Arteezy Discusses Playing With Mikey at Dreamleague Season 19

Shopify Rebellion has enjoyed an impressive performance at thr Dreamleague season 19 so far, winning against some of the best teams in the world and looking like one of the top contenders to win the tournament. The team is playing with a stand-in, Kasra "Mikey" Mesbah as its midlaner, since Abed "Abed" Yusop was unable to attend due to pending visa issues. In the post-match interview after a 2-0 victory over Gaimin Gladiators, Artour “Arteezy” Babaev revealed the team’s strategies about how they are currently playing around their stand-in Mikey.

The team is playing around Mikey to make him comfortable

When asked about how the team worked around to play with Mikey on such short notice, Arteezy commented on how they made him feel comfortable in playing the game. “For sure, we had to do a lot of work. We had to figure out a lot of things we could do to make him more comfortable. We didn’t really scrim at all, so it was kind of like every game we played, it was an attempt to try and figure out what we can do better in the draft or like how he plays. He plays really well when he’s comfortable so we just try to make it so that he can play his own game and us 4 can work around it. So that's why some games look really random for us. We don't know what to expect either sometimes,” Arteezy said.

Arteezy also responded to another question regarding whether changing their strategies for Mikey was a positive experience for the team and how it can be applied when Abed is back. “Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s the biggest takeaway for this tournament for us. We learned a lot about how to play different heroes and play around different mid heroes, kind of like play according to different styles, or like when we play against xyz, now we have a better understanding. I feel like this was a giant win for us regardless of how we do, honestly. Having a stand-in like Mikey because it's a very different view of mid. So yeah, I feel like it was very helpful for us and it's gonna help us a lot for the Major (Berlin Major 2023),” he added to his initial response

Shopify Rebellion has been performing exceptionally well considering that the team is playing without their midlaner Abed and with Mikey coming in as a stand-in. After making it to the second group stage of Dreamleague Season 19, the team seems to be losing steam as it is currently at the bottom of the standings. Moving forward the team will have to win its next few series to qualify for the playoffs, as only the top four will advance, while the bottom four will be eliminated.