Cover-Credits:
Valve
The Eastern Europe (EEU) region might see a change within its regional teams, as NAVI’s Georgiy "swedenstrong" Zainalabidov may have accidentally revealed both his team’s and Team Spirit’s possible roster for the upcoming season during a livestream. NAVI’s lineup features a new lineup featuring young upstarts including swedenstrong himself, while Team Spirit’s lineup features Denis "Larl" Sigitov from BetBoom Team as its new midlaner replacing Alexander "TORONTOTOKYO" Khertek.
The EEU region had a terrible performance at The International 2022 (TI11), which saw NAVI being eliminated in the Last Chance Qualifiers and Team Spirit being unable to defend its title after losing against BOOM Esports in a best of one. Following the event, both teams were expected to make changes within their respective roster.
NAVI to feature 4 new players, Spirit to recruit Larl from BetBoom Team
Earlier in the week, there were rumors surrounding Alexander "TORONTOTOKYO" Khertek leaving Team Spirit to create a new team. The rumor might turn out to be true after NAVI’s Georgiy "swedenstrong" Zainalabidov accidentally leaked details about his team’s practice match against the TI (The International) champions on his recent livestream.
As first reported by Cybersports.ru, Swedenstrong accidentally showed screenshots of a practice lobby match against Team Spirit during a live stream. However, in doing so he also leaked both team’s possible rosters for the 2022/2023 DPC (Dota Pro Circuit) season. The screenshots were shared by Dota 2 Telegram channel Legend WP to be shown to the public.
While the players' identities were hidden by their Steam nicknames, the community were able to cross-reference the players’ nicknames with their professional in-game names from various sources. According to the screenshot above, this is the possible lineup of NAVI for 2023:
Maxim "Shigetsu" Popadinec [from cybercats, Division II]
Nikita "young G" Bochko [from PuckChamp, Division II]
Abdimalik "Malik" Sailau [from PuckChamp, Division II]
Georgiy "swedenstrong" Zainalabidov
Arman "Malady" Orazbayev [From HellRaisers, Division I]
Swedenstrong also accidently leaked a Steam chat message log with somebody, however the translated message said that nobody within the leaked roster is making the decisions for the team in-game. Also shown within the leaked screenshot is the roster of Team Spirit, as it had its team manager Dmitry “Korb3n” Belov in the coaching slot. Although, the roster saw a change in its mid laner as it saw an unfamiliar account name.
However, it was discovered that the account belonged to BetBoom Team’s Denis "Larl" Sigitov as the account was previously used by Larl as a substitute account during his time with VP.Prodigy at the ESL One CIS Online in 2020. According to the leaked screenshot, this is the possible lineup of Team Spirit for 2023:
Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk
Denis "Larl" Sigitov
Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov
Miroslaw "Mira" Kolpakov
Yaroslav "Miposhka" Naidenov
[Transcriptions via cybersports.ru, translations via DeepL translations]
As of now, both teams have neither confirmed nor denied the rumors surrounding its upcoming roster. However, the community can expect more roster updates to come out from the region as the month goes on.
