N0tail wins against Fly at The International 2018
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N0tail and Fly met each other through playing video games when they were 14. Their professional Dota 2 journies have started in 2012 under the European gaming organization of Fnatic. It was amidst the rise of Dota 2’s professional scene and the downfall of Heroes Newerth’s, a competitive gaming title that both of them were former professional players of.
They have been competing together long enough to be heralded by the Dota 2 community as brothers—a bond which surpassed that of being mere teammates or even best friends. They were a part of the original Dota 2 roster of Team Secret before founding (monkey) Business and reforming it into a team popularly known for its multi-Major championship titles, OG, in 2015.
The International 2018 was supposed to be the fifth grand Dota 2 tournament that will be participated by Fly and N0tail as teammates if not for the massive roster shuffle that struck OG and Evil Geniuses. After almost three years with the team that he co-founded with N0tail, Fly opted to leave for the North American gaming organization.
READ: Fly, S4, Leave OG For EG
This wasn’t the first time that the iconic duo of Fly and N0tail got broken up to play for different teams. In 2014, after receiving the boot from Team Secret, Fly became a journeyman. He transferred from one team to another, while his usual partner found a home in Cloud9. They even faced each other at the group stage of The International 2015 with Fly’s team, compLexity Gaming, coming out on top of N0tail.
Since patch 6.74 up to the latest version of Dota 2, Fly and N0tail have played 1454 games together with an astounding win rate of 62.31%. On the contrary, prior to their quarterfinals match at upper bracket of The International 2018, Fly and N0tail have recorded a total of seven matches against each other.
This time is nowhere near the last time Fly and N0tail had to compete against each other. In an interview at The International 2018, N0tail made it crystal clear that what has transpired between his long-time Dota 2 duo is personal and is none of anybody’s business.
Despite keeping the Dota 2 community in the shadows, N0tail made a massive hint about their feud after OG kicked EG down in the lower bracket of The International 2018 in a nail-biting 2-1 series. During the post-game ceremony, N0tail gave Fly a quick yet firm handshake while staring dead into his soul. The Dota 2 community interpreted N0tail’s actions as his way of saying how Fly was wrong to choose EG over their friendship and OG.
The Fly-led EG is now set to fight for their tournament lives against the eventual winner between Virtus.pro and OpTic Gaming. Meanwhile, N0tail’s OG secured top 3, the highest place which the Dota 2 organization was able to reach since their debut at The International 2016.
