In what turned out to be yet another disappointing tournament run, Shopify Rebellion were eliminated from Riyadh Masters’ North American closed qualifier grand final by Nouns. The setback has cast a cloud over Arteezy’s pro career.
Nouns—captained by ex-Shopify Rebellion player Tal “Fly” Aizik—beat Shopify 3-2 in the best-of-five grand finals and secured Riyadh Masters’ lone North American slot on June 2. This means Artour “Arteezy” Babaev won’t be competing in the $5 million prize pool tournament, which is set to be the biggest Dota 2 event in the ongoing calendar with the decline in TI prize money.
The Canadian superstar carry has received a lot of criticism due to Shopify Rebellion’s repeated underperformance in recent times. While you might argue it’s been a teamwide failure, the constant roster reshuffles while keeping him (and coach Kanishka “BuLba” Sosale) as the team’s centerpieces hasn’t helped his cause. The carry player has also drawn flak owing to his AFK farming playstyle and bizarre deaths in the mid to late-game. The organization, however, has shown unflinching faith in him and Bulba and shuffled players around them to find the “perfect balance.”
“[Shopify Rebellion’s] problems are not the replacements they keep getting but [the] f*cking core people in the team, RTZ and Bulba,” one player said in a Reddit thread announcing the winner of the Riyadh NA qualifiers. The sentiment is bolstered by the success of ex-Shopify players like Fly, Cr1t, Abed, and Nightfall, all of whom have qualified for Riyadh Masters with their respective teams. “So all the former [Shopify] players that left/got kicked are at Riyadh, while RTZ and Bulba are staying home.”
Only in May, we saw Ivan “MinD_ContRoL” Ivanov and Andrei “skem” Ong join the roster replacing Jonáš “SabeRLight-” Volek and Thiago “Thiolicor” de Oliveira Cordeiro in the Offlane and Hard Support position respectively.
Fans and analysts alike have criticized the organization for treating their offlaners as scapegoats after every unsatisfactory tournament result. Just two days ago, Dota 2 analyst Avery “SVG” Silverman blasted the org for the revolving door scenario and predicted MC’s stint would be over in “a good three months.”
SabeRLight-’s statement, while not outright naming Arteezy, confirmed many of the concerns fans had for the squad. “As much as I believe in the individual talents of the players, my chemistry with a key member of the team was too mismatched to make it work, and it felt like it’s getting worse and worse as time goes on,” the statement read. “It often felt like my voice and opinions were met with backlash and ultimately caused more harm than good.”
With the Riyadh dream dead, Shopify only have the TI13 qualifiers to look forward to this year, where they’ll compete for a single North American slot against a handful of teams, including Nouns.
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