CLG Reforms as Loda, Smulgullig depart

The Swedish powerhouse gives farewell to two players in order to prepare for The International 2012. Loda and Smugullig voluntarily left the organization to make room for both MiseRy and Lacoste.

There were winds of change surrounding CLG. The Dane superstar MiseRy was a "stand-in" for the team in StarLadder's LAN final and he has been playing with them ever since, while Smulgullig was rarely seen with the team.

Their good performance in Kiev and EG's announcement of a line-up without MiSery made the replacement even more logical. After a couple of weeks, he was seen using the organization's tag but the expected official announcement wasn't made until today.

CLG confirmed the replecement through its website but smulgullig was not the only one who left the team. Loda, who built the team from scratch with his eternal sidekick Akke, announced his departure as well. The L-God wrote the following statement to explain his actions:

Its been a hard couple of trips for me since my vacation. In the beginning it was very hard for me to swap from my role as captain to whatever role pajkatt would chose for me. Practice worked out, I learned how to take on a more passive part of the team. I improved and returned to somewhat around my normal skill level. There were a lot of other things that needed to take a higher priority in my life. These issues made me focus my eyes on another part of the world.

Its not an easy choice chosing to leave a team and a project that I once decided to create. I didn’t plan on many of these new priorities, but there are things that are just more important than gaming. So I had to weigh my spot on a top team in the world, a possible top 3 placement at TI2 vs. everything else.

It was an extremely hard choice...

But I have faith in my team. I believe that they can handle losing a player like me, and hopefully find someone who can fit just as well. Im rooting for you guys at TI2, and who knows, maybe I’ll meet you there :)

Thanks for the time on the team."

We can deduce that Loda will be quitting Dota 2 for a time if not for good from these words. The Swedish legend left a big hole in the organization aswell in the hearts of the endless ranks of fans who have been cheering for him since he decided to come back from his Heroes of Newerth sojourn.

We have seen him rise from that cunning boy that joined MYM in 2006 to become one of the most admired players in Europe during the .48b and .52e eras.

You can watch two videos in his memory: his highlights when he lead SK to victory and Douma's special tribute about him.

Even though his departure left a hole in the team, CLG will endure. The organization searched for another player to join and they decided to fill the hole with no other than Lacoste. The Croatian player was announced as part of Darer's new roster just a week ago but he decided to follow MiSery, his team-mate in both MYM and EG, into this new adventure and challenge.

CLG will not have a lot of time to make the team work: DreamHack Summer is only a month away and the competition will be as fierce as it can possibly get.

Considering that DH will be the last big LAN even before The International 2012, we can safely assume that Valve will handle the remaining invitations according the team's perfomance in the event. This means that CLG has a very limited time to handle Loda's departure.

We will see this new lineup make its debut on Sunday against the Danish side DD in the ProDota2 League. Soon after, they will fight the ever-difficult NEXT.kz and the rising American team pb in StarLadder and It's GoSu Monthly Madness respectively.