. We’ll have to see what transformations will the teams go through and how will they fare against their opponents in the Chinese region, but we’re quite likely to see both of them fall off this season and leave room for new winners to emerge.

Zai and Nisha joined Team Secret

It’s not the first time when Zai plays for Team Secret and given the incredible talent of this young player, we will likely see this team improve its playstyle in the coming months. Last season, Zai fought alongside ppd and managed to bring a completely unknown team, OpTic Gaming, to the hight of 8th place at The International 2018. That’s absolutely impressive.

The other player that has joined Team Secret, Nisha, used to play for Team Kinguin and Team Singularity. What’s amazing is the fact that this guy is just 18 years old. So he definitely has a lot more room to grow, even though he’s already a formidable competitor.

So far, Team Secret has qualified for The Kuala Lumpur Major, so the addition of Zai and Nisha to the team and the replacement of Ace and Fata have not fractured the team’s cohesion at all.

Misery joined paiN Gaming

Misery served as paiN Gaming’s coach during The International 2018. And although the team did not manage to make it out of the Group Stage, the team’s performance was quite impressive considering the level of competition it faced at this event. Now, with Misery as part of the main roster, his knowledge of the game will likely make the team even stronger than before, so expect some impressive results from paiN in the tournaments to come. The Brazilians have already qualified for the first Major of the season, so things are looking great so far.

iceiceice left Mineski and joined Fnatic

iceiceice had a pretty successful season with Mineski, winning a Major among other things. But, after the disappointing result at The International 2018, the Chinese star decided to go to another SEA team, namely Fnatic. This team had troubles of its own and decided to release 3 of its players, bringing in new ones. Being one of them, iceiceice will most likely help Fnatic to climb to even greater heights, so expect the team to become stronger than it used to be in the next few months.

UNiVeRsE left Fnatic and joined Forward Gaming

UNiVeRsE, one of the best offlaners in the world, decided to leave Fnatic at the end of last season and has joined Forward Gaming, a newly created team consisting of the former VGJ.Storm roster except for one player, namely Sneyking. That roster used to be very strong and had some impressive performances in 2017-2018. Arguably, this one is going to be even stronger and establish itself as the 2nd best team in North America. No doubt, it will also rank among the best in the world.

Important newly created teams

Dota 2 is a challenging esport and this can be seen just by looking at the history of its most prestigious event, The International. Eight editions, eight different winners. Furthermore, it was often the case that a team which had dominated one season and even won The International at the end of it completely lost its way just a few months later and sometimes even vanished entirely from the scene.

This season, a very similar pattern can be seen and among the 15 competitors attending the first Major of the Dota Pro Circuit, 7 of them are teams we haven’t seen in a very long time or haven’t even heard about at all. Examples include Alliance and Ninjas in Pyjamas. The second of these is ppd’s new team and it looks scary.

Last season, ppd already proved his worth as a captain by taking OpTic Gaming from provincial nobody to Minor winner, Major finalist and 8th place at The International. That’s just insane. This year, I’m 100% convinced that ppd will turn NiP into one of the strongest teams in Europe, and probably a top 5 team worldwide. When you look at some of the players in this roster, you just instantly know that the team will be a big success.

Apart from these 2 teams, you should also keep an eye on the following 4: Team Aster, Royal Never Give Up, Forward Gaming, ferzee and Tigers. All of them have a lot of potential and at least in the case of Aster and Forward Gaming, they have everything it takes to get top 6 results at any event.