Team Secret captain Clement "Puppey" Ivanov shared the factors that will influence his decision on whether to continue playing professionally after The International 2024. He shared his thoughts during a stream with Alexander "Nix" Levin.
Clement "Puppey" Ivanov said, "Who knows if I will play after TI13. I never thought like that. The last time I said the same. It depends on how it goes, and how I feel. Next week, when all the teams think about where they want to play, then I'll decide if I want to play or not. What I'll do, what team I'll build, whether I'll wait or not. I won't think too much about whether I need to do something or not. Because usually, all things, if you work on yourself, will work out anyway. ... I like the game anyway. Whether I can win or not is another question. There's nothing much to talk about. What can I say? Maybe I play badly, maybe someone from my team plays badly. Bad ideas, maybe, who knows. A lot of things decide that. Sometimes I feel I play very well, and then we still lose games. And after that, it's hard to keep trying. And that's why morale goes down, and you play worse yourself. If you're not winning, then there's no way to feel good about yourself."
Team Secret finished the qualifiers for The International 2024 in 5th-6th place and did not make it to the main stage of the tournament. This is the second TI in history that Puppey will miss — until 2022, Ivanov participated in all tournaments in this series.