Virtus.pro announced Prodigy a few months ago and the squad got some really good results. Now VP might be selling their secondary roster to a new organization.
Virtus.pro is arguably the most famous Russian esports organization with successful teams in Dota 2, CS:GO, Rainbow Six: Siege, and others. The number of Dota 2 teams grew from one to two back in April when in addition to the main roster VP also created VP.Prodigy. This secondary squad was to participate in events, grow in experience, and potentially players from it could transfer to the main one. What happens when things are not quite as planned though?
VP.Prodigy shocked Dota 2 fans with their initial success right of the bat. The team won four lower-tier events in April alone and it wasn’t long they climbed to the higher stage. During the WePlay! Pushka League Prodigy got to play against some of the best teams not only from the region but also in the world. They defeated Natus Vincere, B8, HellRaisers, Team Spirit, Alliance, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team Liquid and the only ones who were able to stop them were Team Secret in the grand final. Next up in the Epic Prime League the team proved they can defeat their bigger brothers, leaving the main squad of VP in second place. The last big event Prodigy attended was ESL One Birmingham Online Europe/CIS. The stakes were high once again, but the young team still managed to take the honorable third place.
This secondary team really made a lot of fans question what’s happening with the main squad. The original roster of VP had trouble staying relevant lately. A lot of people thought we might be seeing some changes between the two rosters but that never happened. Roughly a week after ESL One Birmingham the Russian cyber.sports.ru website released an article mentioning that VP are looking to sell Prodigy and are actively looking for a buyer. Another article followed, claiming the price for the team is as high as $110 000. Then we have the recent Tweets between VP’s ex and current General Managers Sergey Glazmada and Roman Dvoryankin.
To est esli cena xorosaya, to prodadite?
— Roman Dvoryankin (@dvoryrom) June 30, 2020
So far there has been no confirmation on any official platform, but it won’t be too surprising to see Prodigy with a new owner by the end of the month.
Why sell the team?
As we’ve already noted above, Prodigy had quite a lot of success and the players definitely have the potential to play at the highest level. This raises the question of why would VP want to sell them in the first place? The answer is simple – conflict of interest. Not too long ago we reported the OG are getting rid of their second team OG.Seed. It was only a matter of time before others followed that example. After all, Valve won’t allow multiple teams from one organization to compete in the same event/league due to potential conflict of interest and fear of match-fixing. The trend of having more than one team in the Dota 2 scene started from China years ago, but it seems Europe got too late to the party.Both OG.Seed and VP.Prodigy are amazing rosters with a lot of potential, but who will acquire them? Will it be an organization already in the Dota 2 scene which will throw away their current squad and get a new one? Will an organization like Cloud9 once again return to Dota 2 and try to make it big? The answers might come much sooner than we think.
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