Despite being eliminated from ESL One Birmingham Online before the playoffs, Team Unique had a strong showing and have decided to sign Danil “illusion” Volchan to the roster after he served two months as a stand-in.
In one year in the competitive scene for a year, illusion has already been a part of two relatively successful CIS rosters, even if his time spent with FlyToMoon was very brief.
Unique signed the former Gentlemen roster on April 1, bringing in a mixed group of veteran and fresh Dota 2 players to try and compete in a relatively open CIS region. They saw some early success under VANSKOR’s leadership, but Chuvash decided to leave the team just two weeks after joining, leaving a big opening in the roster.
Instead of just gunning for another veteran position four player to take his place, Unique sought out Egor “19teen” Lexutin’s former teammates from the Magi Hands days in 2019. He and illusion played together for three months before 19teen joined VANSKOR’s Gentlemen roster and illusion departed to join FTM.
After briefly playing for FTM, illusion was signed as a stand-in to replace Chuvash, joining Unique for the ESL One Los Angeles Online, where the team placed ninth. Over the next month, Unique went on to perform well in multiple other events, including a second-place finish at WePlay! Pushka League Season One, securing promotion from Division Two to Division One in the next season.
“He performed well when we played ESL LA, then we decided to give him a month to adapt and see which of it will come out,” Unique’s manager Gleb Antokhin said. “This is a fairly long test that has been passed. Danil is a young player, standing at the very beginning of his path, I hope that he will succeed.”
Unique was the only team to defeat Team Secret in the group stage of ESL One Birmingham Online, and with this signing, they have a good roster construct heading in future events.
