Team Secret recently made a roster change which dropped the rising Korean player, Lee "Forev" Sang-don in exchange for the former Escape Gaming offlaner, Maurice "KheZu" Gutmann. Many fans doubt the newly established roster simply because many deemed KheZu to be the weakest member of Escape Gaming. But after the stellar performance of the team's first LAN tournament, the ROG Masters League, did the organization finally made the right choice?
Former Team Secret
The former Team Secret, which has Forev on it has run four competitive games which includes MarsTV, FACEIT Invitational, Dota Pit Season 5 and the Boston Major Qualifiers in which they fell short to secure themselves a ticket to the major. During their competitive run, they've managed to achieve two first places and two fourth places. But take note that the first places they achieved were minor tournaments compared to the Premier tournaments (Boston Major and MarsTV) where they failed to make an outstanding performance.
New Team Secret
Team Secret, despite being a European organization, managed to get a direct invitation from ROG Masters thanks to its three Asian players but with the removal of Forev, many were criticizing over the decision of the event's organizer that time which was discussed in this article. Nevertheless, the team was still able to qualify for the Major tournament where they faced against Asian teams, most notably Execration and Mineski.
Throughout the entire tournament, Team Secret proved that their new roster is a new force to be reckoned with - having a flawless run during the Group Stage (4-0). In the main event, they continued their dominance; having 2-0 Natural 9 in the Quarterfinals and moving up to the Semis with a 2-1 standing against Mineski. Afterwards, the team proceeded in the grand finals facing Execration with a flawless victory of 3-0 in a best-of-five series.
Throughout the tournament, many were astonished on how well KheZu synced with the team and how flexible the rising Dota 2 player is. Remember that KheZu transitioned from HoN into Dota 2 in the late 2015 and thus, the guy is still on the process of exploring the competitive scene but instead, he proved to be one of the most proficient offlaners in the scene - having had three variant heroes in the grand finals.
Conclusion
The new roster of Team Secret may be new but it already has proved its mark on one of the major tournaments on the scene - despite playing on an all-Asian tournament. To date, it's still not safe to assume if the new roster is indeed better than the former one - not until they managed to accomplish several competitive runs; which the team won't have until the end of the Boston Major. Nonetheless, we can say that KheZu did in fact, played well in the ROG Masters and many fans will sure be following the new Team Secret.
