TI 6 Team Preview: Team Secret

Team Secret are arguably the side that have made the most changes this year.

The team were formed by Clement “Puppey” Ivanov, a first generation Dota player famed for being a top star back in the early days. The foundations for Secret were laid post TI 4 when he assembled an impressive roster featuring some of the best players around, as well as a couple of potential young stars.

In 2015 he boosted the lineup with the addition of Artour “Arteezy” Babaev and Ludwig “zai” Wahlberg. Deemed as favourites for TI 5, the superstar team disappointed with a 7-8^th finish and everyone apart from Puppey left. However, he rebuilt the team from scratch with four new additions, two of whom are present in the current lineup – Johan “pieliedie” Astrom and Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao.

Coming into March’s Shanghai Major as underdogs, Secret won their only trophy of the year, but the roster was shuffled yet again after the tournament, with Arteezy returning and his EG teammate Saahil “UNiVeRsE” Arora following. The latter didn’t have a successful spell as Secret failed to make an impact in the subsequent months and he returned to EG in June in a swap move for Kanishka “BuLba” Sosale. Secret, however, made the transfer out of the permitted window and for the first time in their history had to play a qualifying cycle starting from the Open Qualifiers.

 

Roster:

Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao – position 1/2
Artour “Arteezy” Babaev – position 1/2
Kanishka “BuLba” Sosale – position 3
Clement “Puppey” Ivanov (c) – position 4/5
Johan “pieliedie” Astrom – position 4/5

Theeban “1437” Siva – Sub/Coach
Kurtis “Aui_2000” Ling – Sub/Coach

 

2016 achievements:

The Shanghai Major – 1^st

StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 2 – 2^nd

 

Current form:

July – 75% win rate (3 wins, 1 loss)

 

Top 5 most picked heroes this month:

 

Top 4 most banned heroes this month:

 

Team Secret are comfortable both with late game and early game drafts, but recently they have been using early game pushing orientated heroes such as the simple but deadly combo of Shadow Demon and Mirana alongside snowballing Drow Ranger or Ursa.

Puppey’s reputation places him among the very best drafters on the scene and he is not afraid of experimenting, particularly as he has highly skilled players such as Arteezy at his disposal.

EternaLEnVy is a player who does not get as much attention. Having the reputation of someone who occasionally makes debatable decisions, EternaLEnVy has improved this aspect of his game as well as his farming skills over recent months.

Pieliedie is capable of key performances when he has a good ganking disabler at his disposal, as seen during the Shanghai Major where he and his Lion were arguably the tournament MVP.

BuLba as an Offlaner is very good at providing space for his team and most useful when playing Tidehunter or Beastmaster in that role. More renowned for his knowledge of the game, he has slightly inferior mechanical skills compared to some of his teammates, but compensates with shrewd decision making.

Deemed as super-favourites last year, Team Secret underperformed and disappointed their fans with 7-8^th place. This year the pressure of being a favourite will be off their shoulders and the last time they were deemed underdogs (at the Shanghai Major), they ended up triumphing. The individual quality to win TI 6 is there, and there has been a marked improvement in their form recently as they secured 2^nd at StarLadder just two weeks ago. In order to win the International, however, Secret will need to bring out the best in themselves.