Wish- and Ceb will stand in for OG at WePlay! Pushka League
OG have announced Irakli “W1sh-” Peranidze and Sébastien "Ceb" Debs will stand in for their Dota2 squad at the WePlay! Pushka League, due to Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen's and Yeik "MidOne" Nai Zheng's inability to participate at the tournament.
WePlay! Pushka League will mark yet another Dota2 tournament, where OG will be unable to field its complete roster, following the ESL One Los Angeles 2020 – Online: Europe & CIS and WeSave! Charity Play. It seems like things are just not going their way ever since OG rebuilt their roster with the signing of MidOne, Martin "Saksa" Sazdov and Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan as replacements for Anathan "ana" Pham, who took a break from competitive play, Jesse "JerAx" Vainikka, who retired and Ceb, who decided to step down from the roster and instead focus on helping the team from behind the scene.
Due to the current situation, which prevents Topso and MidOne from competing with the team, however, Ceb will have to put on his old jersey once more and step into the arena to compete under OG's banner.
Unlike Ceb, who has spent the last four years of his career at OG, this will be the first time W1sh- will get to represent a team of such calibre. The 22-year old Georgian No.2 has begun his Dota2 career in 2016 with some lesser teams and it was not until August 2018, when he joined his first proper esports organisation, Unchained Esports. W1sh-spent the next six months with the team, until the team disbanded and released its entire roster. W1sh-, however, did not need long to find a new team and in July 2019 joined Wind and Rain, where he remained since.
With Wind and Rain, W1sh- saw a reasonable amount of success in some lesser tournaments, including third place at joinDOTA League Season 16 Europe, fourth at FaceCheck by GG.BET, third at OMG Cup, top-eight at ESL One Hamburg 2019 and third at GGBET Championship. Since the turn of the year, W1sh- played as a stand-in for Godsent, and helped his team finish top-eight at Arena of Blood.
With OG's decision to bring in the young Dota2 pro, it seems like they're going for a more direct approach to the game, which is a complete contrast to how they approached ESL One Los Angeles Online, where they had Neta "33" Shapira as a stand-in for Topson. It's unknown why 33 did not return to help OG compete at WePlay! Pushka League, nonetheless, it will be interesting to see how the Georgian mid laner can perform under such a prominent team.
Although W1sh- never before played with any of the members of OG, he had plenty of time to practise with his new squad, considering OG's first match at WePlay! Pushka League is played on Tuesday, April 28, when they face off against Alliance.
After Alliance, OG are set to face Team Secret, Team Liquid, their academy team OG.Seed, Team Nigma and Ninjas in Pyjamas, which is not the easiest schedule and it will prove to be a true test of skill for the new-look squad of the two-time back-to-back The International champions.
