Team Secret Finalize Its Dota 2 Roster With BOOM

Team Secret finalized its Dota 2 roster for the 2023 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season on Friday, December 2, with the signing of Miroslav “BOOM” Bičan. The 22-year-old joins the team as a replacement for Michał “Nisha” Jankowski, who was let go from the team on Friday.

With the signing of BOOM on Friday, Team Secret now fields a complete roster for the 2023 DPC season, with many returning faces. For the next season, Secret’s lineup will feature the newest signing BOOM, who’ll team up with Remco “Crystallis” Arets, Roman “Resolut1on” Fomynok, Baqyt “Zayac” Emiljanov, and the long-serving Clement “Puppey” Ivanov.

BOOM, who’ll take over the no.2 position, joins Team Secret from Gaimin Gladiators, where he has spent eight months following a short stint with Team Tickles. The 22-year-old started his Dota 2 esports career in June 2016 with PRIES Gaming and has since played for Hippomaniacsa, SworDDarK-, and Vikin.gg, before landing in Team Tickles.

And even though he has never won a big event, BOOM has achieved a lot of success over the last two seasons. With Vikin.gg, BOOM won EPIC League Season 3 Division 1 and DreamLeague Season 15 DPC Western Europe Lower Division and placed third in Pinnacle Cup. The team, unfortunately, didn’t reach The International that year, leading to roster disbandment and BOOM leaving for Team Tickles.

With Team Tickles – which would later rebrand to Gaimin Gladiators – BOOM has achieved a lot, kicking off the 2022 season with a runner-up finish at DPC WEU 2021/2022 Tour 1: Division I. By the end of the year, Gaimin Gladiators also won the Tour 1 Regional Final, placed second in the Tour 2: Division I, finished ESL One Stockholm 2022 in fourth place and eventually qualified for The International 2022.

Unfortunately, Gaimin Gladiators failed to live up to the hype in Singapore and crashed out of TI2022 in ninth-12th place. Yet regardless of a bittersweet finish to the 2022 season, BOOM has proven his worth and will now play for one of the most storied European Dota 2 teams.

With BOOM joining the roster, Team Secret now fields a complete lineup for the 2023 season, led by Puppey, who has been with the team since August 2014. Interestingly four of the five players have all joined Team Secret in 2022, as the team went through a major roster overhaul last season.

The roster changes followed Team Secret’s highly disappointing run through the 2021 season, which ended with the team winning just one event. And even that came at the start of the season when Team Secret won DreamLeague Season 14 DPC EU Upper Division.

Since then, Secret have managed some solid results, namely a fourth-place finish at ONE Esports Singapore Major 2021 and DreamLeague Season 15 DPC Western Europe Upper Division. They followed that up with two poor finishes at WePlay AniMajor (16th) and ESL One Summer 2021 (ninth-12th), before finding their stride at The International 2021, where Secret placed third.

The 2022 season played out very similarly, as Secret struggled to achieve much throughout the season. But once again, Team Secret shifted into a higher gear in August, when they placed third at ESL One Malaysia 2022, second in TI 2022 Western Europe Qualifiers, and they made it all the way to the grand finals of The International 2022.

Unfortunately, the Aegis of Champions slipped between their fingers as they lost against Tundra Esports (0-3). So given the team’s success, it makes sense that Team Secret won’t wholly overhaul its roster. And while BOOM might not seem like a big addition, he might be the final missing piece Team Secret needs to make a splash in 2023.