Rave Announces New Lineup For MPGL, Permanent Roster Change Imminent
In a surprising development, Rave has announced that they will be playing in the seventh edition of the Mineski Pro Gaming League (MPGL) with a new roster.
The team’s page administrator has confirmed in the post above that Jio “Jeyo” Madayag has gone back to Canada for undisclosed reasons, while Michael “NB” Ross has decided to retire from playing the game.
They will be replaced by Marvin “Boombacs” Rushton and Ralph Richard “RR” Peñano, both of which are known for being some of the most top-notch support players in the Philippine Dota 2 scene.
However, contrary to the statement above, Michael “NB” Ross has posted the following statement on his personal Facebook page:
In the aforementioned post, NB mentions that there’s “no way I’m going to retire” and that “I’m going to keep fighting even if the odds are against me”, which clearly indicates his intention to continue playing Dota 2 at a professional level.
Rave, considered to be one of Southeast Asia’s best Dota 2 teams, has just fell short of gaining a chance to go this year’s edition of The International in Seattle after they were beaten by MVP.Phoenix, 2-0, in the lower bracket finals of the Southeast Asia Qualifiers. They are best remembered for taking sixth place at the Dota 2 Asia Championships in a tournament that featured many of the best Dota 2 teams in the world at the time, getting $153,673 (P6,937,100) in the process.
There has been no official statement from the management of Rave regarding this matter as of press time.
UPDATE:
Rave’s Facebook post has been updated to confirm that NB has decided to retire from the team and Jeyo has gone back to Canada in order to rest. Both players made their respective decisions in order to “sort things out” inside the team and that the final decision regarding the squad’s fate will be “decided in time.”
UPDATE#2:
In a follow-up statement from Rave, Pyung Kwon, the team’s manager, has stated that Rave is now officially inactive and that the team will not participate in any tournaments for the time being.
He also mentioned that the team for the seventh edition of the MPGL will play under a different name.
The current lineup of Rave consists of the following players:
- Mark “Cast” Pilar
- Ryo “ryOyr” Hasegawa
- Djardel “Chrissy” Mampusti
- Marvin “Boombacs” Rushton
- Ralph Richard “RR” Peñano
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