Winds of change were blowing at Team Spirit at the end of 2022. With TORONTOTOKYO no longer on the roster, the team was in need of a mid laner, and Yatoro revealed on a recent stream Spirit knocked on OG’s door in the process.
Yatoro had a guest appearance on Oleksii “STORM” Tumanov’s stream, where he talked about OG’s 2024 roster and a deal that never went through. According to Yatoro, Spirit reached out to OG and asked about Bozhidar “Bzm” Bogdanov’s availability and proposed a potential buyout. OG declined the deal, choosing to retain the star player, whom Yatoro still regards as OG’s “best asset.”
As a fan of Bzm’s gameplay, Yatoro was also confused by OG’s recent roster moves. Wisper and Ari region-hopped to join OG’s 2024 Dota 2 roster, a change that Yatoro disagrees with as he would prefer “building a roster around Bzm.”
Bzm remained one of OG’s pillars, so Spirit decided to sign Denis “Larl” Sigitov. The team didn’t have the best of starts with the new pickup, but the roster had a late-season revival heading into Dota 2’s TI 2023, winning the biggest events of the tournament as Larl also reached stardom as one of the best mid laners in the world.
While Team Spirit withdrew from Dota 2’s ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 due to player health concerns, OG’s 2024 roster made its debut in the same tournament’s closed qualifiers. Despite knocking Team Secret to the lower bracket, OG was ultimately eliminated by Secret in the lower bracket semi-finals.
ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023 is set to start on Dec. 11 with 14 of the best teams from around the world.
