VP. Prodigy Finalizes Dota 2 Roster
Virtus Pro’s Dota 2 academy team VP.Prodigy has completed its roster for the upcoming DPC season. Joining the youth team will be prodigy mid-laner Danil “gpk” Skutin and former Natus Vincere support Illias “illias” Ganeev.
“Danya is not just a prospective player, he has already proven himself on the professional stage… Even better is the fact that Danya will join a roster with like-minded people with whom he had already established personal contact, which is very important because compatibility and teamwork in Dota 2 are two of the key factors that affect the results,” VP CEO Sergey Glamazda said in a statement.
“Illias is a strong player with high growth potential. The rest of the VP.Prodigy guys are so confident in him that they offered to pay half of the transfer cost. As club management, we share their confidence and are glad that we managed to assemble an optimal roster that will fight for victories and delight all of us with their play,” Glamazda also commented.
VP.Prodigy has exceeded expectations this season. The academy roster slowly climbed to the very top of the European Dota 2 scene, even besting Virtus Pro’s main roster in the grand finals of Epic Prime League Season 1 with a 3-0 clean sweep. Apart from its victory at Epic Prime League, the squad also finished as the runners up at We Play! Pushka League Season 1 and OGA Dota PIT Season 3, falling to Team Secret in both tournaments.
At roughly the same time, Virtus Pro’s main Dota 2 roster went inactive after a fairly inconsistent season. The team, captained by Solo looked like a far cry from the Virtus Pro that won four majors in a row during the 2017-18 season.
The future is now
Prodigy’s squad average age is only slightly above eighteen. Although very young, all of the players on the squad have experience on the big stages and have faced off against the competitive scene’s very best.
The two new additions aren’t any different. Gpk has played Dota 2 on a competitive level for the past two years, spending the majority of his professional career in Gambit Esports. Before competing with Prodigy at OGA Dota PIT Season 3, gpk stood in for Abed with Evil Geniuses during OMEGA League, earning a respectable 5-6th place finish.
Illias came into the Dota 2 limelight when he was picked up by Na’Vi, replacing SoNNeikO in the team’s starting line-up. Although he was one of the more consistent players on Na’Vi’s roster, Illias was benched with the rest of the team’s lineup after a year of lackluster results.
The rest of Illias’s current teammates are so confident in the support player’s abilities that half of his transfer fee was paid out of their own salaries.
With such a good year behind them, Virtus Pro is expected to announce VP.Prodigy as its main squad for the start of Epic League Season 2. It remains to be seen how well the new additions will fit in with the roster. But in a scene that has had its fair share of drama between players, this is surely a good sign for CIS Dota heading forward.
