With the Dota roster lock coming closer everyday, teams are finalising their rosters for the upcoming 2023 season. BOOM Esports, one of the past season’s top performing teams in Southeast Asia have revealed their upcoming roster for the next season. Below are all you need to know about the roster and its players.
Yopaj and Fbz remain on the roster
Erin “Yopaj” Ferrer and Saieful “Fbz” Ilham are the mainstays on the BOOM Esports roster from last year. The mid and offlane duo will continue to remain on the roster despite Yopaj exploring options in free agency. This means that Yopaj has chosen to re-sign with the team while Fbz continued on with the team without testing free agency. Keeping the core that brought BOOM a direct invite to The International 2022 is a great place to start for the upcoming season. Looking for further pieces, BOOM Esports did not stop there and added star studded additions to their roster.
BOOM Esports’ new reinforcements: Xepher, Natsumi, and xNova
BOOM Esports have added some great players to their upcoming roster next season. The first addition is Kenny “Xepher” Deo, a strong Indonesian player that was part of one of the best rosters in the region, T1. He will play the 4 position for the team and is most well known for playing Treant Protector. Unfortunately, T1 went through a lot of changes over the course of the season and Xepher ended up being benched for the last part of the season. However, he played in the regional qualifier with T1 as they tried their hardest to qualify for The International 2023. One of the important aspects to keep in mind is that BOOM Esports will now have a fully Indonesian offlane combo, which will allow for better communication between both parties. It will be incredibly interesting to see how the duo will perform over the course of the season in 2023.
BOOM Esports also has a completely new bot side of the map with John “Natsumi” Anthony Vargas from Polaris Esports taking over the 1 position and Yap “xNova” Jian Wei taking over the 5 position for the upcoming 2023 season. Natsumi has been one of the most underrated carry players in the Southeast Asia region. At the end of the season, Polaris were performing extremely well and even got to push BOOM Esports to the limit during their grand final meeting at GAMERS GALAXY Thailand. Despite the momentum, however, they lost to Wild Card gaming at the last chance qualifier and did not make it into The international 2023. This Cinderella story made and proved Natsumi to be one of the best carries in the region and will undoubtedly help BOOM Esports in their quest for an even stronger season next year.
Last but definitely not the least, BOOM Esports will also be rearming the safelane with a hard support xNova. The previous support for RNG in China will return to his southeast Asian roots and play for his home region once again. A tough International 11 run led RNG to leave the tournament after the first day of playoffs. They were defeated by Entity, who played an amazing 2 and a half hour best of 1 against them, but eventually ended with RNG’s loss. With RNG disbanding, xNova was one of the most wanted supports in the region and his addition to BOOM will provide the much-needed shotcalling and experience to the newly-formed stack.
BOOM Esports’ new roster was made to attempt another go for the Aegis and bring the elusive championship for the region. A combination of veteran and unproven talent, this team has the potential to go further than any other Southeast Asian roster has ever gone at international events. The team is built on a strong core and are ready to perform next season with this new team.
