How N0tail’s team made Dota 2 history with the power of friendship
Player Images by Valve | Illustration by Mineski.net
There’s a self-confessed, die-hard OG fan in our office who refused to dream during last year’s Dota 2 world championship. Every time The International season approaches, one of our traditions is to bet for our chosen Aegis of Champions bearer—no-nonsense friendly game; just place your wager and collect the pot if your team comes out on top. However, this guy, the only one who we knew would whole-heartedly trust in OG through thick and thin, had other things in mind.
“My heart is with my boys, but my money is with Team Liquid,” I recall him say when I asked why won’t he bet for OG to win The International 2018.
It was understandable even for a dedicated supporter like my officemate. Ever since the introduction of the Dota Pro Circuit two years ago, OG was hardly picked as the favorites to win anything anymore. Couple that with Fly and S4’s dramatic departure for Evil Geniuses, only to be replaced by Ceb, whose last foray as a professional player was basically forgotten, and Topson, a European pub star infamously known for his unorthodox item choices, several weeks before the start of the qualifiers, not betting on OG is really smartest, yet undeniably less loyal, thing to do as their fan.
But, as we know it, OG won, nonetheless.
“I didn’t know that they can win it all. I’m already happy as long as they don’t end up getting the last place. At the end of the day, though, I still didn’t believe in them enough,” my colleague explained.
A Test of Faith
One year after, OG entered the ninth iteration of The International as the defending champions yet they are still hardly the favorites to win it all. Their rather mediocre Dota Pro Circuit performance, although better compared to last year, as well as the fact that they are the defending champions, and no team has ever won the Aegis of Champions twice, didn’t help change this fact.
The OG that the world saw in the group stage of The International 2019, however, was far from the OG that struggled throughout the entire season. In their group, they were the weakest Dota Pro Circuit direct invitee in terms of rankings, yet they still managed to finish the four-day group stage on top of the season’s leaders such as Virtus.pro, Vici Gaming, and Evil Geniuses.
But we can’t simply talk about OG’s run in the group stages without mentioning the insanity that is Ana’s carry Io. For so long, the Wisp was considered to be a broken hero until Valve seemed to have finally balanced the overpowered-ness out of the shining ball of light after a series of debuffs and adjustments on its talent tree. The nerf was so successful that Io wasn’t even considered to be a candidate for the Most Banned Hero category in The International 2019 Battle Pass Compendium.
Then came the Australian superstar who reinvented Io’s playstyle just because he feels like playing it. Initially, the draft can be considered as experimental, since it’s only the group stages, and the group stages are where strategies like support Invoker, offlane Ogre Magi, and, well, carry Io come out. However, after sweeping their European brothers with two carry Io games, the viability of the hero as a carry has been slowly established and eventually immortalized.
RELATED: OG’s Ana Reinvents Io as a Carry
Ana finished their campaign as the first-ever back-to-back, two-time The International champions with a 100% win rate as Io in six games. Sure, a factor that greatly contributes to this achievement is his almost inhumane mechanical skills, but being able to play carry Io is only one thing—your teammates being able to play with a carry Io is definitely another.
OG’s coach, Sockshka, reportedly said that the team never practiced the strategy during their scrims. On the official Russian broadcast of The International 2019, XBOCT, a former world champion-turned-Dota 2-talent, narrated how Sockshka told him that the questionable, yet obviously effective, pick only came to life during the very moment N0tail went with it against Ninjas in Pyjamas in the second day of the world championship’s group stages. Ana wanted it, and OG gave it because they trust him.
An Homage to the Very Spirit of Dota
Ana’s carry Io, however, was not the sole instance where OG tried to break the established metagame trends. Topson has been spotted playing mid as Earth Spirit, Bristleback, and Tidehunter, before his Diffusal Blade-equipped Gyrocopter against Team Liquid in the final game of the grand finals. Meanwhile, JerAx was able to play Techies, together with N0tail’s Batrider, against Vici Gaming in the group stages.
In terms of versatility and gameplay, OG seems to be running a familiar brand of Dota patented by the very spirit of the game themselves, Wings Gaming. Wings Gaming were a bunch of kids who entered the professional scene in 2016 from out of nowhere. They dominated, for the most part, and were even immortalized as The International 2016 champions. One year after, unfortunately, the team was forced to disband because their organization wasn’t ‘professional enough’.
RELATED: The Spirit of Dota
Watching them play Dota is an unforgettable and irreplaceable experience. As their fan, I can honestly say that no team was able to come close to Wings Gaming until OG.
For a team game like Dota 2, it’s rather ironic how often we talk about individual efforts or errors whenever we talk about a match. The Fountain Hook. The Filipino Huskar. Cliffteezy. S4’s million-dollar Dream Coil. Universe’s six-million-dollar Echo Slam. Miracle’s 10-million-dollar Omnislash.
Don’t get me wrong though, there’s definitely nothing wrong with that, and that’s how it really has been in sports. However, this is also why we are always in awe whenever a team emerges as champions because of their teamwork and symphonic execution of playstyle, and not solely due to a particularly high-profile player’s MVP-esque performance.
Take a good look at Wings Gaming’s roster during their heyday. Maybe aside from Shadow and Faith_bian, none of their players can be considered to be the very best on their position. The same goes for OG last year. Take ana and JerAx away from the equation, then take a good look at each of their players individually and tell me if you’ll consider Topson to be a better mid player than SumaiL, or Ceb to be more consistent as iceiceice in the offlane, or N0tail to be more authoritative as Puppey or Kuroky as a captain. Yeah, I don’t think so, too.
But put them together as a unit and you’ll have the best Dota 2 team in the world.
The Power of Friendship
The title of this section was supposed to be the title of this entire article, until I’ve thought about this meme on my way home from Shanghai, China for The International 2019.
It’s funny and amazing how fitting this is. The narrative of OG’s anime-like run was brought to life last year when they toppled the Chinese powerhouse amidst Fly’s betrayal arc, but they were never associated with Kuroko No Basuke’s Seirin. (Yes, the title of this article is a reference to the English version of the anime, “The Basketball Which Kuroko Plays”, or simply “Kuroko’s Basketball.”) They have an uncanny similarities, aside from being underdogs, OG, like Seirin, is also a team that is based on cliches like teamwork, trust, and friendship.
These characteristics, as corny as they may seem, have brought the team a feat that no one in the history of Dota has ever done. Sure, they are still able to play at the highest level of Dota competition, like literally everyone participating in every The International, after countless hours of practice, but having the guts to coin flip for their upper bracket round one opponent suggests that OG is not in The International to win, instead they are in the most important Dota 2 tournament of the year to celebrate the game that we all love.
Quantifiable metrics alone are not enough to determine the outcome of a competition, and that’s what’s great about a spectator sport like Dota 2. Behind dashing KDAs, jaw-dropping Dota Pro Circuit points, and the all-important win rates are the player’s attitude, emotional stability, and competitive spirit, which are all immeasurable.
My colleague learned this after OG’s victory in The International 2018. That’s why when our annual tradition came once more for this year’s world championship, he proudly dreamed for his boys to win, even though none of us did.
As a great Dota season awaits for us once more, let OG’s hoisting of the Aegis of Champions for the second time in two consecutive years be a wonderful reminder that aside from its unlimited replayability and boundless strategies only waiting to be tested, Dota, in its very core, is only a game that is best when played with friends.
