The Swedish carousel continues as a once-great Nordic side continues the search for a winning formula.
After just a couple of weeks, Alliance are making yet another change to their all-Swedish roster, replacing Johan “Mynuts” Andersson with Niclas “Niqua” Westergard. The move comes after the roster’s initial iteration, which featured support player Jerry “EGM” Lundqvist in the offlane, failed to make meaningful progress, due in no small part to Lundqvist’s inexperience in his new role.
Westergard joins the squad as a stand-in with relatively little top-flight experience under his belt. The Swede enjoyed a brief stint with eXperience Gaming in late 2011 with new teammate Jonathan “Loda” Berg before leaving the team for Keita when Counter Logic Gaming acquired the roster.
Since then, Westergard’s professional career has been a hodge podge of campaigns with modest sides. After a run with Keita, including an unsuccessful campaign in the West Qualifiers of The International in 2012, he joined Lundqvist and community favorite William “Blitz” Lee on Turtle Masters for The Defense Season 3 in early 2013. Since then Westergard has flown under the radar until standing in with Alliance.
Westergard will fill the role of the offlane, moving Lundqvist back to the support position and reuniting a duo of supports that helped guide Alliance to an International title in 2013. More importantly, Andersson’s departure will deliver viewers from the unrelenting onslaught of “my nuts” jokes that have become a staple of Alliance’s matches.
H/TÂ Liquid Dota
Published: Jan 27, 2015 11:13 am