Alliance drops its entire Dota 2 roster – for now

After a bad season, Alliance has decided to drop its entire Dota 2 roster and build a new one from scratch. It should have probably kept Nikolay “Nikobaby” Nikolov and Aliwi “w33” Omar, because both of them are widely regarded as being exceptional at their roles. But it seems that the organization has other plans.

Alliance had many attempts to get at least one decent result in 2022 but it wasn’t to be. Their Tour 1 of Dota Pro Circuit was a mess: seventh place out of eight teams. This resulted in their relegation to Division II of WEU.

Just as Bitcoin seems good enough to stay above a certain level after it drops, Alliance too proved in Division II that they are good enough to play in Division I. They finished Tour 2 in second place and were promoted. But in Tour 3, they once again relegated after finishing last in Division I.

At ESL One Malaysia, the team had another bad result: 11th-12th place out of 12. This must have felt bad for the entire roster, who went on to participate in the regional qualifiers for The International 11. Here, in the Western European Qualifier, they were eliminated in the first round of the lower bracket by Team Bold Reborn.

The next iteration of Alliance

Alliance now has to find five players who can be molded into a tier 1 team. The challenge seems daunting but at least one option exists: Gustav “s4” Magnusson, who is currently playing for goonsquad.

It’s not that hard to guess that Alliance might sign the entire goonsquad roster in the coming weeks. Or maybe they will wait until the end of The International, just to see what other players are in need of a good contract. Maybe Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan, if he gets dropped by Nigma Galaxy? Or some other strong midlaner?

No doubt, Jonathan “Loda” Berg will have a lot of options. But is he willing to pay the price to bring in some serious players? Or will he choose to stay in his comfort zone and try his luck with some pub stars who are eager to prove themselves for relatively small salaries?

Time will tell. What’s certain is that Alliance will not say goodbye to Dota 2. The team that won The International 3 in one of the most epic Grand Finals in the history of the game is still in the game. It’s just that it needs to wait for its roster to respawn.

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