The top four is almost set at Dota 2’s Lima Major, and Shopify Rebellion hammered home the final nail in South America’s chance of taking home a win for their region with a 2-1 victory to eliminate Evil Geniuses.
This was a big win in two ways for Shopify, as it not only secures Fly and company a spot in the top four of the first Dota Pro Circuit Major of the year, but it also was a bit of a personal win over the organization that dropped most of their current lineup before the season began.
Shopify took a hit to the chin in game one, as EG rolled them over and completely contained SabeRLighT- in a dominant showing. But SabeRLighT- punched back in game two, taking the Snapfire that caused him so many issues in the opener for himself and utterly crushing EG in the final 15 minutes, backed by Arteezy’s Luna.
The third game looked heavily skewed in EG’s favor as Wisper and Chris Luck got important kills and pulled ahead in their item builds early. However, a key kill on Wisper’s Timbersaw let Shopify have free reign for multiple minutes, leading to a throne push and one final clash where Abed’s Zeus helped clear out the competition.
There are no hard feelings between the former EG players and the org, as noted by Cr1t- not long after he and his teammates signed with Shopify, but taking such a clutch victory over their former team likely had at least a little bit to do with the players popping off—though the players might not admit it.
But Fly did admit that Shopify’s approach to this tournament was much different than in previous years under the EG banner, coming in without many expectations from fans or themselves. This led to a lot of experimenting and trying to learn things throughout the event, both in terms of themselves as a team playing their first LAN with a new teammate and the wider Dota meta.
“Saber is just a really good teammate and he definitely gels well with the team, like the atmosphere and energy he has. It’s been natural,” Fly said. “Because this is the first LAN that we’ve played together there is still a lot for us to learn from this. We never had the goal of like ‘hey, we are coming to [Lima] to win,’ [the plan] was we are coming here to improve as a team and grow for the rest of the year.”
With this win, EG exits Lima in a tie for fifth place as the highest-placing SA squad. Meanwhile, Shopify will move on to face the winner of an underdog face-off between Entity and Talon Esports.
This also marks the highest placement for the former EG players on Shopify’s roster since 2021, when the foursome of players and BuLba placed second at the Singapore Major and WePlay AniMajor. And, should they go on to win the event, it would be their first Major victory together.
