Cover-Credits:
B8 Esports’ founder & team captain, Danil "Dendi" Ishutin recently opened up about the organization’s decision to relocate to North America (NA) for the upcoming season on the latest episode of We Say Things Podcast with co hosts Shannon "SUNSfan" Scotten and Troels Lyngholt "syndereN" Nielsen.
The Ukrainian-based organization was founded by popular community figure & TI1 (The International 2011) winner Dendi back in 2020. However, its Dota 2 roster has had marginal success in the Dota 2 competitive scene as the team were unable to compete at the top level.
Dendi listed several reasons on B8’s relocation to North America
In the latest episode of We Say Things podcast, Dendi opened up about B8 Esports’ move to North America for the upcoming Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season as it had acquired Wildcard Gaming’s DPC slot in Division I. Dendi started off by saying that he no longer wanted to play in the Eastern Europe (EEU) region, as many players within the region were skeptical about playing with him.
“One of the reasons why I moved to NA was because I don’t want to play in the EEU region anymore. It’s also because I have many people within the region being skeptical, so I had a hard time building a roster in the region. So it’s much easier for me to relocate to different regions like NA or Southeast Asia (SEA) , since many people were so nice to me and it's much easier to build a roster in those regions. Except for EEU that is.”
Dendi also noted that another reason for B8’s relocation to North America was due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Dendi’s native country of Ukraine as he is finding it difficult to operate within an active warzone.
“Another reason why we decided to relocate was due to the ongoing war, we started producing more international-based content instead of Russian-based ones so that we can explore the international market. With that in mind, it sounded reasonable for me to move to NA, SEA or other regions. Additionally, like during the war it’s difficult for us to practice as we were struggling and we lost some of our sponsors.”
Dendi ended by saying that B8’s move to North America could help grow the Dota 2 scene in the region, as the organization’s relocation could help with attracting more investments into the region as well as scouting for up and coming talents.
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B8 Esports will be competing in the first division of the NA DPC league for the upcoming season along with the likes of TSM, Shopify Rebellion & Nouns.
