in January 2012, Artstyle was spotted playing as a stand-in for M5. In a few weeks, after a huge scandal, the former M5 players left their organization and Darer Entertainment had made it official that the former M5 team would be playing for them with Artstyle becoming the captain. However, their results were rather average, and many fans questioned Artstyle's legendary captain skills. Eventually, Artstyle silenced all doubters in a showmatch Darer vs Virtus Pro by ingenious picks, which seemed weak and without synergy at first, but worked perfectly, and Darer was able to win in 15 minutes.
Under Artstyle's leadership, team Darer was invited to the International 2012. Soon after that, Artstyle changed his captain position with his teammate Goblin, the former DTS captain. The reason behind this was simple - Artstyle, who had been criticized for "non-shining" performances, wanted to play more carry-like heroes instead of being classic captain-support. After these role changes, Artstyle excelled with strength-based semicarry heroes such as Night Stalker or Chaos Knight.
Although Darer was eliminated in the round 2 of the lower bracket at the International 2012, Artstyle's performances were stable. His highlight moment was in the first round of the lower bracket against team aL. Artstyle's Chaos Knight was extremely effective against aL and played a major role in Darer's success.