Teams have been retooling and shuffling players around ahead of the next Dota Pro Circuit season, which begins with the roster lock on Nov. 21. This has also resulted in several teams featured in the previous iteration of the DPC folding altogether.
One such team is Hellbear Smashers, a roster that was captained by Rasmus “MISERY” Filipsen throughout 2021. Although the team was able to participate in the upper division of the 2021 DPC’s EU regional league, Hellbear’s players decided to test the waters elsewhere for the upcoming season. This left the team with no players while still holding one of the six locked in spots for the EU DPC’s lower division in its first Tour.
Instead of simply letting the team slot lapse, the players agreed to transfer the lower division spot over to Into The Breach, another roster that competed in the previous DPC season. Because of the way Valve has chosen to operate the DPC’s registration, the team’s previous slot was controlled by Dzmitry “Fishman” Palishchuk or someone involved with Creepwave, the original variant signed by ITB for the second season of the 2021 DPC.
Once Fishman and Remco “Crystallis” Arets left ITB to reform Creepwave alongside a new roster, the DPC slot carried over to them for the upcoming season because someone making the jump was listed as that registered team’s admin.
Now, thanks to Hellbear, ITB’s new roster of Indji “Shad” Lub, Elliott “adzantick” Hammond, Moiez “symetricaL” Mahmood, TANNER, and LeBronDota will be able to bypass the EU open qualifiers next week and compete directly in the lower division during the first DPC Tour of 2022.
Hellbear is unaffected by the transfer, as every player that was previously competing under the team’s banner has already signed with a new organization or joined a stack to compete in the 2022 DPC season.
