Dota 2: Taiga, Masaros join Bleed Esports as iceiceice moves to content creator role

Singapore-based Bleed Esports announced its new Dota 2 roster for the upcoming season on Wednesday (15 November), revealing the addition of Norwegian support player Tommy "Taiga" Le and the return of Thai offlaner Natthaphon "Masaros" Ouanphakdee.

Taiga and Masaros will be taking over the position 5 support and offlaner roles vacated by Kim "DuBu" Doo-young and Daryl "iceiceice" Koh, respectively. DuBu parted ways with Bleed earlier this month while iceiceice will be moving to a content creator role within the organisation.

Meanwhile, Lao carry player Souliya "JaCkky" Khoomphetsavong, Singaporean midlaner Teng "Kordan" Tjin Yao, Filipino star support Djardel "DJ" Mampusti, and Danish coach Rasmus "MISERY" Filipsen retained their spots in the team.

"We want to be a competitor at the highest level of competition in Dota 2. We believe that we can become one of the best teams in the SEA region and we will continuously look to improve our efforts with suitable changes," Bleed said in a statement.

"We aim to qualify for global events, such as The International and the Riyadh Masters. We hope our fans can come along for the journey!"

Taiga, who won the ESL One Stockholm Major 2022 with OG, joins Bleed after a challenging 2023 season.

After OG's mixed results in the Winter and Spring Tours of the now-defunct Dota Pro Circuit, Taiga missed the first three matches of the Summer Tour regional league amid a battle with anxiety and depression.

In August, Taiga was moved to OG's inactive roster and played in the North American regional qualifiers for The International (TI) 2023 with Wildcard Gaming in August, where they were knocked out in fourth place. Taiga then officially left OG in mid-October.

Meanwhile, Masaros returns to Bleed after being part of the organisation's initial roster in its entry to Dota 2 last December.

After leaving Bleed in May, Masaros joined Team SMG and helped them qualify for TI 2023 by winning the Southeast Asian regional qualifier. Unfortunately, Masaros was unable to play in the tournament due to visa issues.

SMG ended up playing in TI 2023 with Ivan "MinD_ControL" Ivanov and Lee "Heen" Seung Gon as stand-ins but failed to make it out of the first phase of the Road to The International Group Stage, getting knocked out in 17th-20th place.

Masaros then announced in late October that he had left SMG, as the team has fully disbanded its roster and its status in Dota 2 remains up in the air.

With Taiga and Masaros joining the fold, Bleed will be looking to bounce back from their own disappointing showing during the 2023 season.

There was a lot of hype around Bleed to start the season with its promising initial roster of JaCkky, Kordan, Masaros, Prieme Ejay "PlayHard-" Maque, and DuBu. But after a sixth place finish in the Winter Tour regional league, the team parted ways with Masaros and PlayHard- to make way for star players iceiceice and DJ.

While Bleed placed sixth again in the Spring Tour even with their revamped roster, they bounced back in the Summer Tour and finished first in the Southeast Asian regional league to qualify for the Bali Major. Unfortunately, the team bombed out of the Bali Major in 13th-14th place and were forced to earn their spot in TI 2023 through the regional qualifiers.

Bleed then failed to qualify for TI 2023 after getting knocked out of the Southeast Asian qualifier in 5th-6th place by Geek Fam.

Bleed's new roster will be making their debut in the ongoing Southeast Asian qualifier for ESL One Kuala Lumpur 2023, which will be the last big Dota 2 tournament of the year in December and features a US$1 million prize pool.

Bleed Esports Dota 2 roster:

1. Souliya "JaCkky" Khoomphetsavong

2. Teng "Kordan" Tjin Yao

3. Natthaphon "Masaros" Ouanphakdee

4. Djardel "DJ" Mampusti

5. Tommy "Taiga" Le

6. Rasmus "MISERY" Filipsen (coach)

For more esports news updates, visit https://yhoo.it/YahooEsportsSEA and check out Yahoo Esports Southeast Asia’s Facebook page and Twitter, as well as our Gaming channel on YouTube.