Cover-Credits:
As the weakest team among the two groups in ESL One Birmingham 2024, Shopify Rebellion managed only three wins after 10 games and was eliminated. During one of the series in the event, offlaner Jonáš "SabeRLight-" Volek had suggested the lack of form and shape for the team. Even though players are stepping up individually, SabeRLight- stated that Shopify lacks the teamplay it needs to succeed. Furthermore, he mentioned that the team had entered ESL One Birmingham 2024 with a different training routine, which seemingly did not work out as Shopify was the first team to get eliminated from the event.
SabeRLight- points out the need for improved teamplay in Shopify Rebellion
SabeRLight- already seemed aware of Shopify's shortcomings during the early stage of the tournament and also talked about missing Elite League recently.
“We skipped the Elite League because we played a bunch of tournaments before this so people were just tired. So, I don’t know, there are advantages and disadvantages. I feel first we are not completely in form as a team. Individually, we are playing good but as a team, we need to sync up. That will hopefully happen during this tournament.”
Shopify chose to withdraw from the Elite League a few days before the event, to balance the players' workloads, as the 2024 Dota 2 competitive season has seen its fair share of top tier tournaments so far.
SabeRLight- also discussed an interesting approach they had taken in preparation for ESL One Birmingham 2024, where the team played after a reasonable break.
“Also, for this tournament, we decided to go with a special training practice which I don’t know if I can get into the details. Basically, we just played against bots not to leak any strategy that we have. We just played against five unfair bots. We’ll see what we could do with that training strategy.”
According to the final result of the group stage, Shopify's plan of not revealing strategies and not testing them against actual people did not seemingly work. On the first day, it drew series with Talon Esports and Team Falcons, but on the second day, it lost to Team Liquid and BetBoom Team 2-0, thus making it nearly impossible to advance.
Shopify Rebellion will next compete in PGL Wallachia Season 1 which begins on 10th May 2024.
