Puppey could miss his first TI

Clement “Puppey” Ivanov is the only player who participated in every edition of The International. He was part of the Natus Vincere team that won The International 2011 and has been the captain of Team Secret for almost a decade. At the age of 33, he’s an esports veteran.

Most esports players do not have the motivation to continue playing after they’ve won their millions. Some retire before their 25^th birthday. But Puppey decided to continue playing, even though not all of his roster were spectacular.

To be fair, for the most part he’s had a lot of success. His career is full of epic moments, the last one being the 2^nd place he got at The International 2022.

Arguably, 2023 was the worst year in his career and the first major sign that he might need to consider putting an end to his amazing career. Team Secret got humiliated in Tour 1, was relegated to Division II, and then came back only to get humiliated again.

Without a single Major participation, Secret will need to finish the WEU qualifier in the top 2. This is going to be very difficult to accomplish, because the tournament features teams like Quest Esports, OG, Entity, and Nigma Galaxy. Secret don’t have a strong enough roster at the moment to compete with some of these teams.

TI12 WEU Qualifier is looking SPICY pic.twitter.com/hJHRP8Mxp9

— Team Secret (@teamsecret) August 14, 2023

Puppey’s recent declarations

In a recent interview, Puppey declared that he is not surprised and that even if he misses TI this year, the failure was bound to happen at some point.

In many ways, he is right. It’s hard to go through so many Dota 2 seasons without experiencing failure. In other sports, teams thrive for 5-10 years and then they go through a period of darkness.

In esports, the glory years tend to be far fewer. Usually, a team will be dominant for one or two seasons. After that, if it’s lucky and ambitious, it will remain in the top 10 or at least top 20. Occasionally, it will obtain a great result that reminds everyone of the good old days. But nobody stays at the top forever.

For the history of Dota 2, it would be amazing if Secret qualified for this year’s TI. Having one player who never failed to compete at The International is a beautiful storyline. But if it doesn’t happen, at least we’ll be able to say that Dota 2 is truly a challenging MOBA.

Header: Team Secret