Cover-Credits:
Sébastien "Ceb" Debs is one of the most accomplished offlaners in Dota 2 history with two back to back The International (TI) title wins under his belt. Having retired from competitive Dota 2 in November 2021, Ceb, in on of his Twitch livestreams, spoke about who he deems to be the top three offlaners in Dota 2 at the moment. Ceb considers Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov, the reigning TI champion, to be Dota 2's best offlaner at the moment, followed by PSG.LGD's Zhang "Faith_bian" Ruida. He explained how he had noticed Collapse's talent long before he won TI10 at a time when most of the other players were talking about household names like Ludwig "zai" Wåhlberg and Daryl Koh "iceiceice" Pei Xiang.
Collapse is the best offlaner in Dota 2 at the moment, according to Ceb
During his livestream on 25th Jan 2022, Ceb responded to a viewer’s question regarding who is the best offlaner in Dota 2 currently. Just like many in the community, Ceb also believes that Collapse belongs at the top of the list. He claimed to have figured out Collapse's caliber when Team Spirit had failed to qualify for the DPC 2021's first major. After Collapse, Faith_bian and Nigma Galaxy's Ivan Borislavov "MinD_ContRoL" Ivanov are Ceb's other top offlaners.
“Best position three? It’s probably Collapse. Collapse and Faith_bian, I think. It’s funny because I was telling my team when Team Spirit didn’t even qualify for the first DPC season. I think they didn’t make it out of the groups if I recall correctly. I was telling my teammates that this Collapse guy is one of the best offlaners I have seen. I think he was in my top three with Faith_bian. Everybody was praising zai, iceiceice - all the big names. I was like - no no, it’s Collapse, Faith_bian…and MC (MinD_ContRoL). I am always an MC fan. And then Collapse won TI. Easy.”
Team Spirit not only had a great run at TI10, but when viewed from a macro perspective, the team also had the best growth curve throughout DPC 2021. As Ceb pointed out, in the first league of the DPC 2021 in February 2021, Team Spirit had finished fourth in its region, failing to secure a spot at the Singapore Major 2021. Though the team played at the second Major, it had to eventually qualify for TI10 by going through the regional qualifiers.
Ceb mentioned that for a significant portion of the community, Collapse only became a top offlaner after the win at TI10. However, emphasized that Collapse was already a great player for him long before TI10.
“Zai is super good. Don’t get me wrong but it’s an easy pick, right? It’s harder to pick a guy who does not make it out of the DPC group. Of course, now, everybody says that Collapse is super good and everybody looks cool, he won TI. I was a Collapse fan before it was cool, that’s what I am trying to say.”
Ceb was also asked about Tundra Esports' offlaner Neta "33" Shapira, who recently found significant success with his team. Clearly stating that this was based on his own personal preferences, Ceb stated that 33 is a good player, but Ceb does not believe him to be as versatile as other offlane players like Collapse.
“Yeah, 33 is good. It’s a different style. I think he is not as versatile as Collapse is. I respect versatility because to me, it’s a testimony of pure understanding of Dota. 33 is very niche. He is a very strong player of course but he has his own zone, you know. And some players are different like MC, zai, Collapse. But that is just what I like in a player, right? I am not rating them or anything like that. It’s a matter of tastes.”
In contrast to Ceb's claims, it was generally believed that during TI10 Collapse, despite being a top offlaner, was a player with a limited hero pool that revolved around Magnus, Mars, and Tidehunter. On the topic of Collapse's versatility Ceb responded to this Twitch chat by saying he actually believes Collapse to be versatile, and as a player competing at such a high level of Dota 2, he is capable of playing any hero. He suggested that it might just be the case of some of his heroes not being very strong in the current meta.
Ceb, having stepped away from the competitive side of things, has been livestreaming Dota 2 a great deal in the past few days, chatting with his fans about playstyles, giving some lessons, and commenting on various topics.
