While European teams mostly dominated The International 2022, Team Spirit was among the rosters that flamed out early as the defending TI10 champs were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. And following that surprising early exit, rumblings of a potential roster shuffle<\/a> have been slowly picking up steam.\u00a0<\/p>
Now it appears that some more concrete evidence to those reports has been unearthed, with escorenews<\/a> reporting that star mid laner Alexander “TORONTOTOKYO” Khertek may be exiting Spirit\u2019s Dota 2 <\/em>roster.\u00a0<\/p>
According to the new report, sources close to Spirit say TORONTOTOKYO has plans to form a new roster elsewhere that will center around himself, current Evil Geniuses offlaner Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko, and former Virtus.pro captain Vitalie “Save-” Melnic. This would play into both the Spirit rumors and previous reports that VP was planning to release its entire Dota <\/em>division<\/a>, although the organization has since denied those claims<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>
Related: Where did it go wrong? Mira discusses the collapse of Team Spirit at TI11<\/a><\/strong><\/p>
For TORONTOTOKYO, he was one of the final additions to the Yellow Submarine roster that was signed by Spirit in December 2020, having joined the team to compete in ESL One Germany at the time. He has been a key player in how explosive and diverse Spirit can play with its drafts, but that wasn\u2019t enough to keep Spirit in the fight<\/a> against the other top teams at TI11.\u00a0<\/p>
Spirit’s manager even noted that he isn’t 100 percent sure that the team will stick together<\/a>, adding fuel to the fire ahead of the big post-TI11 roster shuffle. <\/p>
TORONTOTOKYO wasn\u2019t the only player to have a disappointing end to their TI11 run either as one of his preferred teammates Nightfall was also forced out of the tournament early following a historic collapse<\/a> from EG. Despite some excellent play in the group stage, EG went 0-6<\/a> to end their time at the event, including a double elimination at the hands of South American teams.\u00a0<\/p>
EG tends to shake things up whenever the org has a disappointing season, and the offlane player is typically the first to go. So even though Nightfall was a standout during EG\u2019s run<\/a>, he might be heading back to Europe and looking to compete in the CIS again after a short break in North America.\u00a0<\/p>
