After nearly two years of pushing together through thick and thin, the TSM.FTX roster experiences its first change.
Position 5 support, Kim "DuBu" Doo-young is the first to part ways with the team he’s been playing with since January 2021.
TSM.FTX, one of the biggest NA organizations, made their entrance to the Dota 2 scene only at the beginning of this year by signing the unsponsored line-up of Team Undying. They took the roster in the post-TI10 shuffle when Undying were fresh off their first TI together, and despite an underwhelming run in Bucharest, they were committed to push forward without making any changes to their line-up.
Immediately after being signed by TSM.FTX, the former Team Undying went on to dominate the North American Dota Pro Circuit league and secure a spot at Stockholm Major, the first Major of 2022.
More so, by reaching the grand finals in Sweden, TSM.FTX gave a lot of hope to the fans that the NA Dota would finally have a good showing at The International. However, after placing second at the Stockholm Major, TSM.FTX ran out of steam and missed the Arlington Major, placing just fourth in the NA regional league of the final DPC Tour before The International 2022.
Their spot at TI was already secured on the back of their good start of the season, and although the team didn’t qualify for Arlington, four of the TSM.FTX players had actually competed at the Major as stand-ins for two different teams.
DuBu, Enzo "Timado" O'Connor and Jonathan "Bryle" Guia stood in for Fnatic, and despite being a last-minute fix for the SEA team that ran into multiple visa issues, they still managed to find enough synergy to help Fnatic secure an upper bracket playoff start.
Mere weeks ahead of TI11, TSM.FTX registered another underwhelming LAN performance at ESL One Malaysia. However, in an interview with us, team captain David "MoonMeander" Tan and DuBu were confident that they learned important lessons and that the roster will stick together even after TI11, regardless of the result at the most important tournament of the year.
“It is very important how you communicate with your teammates because sometimes that can lead to something bad,” said DuBu to us, while MoonMeander was quick to add that “for sure” the team will remain intact for another season after TI11. This wasn’t the first time when MoonMeander praised the group of people he gathered under the Team Undying banner before TI10 and expressed his faith in the team saying that no roster change would be justified.
Nonetheless, coming into TI11 as an NA favorite, over Evil Geniuses, TSM.FTX fell flat in the group stage with four defeats and four draw scores in the Bo2 round-robin format, and that led to them being eliminated at the very bottom of their group and in the 19th-20th place.
Tough losses are usually followed by hard decisions and DuBu exiting the TSM.FTX roster in the TI11 aftermath is one of them. It remains to be seen if the team will make more adjustments for the next DPC season.
