Team Secret reveal new Dota 2 roster with four up-and-coming players joining Puppey

Image: Team Secret

With its players coming from Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, and Estonia, Team Secret will now be competing in Eastern Europe.

Team Secret have finally unveiled its reformed Dota 2 roster on Sunday (November 10), with the new lineup featuring four up-and-coming players from Mongolia, Russia, and Belarus surrounding legendary captain Clement “Puppey” Ivanov.

Mongolian players Bilguun "423" Altanginj and Batsaikhan "seimei" Munkhjin will be Secret's new carry player and offlaner, respectively, while Belarusian player Aleksey "Ainkrad" Diveevskiy has taken over the mid lane role and Russian player Misha "Kyzko" Galkin has been designated as the team's position 4 support. Puppey retains his roles as position 5 support and captain.

Secret's four new players are mostly unproven, though the fact that a living legend like Puppey would pick them to help him rebuild Secret should be enough to attest to their talent.

423 and Ainkrad are the most experienced out of Secret's four new players, with the 21-year old 423 previously playing in Southeast Asia's tier two scene in teams like Lilgun, IHC Esports, and Execration while the 25-year old Ainkrad spent the last two years with One Move. Meanwhile, Secret will be the first real team for seimei and Kyzko.

With the makeup of its new roster, Secret is also moving from competing in Western Europe and shifting over to Eastern Europe. The squad is set to make its debut in the Eastern European open qualifiers for ESL One Bangkok 2024 on Monday (November 11), in a bid to enter the region's closed qualifier on Friday (November 15) and qualify for ESL One Bangkok 2024 itself.

This latest roster overhaul for Secret comes after a horrendous 2024 season for the organisation, which saw it constantly try out multiple player lineups in a bid to regain its past form.

In January, Secret benched Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng and Daniyal “yamich” Lazebnyy for Teng “Kordan” Tjin Yao and Marcel “Ekki” Hołowienko. That did not prevent the team from starting the year off on the wrong foot, however, as they failed to qualify for BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2024 and ESL One Birmingham 2024 while only managing an 11th-12th place finish in DreamLeague Season 22. Ekki then parted ways with the team in March.

After Secret failed to qualify for The International 2024 in June, Miroslav “BOOM” Bičan entered free agency in July followed by Remco “Crystallis” Arets and Kordan in August. Not long after, the team announced it will be competing in the Western European qualifier for PGL Wallachia Season 2 with Indji “Shad” Lub, Elliott "Adzantick" Hammond, Tobias "Tobi" Buchner, and Kyzko as stand-ins alongside Puppey.

That team would go on to finish third in the qualifier, missing out on the tournament itself. With that said, Puppey seems to have seen good things from Kyzko, given that the latter went on to be part of Secret's rebuilt roster.

Team Secret Dota 2 roster: