Not even a day after officially announcing the team, Fly and the ex-Evil Geniuses roster have solidified themselves as the team to beat in North America after signing a rival team’s star player and a sponsorship deal with Shopify Rebellion today.
In what is likely the biggest total signing of the offseason, Shopify has entered Dota with the ex-EG lineup and plans to bring all of its players in-house at the org’s facility in Canada to play in the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit. In addition to the former EG members, the team also acquired SabeRLight from TSM on the final day of the roster shuffle.
The deal with SabeRLight had been in the works for some time but only came together and was finalized at the last minute, according to Arteezy. Even the deal with Shopify came together very quickly, with relief only settling in for the star carry player once both deals were completed earlier today.
With this team, Arteezy is confident that they have the talent to go toe-to-toe with anyone in the world—though he noted he will only truly be confident in that fact once the team starts actually playing together. He likens it to EG’s 2021 lineup that featured Iceiceice as the offlaner and was able to reach multiple grand finals at Major tournaments, with SabeRLight now taking the middle position for this new squad in that comparison.
In addition to that, despite snapping SabeRLight away from TSM, Arteezy is still wary of their NA rivals—noting that their new lineup is still going to be very strong and could very well take a game off of them at any time—along with some of the new challengers rising up. He also jokingly blamed Quinn moving to Europe after Quincy Crew’s recent disbandment for the influx of talent, claiming he was the wall keeping everyone out and now people are going to try and take over.
Related: Dendi pulls a switcharoo, moves B8 to North America for 2023 DPC
At the end of the announcement stream, Arteezy also confirmed that the stack’s temporary name Alameda 2018 was, in fact, a reference to EG’s old training facility “the Alameda House” and had no direct relation to the ongoing FTX financial drama.
The newly minted Dota division for Shopify Rebellion will begin its run in NA’s Division I for the 2023 DPC season in January, with this lineup looking like an easy favorite bar TSM instantly clicking or a newcomer rising to the challenge.
