Dota 2 fans have not seen Danil “Dendi” Ishutin on the professional stage for a long time, but now is the time for his comeback to competitive mode. However, it’s not about Dota 2, but about Warcraft III. For those who missed it, we tell you how Dendi decided to conquer the progenitor of Dota.
Ishutin’s organization B8 Esports has been out of the professional Dota 2 scene for about nine months. Their last match was played on June 6, 2024, when Dendi and the team tried to qualify for The International but failed to get past the quarterfinals of the open CIS qualification. The match against SIBE Team, which B8 lost with a score of 1:2, became the club’s last official match at the time of publication.
After that, rumors appeared that B8 might freeze the Dota 2 roster and redirect all efforts to developing and supporting the CS2 roster. This decision is related to certain financial problems the organization is experiencing. There is logic in it, because the B8 CS2 roster performs more successfully than the Dota team – the team is in the top 30 HLTV.org and performs quite well at tier-2 tournaments like CCT.
Assembling a боеспособный (combat-ready) Dota 2 roster that could compete in closed qualifiers in Eastern or Western Europe without serious funding is an impossible task. So, Dota 2 B8 retired.
Taking a pause on the professional scene, Dendi did not abandon Dota 2, but at the same time began to look at other games. For example, starting in November 2024, he actively streamed World of Warcraft for several months after Blizzard launched fresh Classic servers. During this period, he spent over 300 hours broadcasting WoW. But as soon as all the content available at that time was completed, he switched to another Blizzard title – Warcraft III.
Since February 23, Ishutin has been regularly broadcasting the cult RTS. However, still mixing Warcraft streams with Dota 2. But Dendi did not go to nostalgic campaign, but began to tryhard in matchmaking. And so far, he is doing quite successfully.
Currently, Dendi plays exclusively as humans. Although, according to his personal statistics, he also has enough matches as night elves.
At the same time, Dendi is not just pressing the search button, but is trying to understand the game: watching replays, studying statistics, and other useful features.
Dendi cannot yet boast of crazy APM like professional players, but he has already honed the key patterns of development and actions for his race. And the skill of body blocking from Dota 2 has not disappeared, so Ishutin is quite capable of surrounding and blocking the movement of enemy heroes with his units. And all this training is not just for fun.
Well, tier-1 scene is not yet on the agenda, obviously. But Ishutin has already gathered for a media tournament in Warcraft III: on March 14, he will participate in the OnlyFangs Invitational for streamers. The tournament is organized by Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen – a former professional Warcraft and StarCraft player.
It is noteworthy that the tournament received official support from Blizzard Entertainment. Among the participants will be quite famous personalities, such as Tyler “Tyler1” Steinkamp and Chance “sodapoppin” Morris. The event even acquired a decent (by Warcraft III standards) prize pool of $10,000. By the way, if Dendi suddenly wins, he will earn twice as much as B8 in 2024 (last year, after leaving the DPC, the Dota 2 roster received only $2,500 in prize money).
So, we are waiting for Dendi’s breakthrough into the professional scene and the opening of the B8 Warcraft III roster. And then, look, NS will retrain as a caster of a “young and promising” discipline.
