Ninjas in Pyjamas announce new Dota 2 roster built around PPD

The Ninjas in Pyjamas have unveiled their new Dota 2 roster ahead of the upcoming Dota 2 Pro Circuit for 2019-2020.

Peter ‘ppd’ Dager and NiP are starting from scratch. Before the official announcement on September 20, it became known that the majority of the TI5 winner’s teammates would no longer wear the NiP colors. Adrian ‘Fata’ Trinks announced a new roster stack that included NiP teammate Neta “33” Shapira. And Martin ‘Saska’ Sazdov announced that he would be taking an extended break. 

In their September 20, NiP not only unveiled their new roster, but revealed a reunion between championship teammates. 

“As of today, we are proud to be announcing that Peter “ppd” Dager will be staying on as our team captain while inviting his former teammate Saahil “Universe” Arora along with three rising stars to join our ranks.”

Universe and ppd were teammates together on Evil Geniuses for a number of years. Together, the team won themselves a lot of trophies, finished with high results at a number of major, and reached the pinnacle of Dota when they won the International 2015.

PPD and Universe with their EG teammates after winning TI5

NiP’s full Dota 2 roster:

Oliver “Skiter” Lepko
Nico “Gunnar” Lopez
Saahil “Universe” Arora
Malthe “Biver” Winther
Peter “ppd” Dager

Skiter and Biver most recently played for INFAMOUS at the EPICENTER major in 2019, but that’s a different INFAMOUS roster from the South American roster that made the deep run at TI9. Gunnar is a young American player with plenty of potential.

• Read more: Post-Dota 2 International 2019 Roster Shuffle

Since Evil Geniuses, Universe spent nearly a year with Fnatic, and then half a year with Forward Gaming before the org closed its doors this past July.

In the official NiP announcement, the organization said they met their goals since re-entering the Dota 2 scene: win a trophy, qualify for The International, and establish themselves as a team to be reckoned with. But PPD says that he’s still not satisfied:

“Last year didn’t end as I hoped so we’ve decided to switch things up. I’m teaming up with my old-teammate Universe and a few up-and-coming talents to hopefully achieve greatness.”