33 completes OpTic roster

Photo by Ppasarel 

OpTic Gaming round out their roster with Neta "33" Shapira in the position 4 support role.

Early in the afternoon yesterday OpTic Gaming captain, Peter 'ppd' Dager had announced their fith player and the team would be getting ready to play competitively again after the holiday season. Speculation was rife that the team would pick up high status offlaner Saahil "UNiVeRsE" Arora with some role shifts to accommodate him. However, when the announcement came, the offlaner named was not Universe but Neta "33" Shapira who will be switching to the position 4 role. This is his second role change since TI7.

According to a post on reddit by the team's manager Kodiak "Kodiak" Shroyer, 33 is joining the team on a trial with the hopes for a more permanent position in the early season.

Neta "33" is going to be traveling to Texas after the New Year to play in US qualifiers prior to making the trip with our team to The Philippines for The Galaxy Battles Major, we are hopeful that after these events we will be able to bring him on fully to the roster and start looking forward to TI. We were in a really fortunate position where we had multiple options on how to fill out the roster and this is the move everyone agreed was the best. 33 is incredibly high skilled and will be a great fit for us. He has played primarily off lane and safe lane recently but is going to play 4 position support with OpTic. He is a young player that is hungry to prove himself on the biggest stage; we want that to be a part of that and help him achieve those goals.”

Starladder Invitational 4, ESL One Katowice, and PGL Bucharest qualifiers will all be taking place in early January with the team expected to be competing in the regional events. The team will then travel to participate in the Galaxy Battles Major taking place January 15-21st in the Philippines.

It was only an hour before that Planet Dog had won their ESL Genting qualifying spot to attend their first minor of the Pro Circuit Season. A feat that was reminiscent of when they clinched the TI7 qualification when 4/5's of the roster was dropped from Prodota Gaming weeks before.  HellRaisers had dropped the same players just over one week ago citing poor performances and lack of results - especially in qualifying for a Pro Circuit event. The team will need to fill 33's role rather quickly to prepare for the event taking place in Malaysia January 23rd-28th.

OpTic Gaming current roster:

Per Anders 'Pajkatt' Lille
Quinn 'CC&C' Callahan
Ludwig 'zai' Wåhlberg
Peter 'ppd' Dager
Neta '33' Shapira (trial)