One of the biggest upcoming LAN tournaments this year is the ROG Masters which is set to kick off this coming November 10 in Kuala Lumpur City Centre. Today, the event organizer has finally unveiled the last team to get a direct invite for the upcoming tournament - Team Secret. Surprisingly, the organizer invited the team despite being a European organization and the LAN was supposed to be an Asian tournament. So what's the reason behind the direct invite? Let's find out.
Team Secret
Team Secret is one of the teams that suffered severely during the post-TI6 reshuffle. After their poor performance in the last International 2016, almost all of its players have been released from the organization except Clement "Puppey" Ivanov and Johan "pieliedie" Astrom. Several weeks later, the organization has acquired 3 foreign players from various teams: Midone, MP and Forev - all of which hailed from Asia.
ROG Masters 2016
As it would appear, despite being a European organization, due to the fact that the majority of the players within the team is from Asia, ROG Masters has considered Team Secret to be eligible to take part in the said tournament. Team Secret is the only foreign team within the LAN tournament and has now officially completed all the participating teams. The full list of the organizations competing for ROG Masters is as follows:
Natural 9
Big and Black
Team Taivnaa
The Mongolz
Execration
Mineski.Sports5
Entity Esports
Aggressive 5
MAX.X
EHOME.X
Fnatic (direct invite)
Team Secret (direct invite)
As you can see, both team Fnatic and Team Secret got the direct invite from ROG Masters despite failing to secure a spot for the Boston Majors. A lot of fans are now questioning the idea behind the invitation as team Execration, which is one of the teams to have been blessed with a direct invite for the Boston Major, wasn't given a priority for the LAN tournament. It may be safe to say that one of the logic behind the invitation is the fact that Team Secret is an established and well-known organization in the past and will therefore, attract fans across the region.
Check out this Dota 2 Team Secret New Roster Introductions: