OG unveils new Dota 2 roster ahead of ESL One Los Angeles major

OG revealed its new Dota 2 lineup on OG night.

Despite winning back-to-back editions of The International, the roster is undergoing a significant overhaul following the departures of Anathan “ana” Pham, Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka, and Sébastien “Ceb” Debs. The organization announced that those spots will be filled by Syed “SumaiL” Hassan, Martin “Saksa” Sazdov, and Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng.

With their signing, OG’s full Dota 2 roster now stands as follows:

• Syed “SumaiL” Hassan
• Topias Miikka “Topson” Taavitsainen
• Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng
• Martin “Saksa” Sazdov
• Johan “N0tail” Sundstein

SumaiL’s signing was announced at the debut of True Sight: The International 2019 Finals. The longtime Evil Geniuses mid laner was benched from the team following The International 2019. He will likely be playing as the team’s new carry, a role which he most recently played during his short stint with Quincy Crew.

Saksa will be playing as the team’s roaming support, a role he has competed in for much of his career. The Macedonian player is best known for being part of the 2016 Digital Chaos lineup that reached the grand finals of The International 2016. He stayed with that lineup until its dissolution in 2017, but has been a journeyman ever since. His most successful stint since then was with Ninjas in Pyjamas, a run which ended last September.

MidOne is an intriguing addition to the lineup. Like SumaiL, MidOne enjoyed several successful years as a mid laner but is now set to take on a new role. MidOne will be playing as an offlaner, a new role for him. Though this might raise concerns for OG fans it follows recent a trend of players transitioning to the off lane, with the most high-profile example being former Virtus.pro carry Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev becoming Evil Geniuses’ new off laner.

New OG roster is a question mark ahead of ESL One Los Angeles Major

OG’s new Dota 2 roster is an exceptionally talented one. All five players have either reached the grand finals of The International or won multiple majors. On top of that, Saksa stands atop the European Dota 2 leaderboards as a support player, while SumaiL was number one in North America as both a core and support.

The roster is star-studded, but there are many question marks for the team heading forward. There are multiple role swaps in play that may or may not pan out, and there are always questions about how well the team’s strong personalities will fit together.

On top of that, OG is set to enter a competitive European field. Competing for majors will force OG to go head-to-head with Nigma, Team Secret, Team Liquid, and Alliance. Additionally, there are other potentially troublesome opponents such as Ninjas in Pyjamas and Ad Finem.

Those two factors make it hard to completely buy in on this OG lineup, but fans won’t have to wait for long for a first look at the team. The new OG roster will be competing in the open qualifiers to the ESL One Los Angeles Major.