The season opener for the North American Dota Pro Circuit was last night, and the fans were treated to debut matches of the two best teams of the region, Shopify Rebellion and TSM.
After a dominating regional performance, strong showings at Majors, and the group stage of The International 2022, TSM and Shopify Rebellion (SR), ex-EG, finished the 2022 season in a disappointing manner. Both had a superb start to the 2023 DPC, however, as TSM and SR swept their first-day opponents in two quick games.
The Dota 2 night kicked off with TSM vs. Wildcard Gaming, where the former’s veteran players had total control of the match. Timado and Bryle snowballed the first match as new transfers, Ari, Whitemon, and kasane showed great promise throughout the match.
The second round looked slightly tougher for Timado, but as Bryle snowballed once again with his Tusk, TSM found a way to control all parts of the map. The young offlaner from Eastern Europe, kasane, also put on an impressive performance throughout the second match, and the overall stability that the offlaner brought to the team was noticed.
Following up TSM, it was SR’s turn to show what they had been cooking during the off-season. The former EG squad only swapped out their offlaner and welcomed SabeRLighT to the roster.
Despite a fast start to the game, SR found a resisting Thiuth Gaming against them. TG’s defenses finally started to crack as Arteezy’s Morphling came online, and with the help of SabeRLighT’s Doom, SR won fight after fight to seal the first match.
While TG showed a decent effort in the first match, the second duel between the two teams turned out to be a total stomp for SR. TG found themselves on the backfoot right from the get-go as they conceded way too many scores in the early game.
As a result, all members of the SR squad took over the match with a sizable net worth lead and ended the match in 21 minutes.
Now that the two giants of NA started the season with wins, the eyes are on Dendi’s B8, who recently switched to compete in NA. Though there will be two more series on Jan. 11, B8 will take the stage on Jan. 13.
