Team Secret is heading towards relegation

The third week of DPC WEU Tour 3 brought another unexpected defeat for Team Secret and the former Dota 2 giant is now in big trouble. Only three more matches are left to be played and Secret will need at least one victory to avoid relegation.

Right now, the situation in the first division of DPC WEU is clear — four teams are strong and very close to each other both in points and skill, while the other four teams are the opposite and will battle each other to remain in Division I at the end of this season.

Team Secret’s struggles

The problems for Team Secret began right after The International 11. Clement “Puppey” Ivanov and his 2021 roster finished third at TI 2021 and was an exceptional competitor at the time.

However, after the departure of Ludwig “zai” Wahlberg and Lassi “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen, Puppey had to find two replacements of the same caliber. His choices were Daryl “iceiceice” Xiang and Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan. These were not bad choices, but the roster simply didn’t play well enough.

In May 2022, Sumail left the team and joined Nigma Galaxy. Puppey replaced him with Crystallis, who is not a bad player but cannot be compared with Sumail. Immediately after this roster change, Secret went from finishing fifth in WEU Division I to struggling to remain in the league.

So far in this third and final Tour of DPC 2021 – 2022, Secret played against OG, Alliance, Tundra, and Entity. And they only won against Alliance.

The fact that they lost against OG and Tundra is understandable given these two teams’ notable results at the latest Dota 2 Major. But the defeat against Entity, an opponent they should have defeated with ease, is a big warning sign.

Team Secret’s remaining matches  

Secret have three more matches to play, namely against Team Liquid, Gaimin Gladiators, and goonsquad.

The first match seems lost before it even started. After all, Liquid is the team that stole zai and MATUMBAMAN from Puppey, and their performance this Tour has been exceptional. Matu’s crew defeated Gladiators, Alliance, and even Tundra, proving that no opponent is too strong for them.

Matches two and three are winnable for Secret. The only problem is that Gladiators finished the previous Tour in 2nd place, and ESL One Stockholm 2022 in 4th place. Realistically, Puppey will be fighting against goonsquad for his team’s right to remain in Division I at the end of this DPC.

Header: Team Secret