After The International 2023, Shopify Rebellion parted ways with some of their best players. One of them was the team’s captain, Fly, who immediately signed a contract with the second-best team in North America, nouns.
Given that Fly’s new roster was much weaker than the one he had led at Shopify Rebellion, everyone expected him to be forever stuck in 2nd place in the region and miss all the important tournaments. After all, who could Arteezy be beaten by Yuma, Copy, and other such players, who have far fewer achievements?
But it seems that the departure of SabeRLight- and Thiolicor, who decided to leave the organization just a few months ago, has significantly decreased Shopify’s strength.
Nouns took advantage of the situation and won two key qualifiers in the space of 11 days. The first one was for Riyadh Masters and the second one was for The International 2024. The Riyadh Masters qualifier was challenging and nouns barely won 3 – 2. But the one for TI13 proved to be significantly easier, at least when it comes to the Grand Final.
Despite losing against Shopify in the upper bracket, Fly found a way to win the last match of the tournament without dropping a single game. This result will probably make Arteezy rethink his future at Shopify.
Nouns’ Victorious Run
nouns advance on the Road To The International. Congratulations. They secure the slot from the North American Regional Qualifiers. #TI13 #Dota2 pic.twitter.com/H8gOsxrV5o
— Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) June 13, 2024
Nouns started the NA Qualifier for TI13 against 4 Amigos and won 2 – 1. Given this score, everyone was convinced that a significantly stronger team would easily defeat them.
In their next match, played against Apex Genesis, the same thing happened. In fact, this match was even more stressful than the first because Fly’s team lost game 1 and had to make a comeback.
In the upper bracket Final, nouns finally lost 1 – 2 against Shopify Rebellion, who seemed to be in great shape and very versatile, picking heroes like Pudge, Phoenix, Rubick, Tusk, and Ursa.
In the lower bracket Final, nouns easily defeated Apex Genesis by picking Crystal Maiden, Dark Seer, and Clockwerk in both games. These heroes worked so well for them that they decided to pick them again against Shopify in the Grand Final.
They also picked Monkey King, Tiny, Tinker, Chaos Knight, and Magnus. All three games were challenging and lasted between 40 and 50 minutes. But in the end, nouns won each time thanks to Fly’s superior tactics.
Header: nouns
