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OpTic Gaming acquires The Dire stack featuring PPD, CCnC

The announcement comes after the team qualified for its first LAN later this season.

By Victoria Rose
The OpTic Gaming Dota 2 team.
OpTic Gaming Official Twitter

OpTic Gaming, one of the most widely-known “endemic” esports organizations, announced their acquisition of North American professional stack The Dire on Monday.

The team is most known as the “PPD stack” for featuring The International champion Peter “PPD” Dager, most recently CEO of Evil Geniuses. All five players are fresh from a number of well-respected positions, including Quinn “CCnC” Callahan, a former streamer, and TI6 runner-up Rasmus “MISERY” Filipsen.

The full lineup was shared on OpTic’s Twitter:

Since The Dire stack’s formation, they’ve participated in as many Pro Circuit event qualifiers as their schedule could fit. While competition in North America has been tough, especially for a squad built from scratch, they managed to secure a spot at the fan-favorite Dota Summit 8 Minor later this season. They will also be attending the Dota 2 All Star Weekend, a Dota 2 “festival” in Manila featuring a “Manila Invitational” show match.

According to the press release and an explanation on Reddit by Ryan "OpTic J" Musselman, the star-studded team quietly boot-camped for ten days at a gaming cafe in OpTic’s hometown of Dallas. While they’ve since returned to their respective homes, Musselman states that the org and team are looking to potentially fully relocate to Texas in the future.

OpTic’s footsteps in esports begin with their Call of Duty team in 2005, and since then, their primary focus has remained on first-person shooter games. Sources shared with ESPN recently that OpTic received investments from traditional sports, and that it may be expanding as well into Overwatch’s franchised league as well as into League of Legends. The Dota 2 acquisition was not reported at the time.

The organization’s presence and following is most felt in its social media following, which has even been immortalized in memes. Its official YouTube has nearly 1.4 million subscribers, the Twitter has collected 3.16 million followers, and its Subreddit maintains 25,000 followers.

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