DPC season hasn’t even started and the drama is already here as Dendi’s organization B8 finds itself losing its DPC spot weeks before the start of the season.
Danil "Dendi" Ishutin, one of the most famous Dota 2 players in the world has had his ups and downs with his organization B8, but perhaps none worse than losing his DPC spot weeks before the start of the season. The news was released on social media on the evening of Tuesday, October 26th.
In a slightly confusing set of posts B8 outlined the issues they were having. First posting a picture of Dendi leaping from a plane and then a sarcastic post stating “Dendi got kicked from B8.”
This led many to believe that Dendi had been kicked by the squad. Bizarre, considering Dendi was a founder and co-owner of the team.
Dendi in, B8 out of the DPC
However, the post went on to outline that what had happened. Apparently, the owner of the DPC slot was no longer going to support the B8 team. Dendi, and the team, it turns out, weren’t the owners of the B8 DPC slot.
As journalist for escorenews.com Polina Mashina clarified, Aleksandr "Nofear" Churochkin was the owner of the slot, along with the manager of team XactJlepbI. Nofear, along with Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov and Sergey "[T]SA" Timchenko are set to hold onto the DPC slot, and start the season under a new banner.
In a quote acquired by escorenews, Nofear explains that the B8 slot is actually registered to his former team XactJlepbI. In season one of the CIS DPC lower division, B8 was eliminated in 7th place. XactJlepbI remained in season 2, but the roster was acquired by B8, with the organization effectively buying their way back into the DPC.
No More Qualifier Dodging
Ironically, this forces B8 to now play through the DPC qualifiers—something the team dodged in January of 2021, when the team received a direct invite to the decider tournament for the ESL One CIS DPC Season One league. B8 again dodged qualifiers for season 2 with their acquisition of XactJlepbI.
Dendi is a former TI winner, having claimed victory in the inaugural edition of The International with Natus Vincere. However, the star has struggled to retain his former glory. Even so, Dendi remains one of the most popular Dota 2 stars in the world.
B8, his team announced in January 2020 for the expected 2020 DPC season, has had up and down success. In the DPC the team was seeded into the lower division, and failed to escape that tier. Their most recent notable accolade was a third-place finish in the Dota 2 Champions League Season 3—a Tier 3 tournament with a $50,000 prize pool.
Dendi and B8 will have a fight on their hands when they attempt to qualify for the DPC in November.