Cover-Credits:
Adobe | OG |Nemiga Gaming
The current Captain of Entity's Dota 2 squad, Dzmitry "Fishman" Palishchuk, is credited with being the person who game Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf and Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak their first proper break in professional Dota 2.
During a recent interview with Escorenews, Fishman revealed how he discovered ATF and Malr1ne, while also sharing his initial thoughts about the two players who are currently a part of Team Falcons.
In 2021, the three players mentioned above along with Remco "Crystallis" Arets and Aleksandar "Alex" Diklić had formed a Dota 2 team called Creepwave, kickstarting ATF and Malr1ne’s professional Dota 2 careers.
Fishman Reveals How ATF and Malr1ne Started Their Dota 2 Careers
According to Fishman when he discovered Malr1ne, he had nothing to teach him about Dota so instead he taught him how to become a paraprofessional Dota player.
On the other hand, his experience with ATF was completely different, him being a bossy figure right from the start who did not require any guidance about anything.
“We found them in matchmaking,” said Fishman, "We sat down with Crystallis and picked out the players. There was SabeRLight- and ATF. The former was Rank 15 and the latter was Rank 100. We were like: 'ATF is such a meme, spams GG WP, all chats. We should take him.' I wanted to team up with him. We felt like we should get him. We asked SabeRLight- too, I think, but he said no. However, ATF agreed.”
Fishman went on to reveal that they had picked four potential players for the mid lane but ultimately ended up choosing Malr1ne over others due to the enthusiasm he displayed about playing professionally.
“We had three or four options for Malr1ne's spot. Stas didn't have the highest rating. Malr1ne was happy: 'Wow, Fishman is writing'. I remember how I argued that we should take Malr1ne because he wanted to play with us. It's important to me when a person aspires to be on the team. At that point there were better guys than Malr1ne, but they were like, 'Oh, I need to think about it, maybe...'. That's how it worked out,” said Fishman.
Having started their journey with Creepwave, Malr1ne and Crystallis eventually left the team after three months, with ATF leaving them soon after in October after the team disbanded.
Although Creepwave could not achieve much, it set the stage for these young players to be discovered by other bigger teams.
While Crystallis and Fishman were signed by Entity, ATF was signed by OG, and Marl1ne played with other smaller teams, reuniting with ATF after both of them were signed by Team Falcons as part of their debut Dota 2 roster in late 2023.
Now, ATF and Malr1ne are both known in the Dota 2 community, having shown that they are capable of becoming the best players in the world.
Currently, playing for Team Falcons, both players along with the team has been performing exceptionally well since its inception and has won two major tournaments in 2024 so far.
