Natus Vincere kicked off the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season with a rough loss (1-2) against Darkside, despite winning the first map of the series convincingly. NaVi were even in a winning position on the final map, but a poor teamfight execution handed over the game to Darkside.

Team Spirit have yet to play a game this season, but they were active just over a month ago when Yaroslav “Miposhka” Naidenov and co. attended BetBoom Xmas Show. The former The International champions played well in the warm-up event, took down Entity, HellRaisers, and Gaimin Gladiators in the semis (2-0), but then lost the grand finals (2-3).

We would view Team Spirit as a much stronger team than NaVi even had they not performed well at BetBoom Xmas Show. But their run to the finals proves that Spirit are ready to dominate the Eastern European league.

Nemiga Gaming lost their season opener against HellRaisers (1-2) quite badly. They had a solid showing on the second map, which they won with a +26k net worth, but were very disappointing on the first and third map, ending with a combined kill score of 17-56.

Nemiga’s next opponent, Darkside, reverse-swept Natus Vincere (2-1) on Sunday, mainly thanks to Maxim “re1bl” Afanasyev, who had a phenomenal performance on Lesharc and Death Prophet. His teammates didn’t disappoint either, but we can expect Nemiga to have their hands full trying to stop the ex-HellRaisers mid laner.

But despite losing the game, Nemiga Gaming enters this bout as $1.57 favourite, which doesn’t make much sense. They looked far worse than Darkside in the opening week and unless they drastically improve, this should be Darkside’s game.

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It happened again. HellRaisers fought their way into the upper bracket of CIS DPC and rebuilt its roster; however, this time out, HellRaisers’ new lineup looks very good. The addition of Nikita “Daxak” Kuzmin, Gleb “depressed kid” Zyryanov, Vladislav “Antares” Kertman, and Alexey “Solo” Berezin makes a lot of sense and could help HellRaisers emerge as one of CIS’s top Dota 2 squads.

A big addition is Daxak, who had a rough ending to the 2022 season with BetBoom Team but looked good throughout the year. And then there’s also Dota 2 veteran Solo, who got traded from NaVi and will play a key role in HellRaisers’ climb to the top.

Nemiga Gaming are the only team in the DPC (besides Tundra Esports) that didn’t make a single roster move. The only change ahead of the 2023 season was the signing of Alexei “j4” Lipai, who joins Nemiga as head coach.

The decision to keep its roster intact gives Nemiga Gaming a huge advantage over other EEU DPC squads, so it’s not too crazy to believe that Nemiga can win the opening tour of the season. But even though we’re confident in Nemiga’s performances early into the 2023 DPC season, it’s hard to pass on HellRaisers at +175.

Ahead of the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season, Natus Vincere parted ways with captain Alexey “Solo” Berezin and no.2 Volodymyr “Noone” Minenko to make room for Arman “Malady” Orazbayev and Nikita “Nicky’Cool” Ostakhov, formerly of HellRaiers and Project Armor. Losing Solo stings a bit, but overall, NaVi have a competitive roster with the right mix of young and experienced players.

Their next opponents, Darkside consists of the former BetBoom Team core in Vladimir “RodjER” Nikogosian and Akbar “SoNNeikO” Butaev, who teamed up with Vladislav “DkFogas” Frolov, Maxim “re1bl” Afanasyev, and CIS Dota 2 legend Roman “RAMZES666” Kushnarev. The latter will play a major role in this team’s success alongside re1bl, who had a great past season when he made a name for himself as one of the future CIS Dota 2 esport stars.

The esports betting sites have priced Darkside as a favourite, which sounds right, but even $1.79 looks a bit too generous. This is a solid team with a substantial upside, and while you can say the same for NaVi, the latter have a lot more to prove.

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