With only a few hours until the roster lock that concludes all the rosters for teams participating in the Dota Pro Circuit, Alliance set the final members of its roster today, bringing w33, symetricaL, and CTOMAHEH1 to the lineup.
The addition of CTOMAHEH1 and symetricaL wasn’t that much of a surprise. The two were some of the last free agents for their respective positions. Bringing w33 to the team, on the other hand, was an unexpected move after Alliance’s chief strategy officer, Kelly Ong, said w33 wasn’t considering signing with a team that had a betting sponsor.
According to Ong, w33 wasn’t looking to make a compromise on the matter and was turning down all the offers from teams with betting sponsors. W33 was a part of Nigma Galaxy, one of the few organizations in Dota 2 without a betting sponsor, but he was moved to inactive status in April 2021.
W33 has been without a team since his unofficial departure from Nigma Galaxy and his conditions may be the reason behind his long break from the scene. Betting sponsors have been a hot topic within the Dota 2 community for some time. Some of them had no age restrictions while signing up and even promoted bad behavior in high-level ranked matches, since they also supported betting on non-tournament, ranked games. Despite the backlash, betting sponsors continue to be a part of the Dota 2 scene.
Despite joining Alliance, w33, the two-time TI runner-up, will still have one more appearance left Nigma Galaxy. He’ll be standing in for the roster’s SEA division in GAMERS GALAXY: Invitational Series Dubai 2022.
The statement from Alliance didn’t disclose details regarding how the squad would move forward with one of the main sponsors of the organization, VBET. Based on the organization’s previous offer, w33’s in-game tag and jersey may not include the sponsor.
The Alliance’s roster going into the latest DPC Season are:
- Nikolay “Nikobaby” Nikolov
- Aliwi “w33” Omar
- Moiez “symetricaL” Mahmood
- Adam “Aramis” Moroz
- Nikolay “CTOMAHEH1” Kalchev
