The International 5 winners Peter “ppd” Dager and Saahil “Universe” Arora stated that they retire from professional Dota 2 as players. Their last organization was Swedish Ninjas in Pyjamas.
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PPD started his pro career as pro player in another MOBA game called Heroes of Newerth. He played for compLexity that was one of the leading team but he did not manage to win any top tournament. In the end of 2013, he transferred to Dota 2 and became a very successful player in a short time. Alongside with another ex-HoNer Ludwig “zai” Wahlberg, Peter created team SADBOYS that later were acquired by Evil Geniuses. Team featured such players as Arteezy, Fear and Universe. They finished third at The International 4 despite playing with a substitute as mason were standing in for Fear who had an arm injury.
An hour of triumph for Evil Geniuses was at The International 5. Universe and PPD alongside with Fear, Aui_2000 and 16-years-old prodigy SumaiL won the tournament. This squad is still the only one North American team to win TI. At The international 6 they played with zai instead of Aui and finished third again. After the tournament, PPD quit playing and became the CEO of Evil Geniuses.
On The International 7 EG upset their fans, as they could not hit even top eight. In the end of the year, Universe also left the team while PPD returned to player career that autumn. Peter managed to gather good roster at OpTic Gaming and finished on the 7-8 place at TI8. The next season he played in Ninjas in Pyjamas but failed at The International 9 as his team took the last place. Speaking about Universe, he played for Fnatic at TI8, took the 13-16 place, and could not qualify to TI9.
PPD and Universe reunited in NiP last autumn but things did not go well for them. Nevertheless, they surprisingly qualified for ESL One Los Angeles but the tournament was denied and the entire pro scene has transferred to online due to coronavirus outbreak. Universe could not play with the team as he lives in USA, while PPD stayed in Stockholm. NiP played poorly at ESL One Los Angeles – Online and after this both legendary American players decided to retire from pro Dota 2.
It is worth mentioning that until 2019 Universe was one of the four players (alongside with Puppey, Kuroky and ddc) to play on every The International tournament. However, he did not play a single game at The International 1 as he was a substitute player.
