Virtus.pro failed to qualify for Dota 2’s The International 11 after falling short of the mark at The International 2022 Last Chance Qualifier. They lost to Team Secret in the Upper Bracket Final and Team Liquid in the Lower Bracket Final, who both ended up qualifying for the prestigious event.
They performed quite well throughout the campaign. But, Virtus.pro is an organization with high expectations, and as a result, it sounds like they’re shuffling their roster.
Egor “Xakoda” Lipartiya, who plays support in their team, all but confirmed it on stream. “What will happen with the lineup? I can say that we won’t keep it for sure,” he said, according to a translation from escorenews.
Xakoda said the org will release more details about it once The International 11 is done, which tends to be what happens once post-season Rostermania kicks in.
It’s been a while since Virtus.pro were considered to be one of the best teams in the professional Dota 2 scene. They won a series of massive tournaments in 2018, including ESL One Katowice 2018, The Bucharest Major, ESL One Birmingham 2018, and The Kuala Lumpur Major.
But after that, they’ve fallen short of the mark, placing fifth in The International 8, ninth in The International 9 the following year, fifth at The International 10 in 2021, and failing to win any notable tournaments in between.
The Dota 2 roster has changed a lot since then too.
The current iteration, which consists of Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev, Danil “gpk” Skuti, Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin, Daniyal “yamich” Lazebnyy, and Xakoda, looked promising on paper.
But, failing to qualify for The International 11 is not something the heavyweight esports organization is pleased with, so they feel another change is in order for the Dota 2 team.
