After Steven 'Korok' Ashworth was removed from the Dota 2 team following his last minute dropping out of Dignitas trip to Korea, we've now received word that his close personal friend Scott 'bLeek' Jensen has decided to depart from the team as well, followed by Theeban '1437' Siva bowing out as well. This leaves Team Dignitas with only two remaining players in Jimmy 'DeMoN' Ho and Frankie 'Inphinity' Pravongviengkham.
Following Team Dignitas having to forfeit their game against Fnatic in the D2L today, some of the players issued tweets explaining what had happened:
Not sure if rares were lost, but 3 stand-ins weren't allowed so D2L gave us an unfortunate forfeit. #BibleThump
— Jimmy Ho (@DotADeMoN) November 11, 2013
Sorry for all the fans that were hoping for dignitas to play, i hope the new roster will be up and running soon enough !! GL !! @DotADeMoN
— Theeban Siva (@1437x) November 11, 2013
As can be seen from the tweets, 1437 indicates that he is no longer on the team. Theeban's decision to leave comes as a result of the the sudden exit of Korok and now bLeek, who trusted sources tell us decided to leave the team shortly after Korok was removed. bLeek is a close friend of Korok's and is widely believed to have only returned to competitive play because of said friendship. With these three players off the team, it falls upon DeMoN and Inphinty to rebuild in order for the team to retain their spot for MLG Columbus, which they qualified for by winning the MLG Dota 2 Invitational at Full Sail University competition last month together with Robert 'bdiz' Tinnes.
As of writing it seems as if the solution may be to bring back Peter 'peterpandam' Dager, who was playing with the unofficial roster of Dignitas previously until he was replaced by bdiz shortly before Full Sail. ppd has recently been playing with Stay Free along with North American Heroes of Newerth transplants such as Mark 'Tralfamadore' Seidl, and some combination of Stay Free players are widely expected to fill in the two final spots for Team Dignitas in order for them to retain their spot at MLG Columbus. We've confirmed with MLG that the spot for the tournament is retained by the organization, meaning that as long as the team fields a squad capable of competing, they won't lose it, even though the original invite was earned with four players no longer on the team.
Additionally Jimmy 'DeMoN' Ho made the following post on Reddit:
We tried to play with a roster that consisted of 3 stand-ins which wasn't allowed by D2L resulting in a forfeit loss call made by them. Korok was kicked, Bleek is probably done with pro Dota, and 1437 left the team. Inphinity and myself are the remaining players from Dignitas and we will be reforming the team to compete at MLG Columbus. As for now nothing's confirmed until BuLba confirms it. :D
Team Dignitas Roster:
Jimmy 'DeMoN' Ho
Frankie 'Inphinity' Pravongviengkham
Sources: DeMoN via Reddit, 1437 Twitter, DeMoN twitter.
Headline image taken from DeMoN's Instagram.