Miracle- will compete for Shopify Rebellion at DreamLeague S20

DreamLeague S20 has begun and some of the teams had to make last-minute roster changes.

Shopify Rebellion’s Abed “Abed” Yusop encountered visa issues and had to be replaced. Fortunately for Shopify, Amer “Miracle-“ Al-Barkawi from Nigma Galaxy was willing to compete for them at this tournament. This situation is a repeat of the one from DreamLeague S19. Except in that case, Abed’s stand-in was Kasra “Mikey” Mesbah.

At that tournament, Shopify finished 3^rd, so perhaps they can do the same with Miracle- on their roster.

Miracle-‘s prowess

Miracle- used to be regarded as the best Dota 2 player in the world. Back in 2015-2017 he won several Majors, as well as The International. In 2019, he played in another TI Grand Final, which his team lost against OG.

Since then, he hasn’t done anything significant, in part because he was ill and in part because his team, Nigma Galaxy, did not manage to remain a tier-1 team in Western Europe.

Miracle-’s expertise is not only in one role but two. He can easily play position 1 carry or position 2 mid. He is best known for his Invoker, but the truth is that he’s extremely good with a wide range of heroes, from Terrorblade to Anti-Mage.

Miracle- was the first player to reach 9000 MMR. This happened in 2016. In 2020 he reached 10.000 and has remained to this day one of the highest rated players in the world.

At DreamLeague S20, Miracle- will play the solo-mid role and everyone hopes that Shopify will pick Invoker for him in at least one game. The hero is quite weak in the current meta, but in the hands of someone with more than 1000 Invoker games, he can be a force of nature.

 

Due to visa reasons, @NigmaMiracle will be standing in for Abed. We hope that things move along so he can join the team sooner than later, but in the meantime we’re thankful @NigmaGalaxy could loan him out to us! 💚 https://t.co/2ISRdHyBzj

— Shopify Rebellion (@ShopifyRebels) June 10, 2023

Shopify Rebellion’s chances at the tournament

Shopify just finished Division I of North America with seven consecutive wins. They only lost one game in seven best-of-three series, which is very impressive even for this region.

With Tal “Fly” Aizik as their captain and Artour “Arteezy” Babaev as their carry, Shopify look ready to compete against any team. With the exception of Gaimin Gladiators and perhaps Tundra Esports, nobody is too strong for them to beat. But they will need to bring their A-game if they want to succeed at this tournament.

The only genuinely weak teams in the race are Team Secret, TSM, and Entity. But the first two of them are not even in Shpify’s group.

Header: Valve Corporation