It seemed that The International 2022 runner-up team lost this post-TI shuffle game.
The offlane duo was replaced with Daniyal “yamich” Lazebnyy and Filipino player Armel “Armel” Tabios.
It took four series and a second week of play to see their first series win.
In both games, the TI runner-up team absolutely shellacked D1 and ran all over them.
While the sweep gave them the win, it feels slightly nominal.
It did give them a win and a slight boost in ranking (maybe even confidence?
), but D1 Hustlers were the team pegged most likely for Team Secret to be able to beat.
So what has happened?
Is it that Team Secret had gotten ambivalent about competing after TI?
Doubtful considering Puppey is quite competitive and has an unrivaled legacy in Dota 2 at this point.
Was losing Nisha detrimental to the team’s success?
Could it be the lack of high-level scrims or competitive games when teams drop to Division II?
Perhaps it is the lack of third-party events to compete in to keep fresh and on their toes?
They are currently sitting in 2nd to last places, one spot above D1 Hustlers.
They have only three more series to play and one of them is against Tundra.
