NiP drop their Dota 2 team to focus on LoL, CS:GO and Overwatch rosters

Ninjas in Pyjamas has announced that they’re stepping away from Dota 2 for the second time, only a few months after acquiring what remained of Escape Gaming as their roster in January 2017.

NiP’s team failed to make a big impact in Valve’s MOBA, failing to qualify for March’s Kiev Major, and in a blog post on the subject the outfit has announced they’ve dropping the team to focus on its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster, who are having plenty of their own problems, and their nearly acquired League of Legends division.

“Last week we announced our entry to Legends EU LCS, bringing the world’s most popular MOBA back to Ninjas in Pyjamas. The combination of weak performance in DotA2 and our newly established League of Legends division has led us to the following decision: We are releasing our Dota 2 team with immediate effect. It is time for us to fully focus our resources on bringing the CS:GO team back to glory, while establishing ourselves within the League of Legends scene with a long term presence in a more stable environment. We feel this prioritization is necessary from an organizational perspective to fully focus on delivering the results which are expected of us from all our fans and partners around the world.”

Despite two attempts to make a big impact on the Dota 2 competitive scene, NiP hasn’t ruled out a return to the scene:

“The recent journey within Dota 2 has taught us a lot, and we might see a return to the scene in the future. For now, we will concentrate all our focus and efforts around our CS:GO, League of Legends and Overwatch teams as we continue building one of the world’s largest esport organizations.”

It’s bad timing for the dropped squad. Valve’s roster lock deadline was May 26, meaning players on the dropped NiP roster can’t join any other teams until after the next Major event. It’s unknown currently whether the squad will be looking to qualify for the International 7 later this year.