Dota 2
With just a few days away from the first Major of the 2023 DPC, here’s a look at some players who won’t be able to attend the event.
The Lima Major will be the first big event of the 2023 DPC, and it will include the best teams in the world. Starting on 22 February, The Lima Major will consist of 18 teams who qualified following the end of Tour 1 of the DPC in all regions. We’ve already covered most of the matches at blix.gg, so feel free to check some of our recaps.
Following the end of the matches in Division I, it's safe to say the best teams in the world have qualified for the Major. Many of them exceeded expectations, so we weren’t surprised to see them among the best in the world. However, some of them failed, so we won’t be able to watch some top-tier Dota 2 players.
With just a few days from the beginning of the Lima Major 2023, we’ve decided to take a step back and check which of the best players won’t be able to attend the event. So, here’s a list of some of the biggest names.
Puppey
Starting with one of the oldest Dota 2 players in Western Europe, Puppey won’t be a part of The Lima Major 2023. Even though he and Team Secret were among the favorites, the TI 11’s finalists failed to qualify for the first big event of 2023. What’s even more interesting is that Secret finished last in Division I.
Puppey is one of the best captains in Dota 2 and one of the most experienced players overall. Considering he finished 2nd at TI and the meta is relatively similar, we expected a lot more. However, Secret failed to achieve its goals, and the team will have to fight for its survival in Division II.
It is worth knowing that Team Secret missed out on several big events in 2022. In fact, it even failed to qualify for TI 11 and had to go through the quals to get there. We’ve seen what happened after that, so we wouldn’t be surprised if the same happens again.
MinD_ContRoL
While we’re on the topic of old-school Dota 2 players who won’t be able to attend The Lima Major 2023, we have to mention Mind_ContRoL. Truth be told, we haven’t seen him in a while because Nigma Galaxy hasn’t had the best year. In fact, the team didn’t qualify for any of the big tournaments (aside from the Riyadh Masters).
After failing to qualify for The International, we expected drastic roster changes in Nigma Galaxy. Although the team parted ways with Miracle, their star player, even the arrival of Ammar wasn’t enough for the team to qualify for the Major.
Despite the poor results, Mind_ContRoL remains one of the world’s best offlaners, and he’s proven it countless times. We won’t be able to see him in Lima, but the good thing is Nigma saved its Division I slot. Consequently, the squad will have another chance to qualify for the second Major.
Paparazi
The next name on the list is Paprazi, one of the world's most famous Chinese Dota 2 players. Dota 2 fans worldwide regard him as one of the best cores, yet, we haven’t seen him on the big stage in a while. Unfortunately, he won’t be in Lima either because Xtreme Gaming didn’t qualify.
Even though the team had all the chances to secure a slot, things didn’t go as planned. Xtreme Gaming lost a crucial series, which meant the team had to participate in the Tiebreakers. Sadly, it wasn’t able to defeat EHOME, so it missed out on the Major.
Yopaj-
Southeast Asia was the region where we saw all sorts of surprising results. Everyone expected BOOM Esports to be one of the teams that would make it to The Lima Major 2023. However, Yopaj- and the rest failed and finished second-last, which means they will head over to Division II.
Despite losing most of their games, Yopaj was almost always his team's star. He is one of the most talented midders/carry players in the world right now and definitely among the best in SEA.
Yopaj-’s talent carried BOOM several times in 2022 because he was the main reason for the team’s success. However, it seems like even he wasn’t enough to help his team qualify for The Lima Major.
Kpii-
Moving to the next team from Southeast Asia that shocked its fans, we have Fnatic. The SEA powerhouse was the big favorite, but it seems like the roster is going through severe problems because Fnatic was just a mere shadow of their former glory. Even kpii-, one of the most experienced players in professional Dota 2, was unable to help his squad.
Speaking of the devil, kpii- moved to Fnatic in late 2022 in an attempt to help the squad win a big international event. Before that, he was a part of Talon Esports, but the SEA squad wasn’t able to live up to the expectations.
Gunnar
Even though many people consider North America to be the worst Dota 2 region right now, there are several world-class players. Some fans might disagree, but we think Gunnar is among the region's top cores.
His performance with nouns has been pretty good throughout 2022, and he continued to shine in the 2023 DPC. Sadly, his team didn’t have enough power to bring down TSM and Shopify Rebellion. Consequently, nouns won’t be attending the upcoming Lima Major, and we won’t be able to see Gunnar on the big stage.
As mentioned, the Lima Major is about to take place around a week from now. Aside from the $500K reward, teams will also compete for a share of the 1900 Prio Circuit Points. The latter are important for The International 12, so make sure to watch the action live on Twitch and other streaming platforms.
In addition to all of the players mentioned above, we won’t be able to watch teams like OG, VP, Into The Breach, and so on. Hopefully, they will be able to bounce back in Tour 2.
