A lot was on the line today in Western Europe’s Dota Pro Circuit Summer Tour, with Team Secret and Entity battling it out for the final invite to the Arlington Major through tiebreakers. And, while the series was competitive, Entity wound up spoiling what was otherwise a historic day for Secret’s captain Puppey.
Not only did the Indian organization gatekeep Secret from making their first Major appearance of the DPC season, they may have also prematurely ended one of the longest-running records in competitive Dota 2—depending on how the International Regional Qualifiers pan out.
Within the competitive community, it is pretty common knowledge that Puppey is currently the only player to have attended every iteration of The International since winning TI1 back in 2011 with Natus Vincere. However, during the tiebreakers against Entity, he also surpassed a milestone in terms of games played under Secret’s banner.
According to Dota analyst Ben “Noxville” Steenhuisen, Puppey just surpassed his former teammate and fellow TI Champion Dendi as the player to play the most career-competitive games with a single team.
Dendi was the record-holder for the longest time, having played 1,523 games with Na’Vi between Dec. 2010 and Aug. 2019, when he was officially released from the organization. Following the three-game tiebreaker, Puppey has now played 1,525 games with Secret since joining the team in Aug. 2014.
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During that time, Secret has a 1024–498 record and 67.28 percent winrate. He became the first player with 1,000 wins for a single org earlier this year, according to Noxville. This includes record-setting periods of performance in the regular season, multiple Major titles, and, most recently, a third-place finish at TI10.
In tiebreakers, things got dicey at the end of game three, but Entity pulled things back and eliminated Secret, forcing them into early preparation for the TI qualifiers and putting Puppey’s TI attendance record on the line.
This is also the first time in the modern DPC era that Secret has not attended a DPC Major, while every player on Entity will be attending their first.
Things don’t get better for Secret either, as, if the DPC season ended today, they would still have to face Entity again, along with Nigma Galaxy, goonsquad, and Alliance in those TI qualifiers based on DPC points. With that, Puppey will likely need to get through a field of other WEU teams, the team that just beat him, and one of his biggest weaknesses in former teammate KuroKy and NGX to have even a shot at TI this year.
