It is a weird feeling for Dota 2 fans to not see Puppey competing at The International 2023 after having previously attended every iteration of the event. As the battle for this year’s Aegis comes to a close, however, the former TI-all-timer revealed he actually almost made it to Seattle in a new role.
After Team Secret was eliminated from Western Europe’s TI12 qualifiers, many fans wrote Puppey’s 11-year streak off. However, rumors of the long-time captain playing for Team SMG as a stand-in or attending as a coach for 9Pandas kept some hope alive.
In an appearance on Aleksandr “Nix” Levin’s stream, Puppey confirmed that both of those options were on the table but neither came to fruition—though it was a very close thing. “Only 9Pandas offered to fly me to The International as a coach,” Puppey said in an interview with Cybersport.ru. “I was supposed to play for SMG but the team’s support received a visa two days before departure.”
This information was backed by 9Pandas offlaner Matvey “MieRo`” Vasyunin who said Puppey was offered the coaching opportunity but wanted to attend as a player more, so when the opportunity with SMG arose, he moved to take it.
Puppey was spotted scrimming with some of SMG’s players ahead of TI because the Southeast Asian team was dealing with visa issues for several of its players. The roster was already adapting to MinD_ContRoL standing in for Natthaphon “Masaros” Ouanphakdee and also thought that Januel would be unable to travel to Seattle.
Unfortunately for Puppey, his chances of playing at TI12 despite Secret’s disappointing DPC season evaporated just days before he was set to head out when Januel secured his visa, which may have been detrimental to SMG.
According to MinD_ContRoL, SMG brought Puppey into their scrims three weeks before TI and they were practicing for 10 days together ahead of traveling to Seattle. Januel only got his visa a week before the event, which gave the team less than five days to try and swap from what they worked on with Puppey to something new.
“We were scrimming with Puppey and then Puppey could not play anymore so now we are playing with Jaunuel so even more players are coming in,” MinD_ContRoL said on Our Game. “It’s really fun [playing with different players] but at the same time, it’s hard for the mind. You need to be really strong in the mind to [play at such a high level].”
With SMG filling its spot right before heading to TI, that left Puppey without a role to fill since 9Pandas had picked up DM as a coach after a controversial departure from OG’s roster.
With no clear path to TI12, Puppey leaned back and shrugged his shoulders, deciding it was finally time to miss his first iteration of the event. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t looking back at qualifiers with a bit of remorse.
“I think it was about time [to miss TI],” Puppey said. “I wasn’t feeling anything, [but Secret] should have gone through qualifiers. I think we could have beaten Quest. Then we definitely would have gotten through. I don’t think we would have lost to D1 Hustlers.”
Now Puppey is watching from home and providing comments on the event, such as calling Team Spirit the “best team in team fights and map movement,” stating that it is clear and has been all year.
