The 20-year-old Malaysian carry saves Mineski-Dota’s season
Ahjit Image via FNATIC/Illustration via Mineski.net
There weren’t really much to talk about Mineski-Dota aside from the fact that they have had a horrible opener. They went into the 2018-19 Dota Pro Circuit with no trace of their undisputed dominance over Southeast Asia last season. While TNC Predator and Fnatic Dota were out keeping Southeast Asia afloat, the dethroned King of SEA was losing games against teams that they should have been thrashing.
But then Ahjit happened. In his first official game with his new team, Mineski-Dota single-handedly won their game against Ohaiyo’s Lotac at the regional qualifiers of the DreamLeague Season 11 with a 32-2 scoreline. Not only he filled in the gap left by JT-, the Malaysian rising star also redeemed the Southeast Asia-based squad from the depths of irrelevance.
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Mineski-Dota never left, but somehow, they managed to come back. They missed two sets of Minor and Major tournaments, and the most logical explanation that allowed the struggling team to break this dry spell and finally secure their first LAN appearance of the season was their latest roster adjustment—JT- out Ahjit in.
At a glance, JT- may seem to be the problem and Ahjit’s phenomenal performance—finishing four games with zero death on his name while making sure his gold per minute and experience per minute never dip below the 600-mark—only solidified this argument further. However, in terms of numbers, JT-’s last 10 regional qualifier matches post-pieliedie acquisition aren’t really that far compared to Ahjit’s first 10 regional qualifier matches.
The same can be said regarding Mineski-Dota’s overall performance. The addition of Ahjit surely saw a drastic improvement in their results, but numbers-wise, only the death and game time averages were conspicuously ameliorated.
Before joining Mineski-Dota, JT-, a young hopeful whose first documented professional endeavor was only two years ago, was actually Geek Fam’s offlaner. Ahjit, on the other hand, is a natural carry. As a professional Dota 2 player since 2015, the 20-year-old wunderkind has already represented the region in various tournaments, including the grandest one, The International, two years back.
As a carry, it is one’s duty to farm gold, apply pressure on enemy lines, be one of the team’s main source of damage, and lead your team to victory. These are the fundamentals, but it should not be enough to just know this. This where their differences become more evident—JT- knows this, but Ahjit is still a far more experienced and knowledgeable carry.
Just like Mineski-Dota, JT- is back too at his natural state. He was loaned out to Newbee as their new offlaner. But unlike Mineski-Dota, Newbee and JT- have yet to return to their dominant state as their failure to attend Dota Pro Circuit events continues at the Chinese qualifiers of the third Major tournament.
Mineski-Dota still has a lot of catching up to do, and time is hardly on their side. They need to start getting all the Dota Pro Circuit points that they can lay their hands on if they want to qualify to get directly invited to The International 2019. For sure, though, that’s going to be a lot easier now, especially with Ahjit on their side.
