Dendi unveils his own esports organization B8
After months of waiting, Danil "Dendi” Ishutin one of the most iconic Dota 2 players in the history of the game, has decided to reveal the name and other details about his own esports organization B8 earlier this Monday.
Dendi has announced he is planning to launch his own esports organization in September 2019 and later in December introduced the line-up for his Dota 2 team, while refusing to reveal any further details about what was soon to be his own esports organization until this Monday.
Dendi's new esports organization B8 which is an acronym for "bait", has been unveiled on Monday, January 26, when the org made its first appearance on social media, more specifically on Twitter, where B8 made its first post. The description of the esports organization reads:
"An esports organization that unites professionals, aspiring talents and esport's fans. Founded by the renowned and notorious Dota personality Dendi."
The newly formed organization also released a short video titled "The Golden Years" featuring the organization founder and player Dendi as an old man, who takes a fishing trip with his grandson in the year 2059. While the two are fishing, Dendi talks about the golden years of his Dota 2 career, when he won the inaugural International tournament in 2011 while playing for Natus Vincere and the downfall of the CIS juggernauts who failed to repeat that success in 2012 and 2013. The premise of the video is that although all good things come to an end, the "golden years are not over".
The video ends with Dendi fishing up the emblem of B8, thus announcing his esports organization in a very entertaining and unique way. The video was directed by Moritz "MooseWD" Zimmermann, who is a well-known esports film producer and a vivid fan of Dota 2.
As of today, the information about B8 is very scarce, as there is no announcement of the Dota 2 roster nor whether B8 will branch out into other esports titles.
Back in September, Dendi already fielded his own Dota 2 team dubbed MR, which consisted of Alik "V-Tune" Vorobey, Alexey "nongrata" Vasilyev, Rinat "KingR" Abdullin, and Nikola "LeBronDota" Popović and Dendi himself. The team participated in the regional qualifiers for Leipzig Major, but after they failed to secure a ticket for the tournament, a couple of players left the team. Out of the said four members, only KingR and LeBronDota are currently without a team, while V-Tune and Nongarta already found a new home in HellRaisers and TeamSpirit respectively, meaning we can't expect the B8 to field the same quintet.
Nonetheless, there are rumours Dendi will look to sign KingR and LeBronDota to his new team, however, no official confirmations about that have surfaced yet.
By announcing his own esports organization, Dendi will continue his legacy as one of the most prominent Dota 2 players in the world. The 30-year-old is known as one of the most creative players in the scene and renowned for his unorthodox playstyle and unconventional approach to the game, which helped him to become the inaugural International champion.
Besides his historic TI1 title in 2011, Dendi and NaVi also made it to two International finals in 2012 and 2013, however, failed to secure their second title. In 2012, NaVi lost to Invictus Gaming (1-3), while the next year, NaVi got outclassed by Alliance. Since then NaVi never made it to the finals of the most prestigious Dota 2 tournament of the year. The closest NaVi ever came to repeating their International success, was in 2014 when they finished seventh-eighth.
Alongside his two silver medals and the title at TI, Dendi won a plethora of other Dota 2 tournaments, earning a grand total of $796,981.90 in prize winnings throughout his 10-year long career as Dota 2 professional. He is to date one of the most successful and fourth-best paid Ukrainian esports player and will now extend his legacy by becoming a proud owner of his own esports organization.
