Gorgc revives Dota 2 meme team to compete for Riyadh—but it’s already gone wrong

Popular Dota 2 streamer Gorgc revived Team Bald to compete in the Riyadh Masters MENA open qualifiers. The dream didn’t last long, though, with the squad getting knocked out in their first match.

This Team Bald iteration was formed unceremoniously on May 29 to give the Riyadh Masters MENA open qualifiers a shot. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is widely considered to be the weakest Dota 2 region. Now, call it bad luck, but Team Bald were seeded to face perhaps the strongest team in this qualifier: Night Pulse. Headed by former NAVI player V-Tune, Night Pulse beat Team Bald in the best-of-one and later secured one of the two slots for the MENA closed qualifiers. (Maybe that merits dubbing Team Bald as the de-facto runner-up of the entire thing.)

This Team Bald iteration had the following players in the roster: Gorgc in the carry role, ex-Nigma Galaxy star Mikey in Mid, Iranian squad Winter Bear’s Kachal in Offlane, TI11 champ Saksa in Soft Support, and another Winter Bear player Nagato in Hard Support.

Gorgc streamed the team’s lone open qualifier match on his Twitch channel. Before it ended in an anti-climax, the Dota 2 community was hopeful about the revival of the meme squad. TI winner Saksa’s presence on the roster naturally gave fans some confidence about their capability to maybe even progress to Riyadh Masters.

But not all hope is lost for fans. Gorgc said after their defeat that he wants to give the TI open qualifies a go later this year. It’s not, however, certain whether the stack would retain the same members going forward.