The CIS regional qualifiers are set to begin and there’s a brother vs brother rivalry on the menu as the two Vasylenko mid players are bound to fight each other for a spot in the Kiev Major main event.
Yaroslav 'Pikachu' Vasilenko, the younger brother of Bogdan 'Iceberg' Vasilenko, finished first with his team H1ve in the second CIS open qualifiers, after a top 16 finish in the previous session. What not many people know is that the two brothers are actually practicing box in their spare time and they do train against each other both in Dota 2 and the gym, which makes their bo1 matchup from the regionals group stage a really must watch game.
Despite not striking as the most popular players, the five H1ve boys are not at their first attempt to make a break out of the tier 2/3 CIS teams. Three of them, namely Peter 'Sm1Leyu' Banah, Bogdan 'orb1t' Dmitruk and Pikachu are long time real life friends playing and grinding local Ukrainian LAN’s together for quite some time now. Pikachu has also been part of the Ne Rus? roster that qualified and participated this January at the WESG Global Grand Finals in China. At the same time, orb1t and Eugeniy 'Fervian' Aksenov, which is also the most experienced H1ve member, claimed the victory in one of the biggest amateur tournaments sponsored by the Russian telecom operator MegaFon from last October. Immediately after their win, they became part of the first ever Effect roster, but a few months later the organization dropped them in favour of a full new line-up.
H1ve’s achievement of making it out from the open qualifiers has many stories behind it. Be it in an official game against an older brother or against an organization they used to play for, the H1ve boys are seeking to prove themselves worthy, and qualifiers for a Major held in Kiev, Ukraine is the perfect opportunity to step up their game. We wish them the best of luck through the CIS regional qualifiers, which are going to be a hell of a ride for all the teams involved. It’s a CIS Major and all the big names from the region fight for only one spot available for the main event. No CIS team received a direct invite to Kiev so whoever emerges victorious on the February 14 will be the only hope for the home crowd.
The CIS regional qualifiers will kick off on February 10 at 10:00 CET/04:00EST and H1ve will have their big test in the opening series against Virtus Pro.
We are grateful to Vitalii 'v1lat' Volochai and Aleksandar 'vandersar' Miloshevich for the information provided on the H1ve players
