Team Nigma sign Russian player iLTW to replace w33
Abu Dhabi-based Dota 2 organisation Team Nigma announced on Sunday (11 April) that they signed Russian player Igor "iLTW" Filatov to complete their roster ahead of the start of the second season of the 2021 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC).
ILTW will be replacing Aliwi "w33" Omar, who was benched by the team on Wednesday (7 April) and is now "free to pursue any opportunity" to join other teams. W33's benching came after a very disappointing run for Team Nigma in the recently-concluded ONE Esports Dota 2 Singapore Major, where they only managed to win one game in the Wildcard Stage and were thus eliminated at 16th place.
While Nigma did play in the Singapore Major without offlaner Ivan "MinD_ControL" Ivanov, who was ruled out of the tournament after contracting the coronavirus, it is still a very disheartening outcome for a team many previously thought could make a deep run in the Major.
ILTW is expected to take over as Nigma's primary carry player, with Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi returning to playing more as the team's midlaner. Nigma is notably famous for flexing the roles for their positions 1 and 2 players, with each able to play as either the carry or midlaner depending on the team's draft for a particular game.
ILTW has long been one of the most talented young pubstars of the CIS Dota scene, having played competitively for a number of stacks as far back as 2015 when he was still 15 years old.
He started rising up the ranks of the CIS scene after being loaned to OG in early 2019, after which he played for organisations such as Team Spirit and Virtus.pro.
ILTW's latest professional appearances came at the end of 2020, when he helped the Live to Win stack finish second at Division 2 of EPIC League Season 2 then stood-in for OG and helped them finish second at the OGA Dota PIT EU/CIS Season 4.
ILTW will make his debut with Team Nigma on 17 April against Team Secret in the last match of the first week of competition in the European regional league's upper division.
For more esports news updates, visit https://yhoo.it/YahooEsportsSEA and check out Yahoo Esports Southeast Asia’s Facebook page.
Check out esports videos from Yahoo TV:
