Clement Ivanov (born March 6, 1990), better known as Puppey, is an Estonian professional ''
Dota 2
''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to ''Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota 2' ...
'' player for
Team Secret
Team Secret is an esports team based in Europe formed in 2014, best known for their ''Dota 2'' team.
In March 2016, Team Secret picked up an international female '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' team. In April 2016, Team Secret expanded into ...
. He is the founding member of Team Secret.
Together with
Natus Vincere
Natus Vincere (Latin for "born to win"), abbreviated NAVI (formerly Na`Vi), is a Ukrainian esports organization based in Kyiv. Founded in 2009, the organization has teams and players competing in various games, such as ''Counter Strike: Global ...
, Puppey won
The International 2011
The International is an annual world championship tournament for the five-on-five esports video game ''Dota 2''. Produced by the game's developer Valve, the International is the final event of the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) and consists of 20 team ...
in August 2011 for a one million dollar first place prize. They also took runner-up for the next two Internationals.
''Dota''
Puppey began his esports career in 2007, joining team Xero Skill.
Puppey had a successful DotA career playing for top teams, such as KingSurf.international, Nirvana.international, and
Team Na'Vi.
His final ''Dota''
LAN
Lan or LAN may also refer to:
Science and technology
* Local asymptotic normality, a fundamental property of regular models in statistics
* Longitude of the ascending node, one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in sp ...
match was a win with Na'Vi at ASUS OPEN Summer 2011.
''Dota 2''
With Natus Vincere
Puppey started his first steps into the DotA 2 competitive scene with
Natus Vincere
Natus Vincere (Latin for "born to win"), abbreviated NAVI (formerly Na`Vi), is a Ukrainian esports organization based in Kyiv. Founded in 2009, the organization has teams and players competing in various games, such as ''Counter Strike: Global ...
among players such as
Dendi and Artstyle, as they competed in
The International 2011
The International is an annual world championship tournament for the five-on-five esports video game ''Dota 2''. Produced by the game's developer Valve, the International is the final event of the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) and consists of 20 team ...
. They went undefeated throughout the whole tournament, winning the then-big US$1,000,000 grand prize. They also won the
Electronic Sports World Cup
The Electronic Sports World Convention (ESWC) (formerly known as Electronic Sports World Cup) is an international professional gaming championship. Every year, winners of national qualifier events around the world earn the right to represent the ...
2011 and took home US$12,000. In both of these tournaments, he demonstrated fantastic prediction with the hero Chen's ability to send his teammates back to base. Puppey became Natus Vincere's Captain after ArtStyle's departure from the team in October 2011.
After winning those two tournaments, Puppey went on to have a place on the podium for 31 out of 32 different tournaments in from 2011 to 2013, winning tournaments such as the
Alienware
Alienware is an American computer hardware subsidiary of Dell. Their product range is dedicated to gaming computers which can be identified by their alien-themed designs. Alienware was founded in 1996 by Nelson Gonzalez and Alex Aguila, and is ...
cup, StarLadder Star Series Season 7 and The Defense Season 4. He also achieved second place in
The International 2012
The International is an annual world championship tournament for the five-on-five esports video game ''Dota 2''. Produced by the game's developer Valve, the International is the final event of the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) and consists of 20 teams ...
.
After winning the Dota 2 Champions League Season 2 in 2014, things began to go south for Puppey, getting a 7-8th place at
The International 2014
The International 2014 (TI4) was the fourth edition of The International, an annual esports ''Dota 2'' championship tournament, which took place at the KeyArena in Seattle. Hosted by Valve, the tournament began on July 8 with the Playoffs phase ...
, Puppey suddenly left Natus Vincere with Kuroky. The community started saying rumors about why he would leave a team he stayed with for four years.
With Team Secret
After a loss in a series against
Alliance
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
, Puppey and his new team consisting of him, Fly,
N0tail
Johan Sundstein (born 8 October 1993), better known as N0tail, is a Danish professional ''Dota 2'' player for OG. As a member of OG, he has played in four iterations of The International, winning in 2018 and 2019, and has also won four Major ch ...
, KuroKy and s4, went on to achieve second place in their first tournament Starladder Season 10.
Following his first achievement with Team Secret, Puppey went on to be top 3 on 7 major tournaments and 1 premier tournament. He also won a 'Double Trouble' season with his manager, Matthew 'Cyborgmatt' Bailey. The Double Trouble tournament included a team of two major DotA 2 personalities who battled against other groups of two of the major
Dota 2
''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to ''Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota 2' ...
personalities.
His first major achievement with Team Secret was when the team won US$120,000 in
ESL One Frankfurt which included teams such as
Alliance
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
,
Evil Geniuses
Evil Geniuses (EG) is an American esports organization based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1999, the organization has fielded players in various fighting games, ''Call of Duty'', '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'', ''Dota 2'', ''Fortni ...
,
Cloud9
Cloud9 Esports, Inc., or simply Cloud9 (C9), is an American professional esports company based in Santa Monica, California. The company was originally founded as a professional ''League of Legends'' team by Jack and Paullie Etienne in May 2013 ...
, and
Invictus Gaming
Invictus Gaming (IG, sometime stylized as iG, zh, s=iG电子竞技俱乐部, l=iG Esports Club) is a Chinese multi-game esports organization founded in 2011 by businessman Wang Sicong. They are primarily known for their ''Dota 2'', ''League of ...
.
Team Secret went into
The International 2015
The International 2015 (TI5) was the fifth edition of The International, an annual ''Dota 2'' esports championship tournament, which took place at the KeyArena in Seattle. Hosted by Valve, the game's developer, the tournament began in May with ...
as heavy favorites, but left only with a tie for 7-8 place and US$830,000.
Following TI5, the team underwent heavy drama between Kuro 'KuroKy' S. Takhasomi and Artour '
Arteezy
Artour Babaev, better known as Arteezy, is a Canadian professional '' Dota 2'' player for Shopify Rebellion. He is also one of the most popular streamers among the community.
Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Babaev showed much promise as a child, ...
' Babaev, which started with Arteezy indirectly blaming the loss at The International on KuroKy while streaming on
Twitch
Twitch may refer to:
Biology
* Muscle contraction
** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation
** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction
** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...
and KuroKy responding and flaming Arteezy in German forums.
In the post-TI5 shuffle, s4 and Arteezy returned to their previous teams, Zai decided to leave competitive DOTA to finish school, and KuroKy formed a new
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
team 5Jungz (which will later be sponsored by
Team Liquid
Team Liquid is a multi-regional professional esports organization based in the Netherlands that was founded in 2000. With the release of '' StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty'', Team Liquid signed their first professional players.
In 2012, Team Liq ...
). On August 22, team director Kemal Sadikoglu announced the new roster of Team Secret which now included MiSery, EternaLEnVy, w33, pieliedie and of course Puppey
Following the new roster change, Puppey and his team went on to achieve second place in
The Frankfurt Major and
ESL One New York while winning Nanyang DotA 2 Championships and the
MLG World Finals 2015
This is a list of Major League Gaming national championships, including results from 2004 to the present.
2004 - New York City
2005 - New York City
2006 - Las Vegas
2007 - Las Vegas
2008 - Las Vegas
2009 - Anaheim
2009 - Orl ...
.
Puppey and Team Secret won
Shanghai Major 2016
The Shanghai Major was a '' Dota 2'' tournament that took place in Shanghai from March 2–6, 2016, and was the second Major of the 2015-2016 professional '' Dota 2'' season. 16 teams competed in the tournament; eight were given direct invitations ...
in March 2015 after beating
Team Liquid
Team Liquid is a multi-regional professional esports organization based in the Netherlands that was founded in 2000. With the release of '' StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty'', Team Liquid signed their first professional players.
In 2012, Team Liq ...
in the finals.
Puppey and Team Secret eliminated by
Team Empire
A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal.
As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to infor ...
, 1:2, during the
ESL One Manila 2016 group B decider series. After a rocky start in day one of the tournament, Team Secret made an incredible comeback beating EHOME 2 – 0 in their Best of 3 series.
Controversies
On 16 February 2016, former team manager Evany Chang accused Team Secret of not paying prize winnings to her and former players.
On 9 October 2016, former player EternaLEnVy wrote a blog post detailing several instances of the organisation, in particular team director Kemal and Puppey, failing to pay players on time, lying about payments and sponsorships, and taking a 10% cut out of prize winnings without informing the players.
Later that day, another former player, MiSeRy, released a blog raising similar issues, and claiming Secret did not pay him until he asked several times. He also backed EternaLEnVy's claim that Puppey was the only player aware of the organization taking a 10% cut.
References
External links
*
{{Professional Dota 2 competition
Dota players
Living people
Estonian esports players
Team Secret players
1990 births
Natus Vincere players