Shopify Rebellion is making some big changes to its long-established Dota 2 roster.
Abed “Abed” Yusop, Andreas “Cr1t-” Nielsen, and Tal “Fly” Aizik are no longer part of the Shopify Rebellion roster, the North American organization announced today.
Cr1t- has been part of the same team since September 2016, where he joined the roster along with Artour “Arteezy” Babaev. Abed has also been part of the roster since September 2019, while Fly, aside from a brief season with Talon Esports, has been with the squad since 2018.
Cr1t-, whose seven-year stint with the roster came to an end, wrote that he was “blessed to have such good teammates for such a long time and I wish them all the best.” The 27-year-old also confirmed that he is already on a new team “with high aspirations,” and wants to get “back to being the best next year.”
- Nine leaves Tundra Esports to take ‘extended break’ from competitive Dota
- Talon Esports parts ways with its Dota 2 roster
Shopify Rebellion roster is looking bare after the departure of Cr1t-, Abed, and Fly
- Artour “Arteezy” Babaev
- Jonáš “SabeRLight-” Volek
- Kanishka “BuLba” Sosale (coach)
This marks the end of an era for the long-standing NA squad, leaving Arteezy and BuLba as its remaining core.
Shopify Rebellion entered the Dota 2 scene last year by taking over the old Evil Geniuses roster, which has stayed together for more than five years. The team continued to dominate the NA scene, finishing top two in every Dota Pro Circuit tour and winning Tour 3.
The squad had some solid performances at international competitions as well, including a fourth-place finish at the Lima Major in March, as well as finishing third at DreamLeague S19 and second at DreamLeague s21.
Despite past disappointments on The International stage, there was cautious hope that the team was finding its groove heading into TI12. Unfortunately, the team put together a poor group stage performance of 2-6 and lost to eventual champions Team Spirit in a seeding match to start their playoffs in the lower bracket. They promptly lost to NA rivals TSM, finishing their TI12 campaign in joint-13th.
