Mousesports’ Dota 2 roster splits up after 2 years

Greece just lost its strongest and most popular Dota 2 team.

Mousesports, known as Ad Finem before being acquired by the German esports organization on April 7, announced their disbandment yesterday.

Support player Verros “Maybe Next Time” Apostolos revealed the news on Twitter, where he simply said that they were going their separate ways and that he was thankful for mouz’s “professionalism” during their time with the organization.

Three hours later, however, he followed the announcement up with a TwitLonger post, in which he elaborated on why they decided to part ways with mouz.

“They showed understanding and were willing to continue working with us despite our poor results,” Maybe Next Time said. “Unfortunately, we [eventually] reached a point where we could no longer fix our issues without changing our roster or disbanding.”

True enough, the all-Greek roster never got off the ground after signing with mousesports. Despite their second-place finish at the Boston Major in late 2016, they failed to post results anywhere on par with that one. In fact, they were unable to escape the bottom eight spots at the Kiev Major (following Boston)—a tournament to which they were directly invited.

Their struggles continued past Kiev, which eventually culminated in their failure to qualify for The International 7. They were defeated in the EU regional qualifiers by the mixed European team Planet Dog (later picked up by HellRaisers), who attended the event in their stead.

This roster—Omar “Madara” Dabachach, Dmitris “ThuG” Plivouris, Kharis “SkyLark” Zafiriou, Giorgos “SsaSpartan” Giannakopoulos, and Maybe Next Time—has long been known for sticking together in the face of insurmountable odds and mediocre results.

Their history as a team stems from their days with Ad Finem, which was formed in December 2015. They continued to play together under the same banner without any lineup changes, up until the day they moved over to mouz.

Based on Maybe Next Time’s follow-up post, though, it would seem that they have finally decided to split up for good—at least until time calls for them to reunite.

“What I’ll always regret is not achieving all the great things we dreamed of with this roster,” Maybe Next Time said. “I had so much fun playing with them and I will cherish all the happy memories we’ve had together.”

For now, fans can only hope that the team that won the hearts of many with their indomitable will and spirit at the Boston Major will find it in themselves to get the band back together someday.