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The comeback is official
Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen is returning to OG for the 2026-27 Dota 2 season. The Finnish midlaner, who won back-to-back The International titles with OG in 2018 and 2019, has been confirmed as the centrepiece of a rebuilt lineup set to debut at BLAST SLAM VIII on September 29, 2026. OG received a direct invitation to the Tier 1 event, which runs an online stage before heading to offline playoffs at BLAST Arena Studios in Malta.
The full roster is:
- John Anthony "Natsumi" Vargas (Position 1, carry)
- Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen (Position 2, mid)
- Valery "SSS" Lazarev (Position 3, offlane)
- Ivan "OneJey" Zhivitsky (Position 4, soft support)
- Andrei "skem" Ong (Position 5, hard support)
- Igor "kaffs" Estevão (Head coach)
OG 2027 Dota 2 roster
What OG kept, and what changed
Natsumi and skem survive the reshuffle, preserving the Filipino carry-support partnership that anchored last season's squad. Keeping both ends of the roster spine is a deliberate call. In Dota 2, the carry and hard support share the same lane throughout the early game, and the chemistry between those two positions takes the longest to build. OG is not throwing that away.
Everything in between is new. SSS and OneJey replace departed veterans Timothy "TIMS" Randrup and Polo "Raven" Fausto in the offlane and soft support slots. kaffs, who previously worked with LGD and HEROIC, steps in as head coach. Three new players plus a new coach means the team's mid-game decision-making and rotational calling is essentially being rebuilt from scratch.
Here's the thing: replacing the mid, offlane, and soft support simultaneously is not a minor tune-up. Those three positions coordinate on almost every early gank and objective contest. The retained Filipino duo gives OG stability at the extremes, but the central nervous system of the team is brand new.
Topson's road back to OG
After his two TI titles with OG, Topson spent time at Tundra Esports, reaching a third-place finish at TI14. Then came a short-notice stand-in role for LGD at TI15, which ended in a 9th-to-13th placement. In between and after those stints, he was largely absent from consistent Tier 1 competition, appearing for veteran exhibition squads Monkey Business and Retirement Home and spending significant time streaming.
What made Topson special at his peak was not raw statistics. It was his willingness to pick off-meta heroes in the mid lane at the highest level and actually make them work. That kind of unconventional playmaking is hard to maintain without continuous elite competition, and the honest read on his recent form is that the sample size is thin.
That said, a third-place TI finish is not ancient history, and OG is clearly betting that the combination of a familiar environment and a supporting cast built around him can accelerate his return to form. Whether that bet pays off is exactly what BLAST SLAM VIII will start to answer.
The multinational roster question
OG's new lineup spans Finland, the Philippines, and players with CIS backgrounds, with a Brazilian head coach. English will be the working language for a group where it is no one's first tongue. That is not unusual in Dota 2, which has no import restrictions, but it does create a real coordination overhead that takes time to compress.
In fast-paced objective fights, calling windows can be two seconds wide. A communication system that is still being calibrated will lose some of those windows. The retained Natsumi-skem axis provides a stable foundation, but the trio of Topson, SSS, and OneJey needs to build shared instincts quickly. There is no shortcut for that process, and OG's schedule does not allow much time for it.
Coach kaffs carries a legitimate resume from two major organizations, and his role here is heavier than usual precisely because of how many new pieces need integrating. What his specific coaching style looks like in practice, and how quickly he can align this group, remains to be seen.
What BLAST SLAM VIII will actually tell us
The online stage of BLAST SLAM VIII is OG's first real test, and the format matters. Short group formats reduce the advantage of accumulated team experience and increase variance, which cuts both ways for a freshly assembled roster. A strong early run would be genuinely encouraging. An early exit would confirm the integration concerns that the roster construction raises.
The key things to watch: whether Topson's unconventional hero picks still land at this level, how quickly the mid-offlane-soft support trio builds a shared calling rhythm, and whether the communication system holds up in high-pressure objective fights. Those three signals will tell more about this roster's ceiling than any pre-tournament hype.
For Dota 2 fans, this is one of the more compelling storylines heading into the new season. OG reuniting with its most iconic midlaner is a genuinely interesting competitive experiment, not just a nostalgia play. The organization has retained enough structural continuity to give the new pieces a real platform, and Topson has enough history with the brand to hit the ground running culturally if not immediately competitively.
BLAST SLAM VIII starts September 29. Keep up with all the action and more Dota 2 coverage through our gaming guides hub, and if you're looking to sharpen your skills in other titles while the tournament unfolds, check out the 2XKO Teemo champion guide for some competitive reading in the meantime.
