Kaipi follows in Prodota’s footsteps, switches to Americas Open Qualifiers

Treading on the heels of Prodota Gaming’s recent success, Kaipi have decided to put the Americas Open Qualifiers to the test, Armand “bOne7” Pittner has revealed to DotaBlast. The team is currently on bootcamp at the DotaBlast house, in Bucharest, Romania.

“We could have registered for the Americas from the very beginning, we knew it wasn’t against the rules. We tried to make it in the European Open Qualifiers. It didn’t work out – we have only ourselves to blame. For the second round, we have decided to ‘jump ship’ and try our hand in the Americas region. The precedent has already been set, there are fewer teams, so the odds seem better. We are fully aware of the fact that other European teams are going to do the same thing, but we’ll take the risk and hope for the best. Chances are, we’re going to see two European teams in the Americas closed qualifiers – two European/CIS teams might even qualify for the Major from the Americas region. We’re not saying it’s going to be us, but we’ll try our best,” Kaipi’s Armand “bOne7” Pittner told DotaBlast.

Prodota Gaming took the first Boston Major AM Regional Qualifiers spot, after overpowering Vegetables Esports Club, 2:0, in the finals. Before taking a leap of faith in the Americas region, Prodota spoke to DotaBlast about the “clear imbalance between the Europe and CIS region and the Americas one”, stating that “the system is flawed and needs to be changed”.

The second round of Americas Open Qualifiers starts today, October 25th, at 15:00 CDT.

Kaipi

At the end of August, after The International 5, Armand “bOne7” Pittner put together a mix with Asuna, Bufni, Beesa, and Kikoni. They went by the name of Kaipi.

Less than a month later, Alexandru “ComeWithMe” Crăciunescu and Antonio “canceL^^” Mihai were brought on, after Kiril “Kikoni” Minkov and Salvador “Asuna” Khamis parted ways with the team.

Several roster changes later, Kaipi lost Ludwig “zai” Wåhlberg, to Evil Geniuses, on June 13th.

Amid speculation that they were about to sign former EG player Kurtis “Aui_2000” Ling, Kaipi sought out Prodota Gaming’s Neta “thecoon” Shapira as zai’s replacement.

The Israeli player joined the rest of Kaipi’s lineup – bOne7, SingSing, ComeWithMe and SexyBamboe – on bootcamp in Bucharest, for the duration of The International 6 Open Qualifiers. The team failed to advance into the Regional Qualifiers, after losing to Global Challengers during the first round of qualifiers (Round of 16) and E-Lab in the second one (Round of 32).

Kaipi competed in several minor tournaments and qualifiers throughout the season, but were unable to clinch any noteworthy achievements, mainly due to their roster instability.

ComeWithMe left the team and was eventually replaced by Alperen “mdL” Arslan for several weeks.

Kaipi had a solid start to the post-TI6 season. Straight out of the gate, the team seized the WCA EU Main Qualifier spot, after an intense five-game series against Vega Squadron. With the help of Team Secret’s Johan “pieliedie” Åström as a stand-in, the team will be headed to represent Europe at the WCA main event in Yinchuan, China, this December.

On September 14th, Brian “FLUFFNSTUFF” Lee rounded out Kaipi’s roster for the 2016 fall season.

Kaipi roster:

WehSing “SingSing” Yuen
Alaan “SexyBamboe” Faraj
Armand “bOne7” Pittner
Neta “thecoon” Shapira
Brian “FLUFFNSTUFF” Lee