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Team SMG has surprisingly undergone a roster change a couple of days after winning the OB.Moon Asian Arena. The organization announced via a tweet that it had parted ways with its offlaner, Damien "kpii" Chok. Team SMG mentioned that The International (TI10), the tenth edition of which begins in one day, marked the end of the competitive season, and now it bid farewell to the offlaner. It should be noted that Team SMG did not qualify for TI10 after a rough performance at the regional qualifiers. Kpii has departed a little more than six months after joining in April 2021. At the time of writing this article, it is unknown where he will go.
Kpii is no longer Team SMG’s offlaner
“TI marks the end of a season, and with that, we say thank you and farewell to @kpiidota. It's been a fun run. If anyone could play on high ping and still won his lane, it'd be kpii,” tweeted Team SMG.
Team SMG’s roster following this change is as follows:
Yeik "MidOne" Nai Zheng
Kam "Moon" Boon Seng
TBD
Tue "ah fu" Soon Chuan
Roger "Roddgeee" Tan Boon Thye
kpii, who joined Team SMG in April 2021, had a rough exit from TNC Predator, where he left after 18 months. A combination of the pandemic and the need to have a Filipino-only roster resulted in his departure. After kpii joined Team SMG, he had only mediocre success. A second-place finish at the second season of the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) 2021 was followed by failure to gain traction in any of the third-party events. Even with some of the most talented and experienced players on the team, the team could only muster a 7th-8th place finish in the qualifiers. On 3rd Oct 2021, kpii finally won his first tournament with Team SMG at the OB.Moon Asian Arena, but the two parties have now split up.
With TI10 just around the corner, Team SMG is unlikely to participate in any events anytime soon. The post-TI season is a period when we usually see roster changes and team overhauls, so Team SMG will likely be on the lookout for a new offlaner during that time. Additionally, it will be interesting to see if any more players on the roster depart. kpii will likely be seeking a new team post-TI as well.
Alliance revealed in a recent tweet the tentative schedule for the next DPC season, according to which the first regional league will commence on 29th Nov 2021. This gives Team SMG and kpii plenty of time to decide on their best plans.
