Photo courtesy of ROGMasters
Team Spirit have replaced three of their CIS players from last season with three European players for this upcoming season.
Alexander 'DKphobos' Kucheria, then Ilya 'Illidan' Pivcaev and now Sergey 'G' Bragin have all made their exits from Team Spirit starting just before The International 2018. Replacing the three CIS players, Team Spirit has recruited three of Europe's veteran free agents - Oliver "oliver" Lepko, Leon "Nine" Kirilin and Mikki Mørch "HesteJoe-Rotten" Junget.
Team Spirit's season was somewhat disappointing. After finally qualifying for a DPC event - Galaxy Battles II, the tournament was removed from the Minor circuit and a new 'promised' opportunity to compete in a replacement event never came to fruition. They did manage to qualify for at least two more DPC events though - ESL One Birmingham and the China Super Major, so all was not completely lost. Ending at the bottom of the rankings in both events, Team Spirit never gained any points and their roster changes in the season had also relegated them to the open qualifiers for TI8. Again, not all was lost as the team was able to cruise through the second set and into the regionals where they took third place - two spots too far from competing at the main event.
Meanwhile, Nine and oliver were enjoying their own mild success, making a name for themselves in the European region with Penta esports. Although they never appeared at a DPC LAN they did attend ROG Masters 2017 in Kuala Lumpur. All the while, HesteJoe-Rotten was buying time in SEA playing for Entity Gaming.
Leaving only Malthe 'Biver' Winther and Artsiom 'FNG' Barshak in the lineup from last season, the newly revamped roster is now 4/5 European. As a CIS organization with a bootcamp based out of Ukraine, it is not yet reported which region the team will be competing in.
Team Spirit Roster:
Oliver 'oliver' Lepko
Leon 'Nine' Kirilin
Mikki Mørch 'HesteJoe-Rotten' Junget
Malthe 'Biver' Winther
Artsiom 'FNG' Barshak
