Fnatic Coach SunBhie Talks About the Difference Between Asian and European Players

The current coach of Fnatic, Lee "SunBhie" Jeong-jae, is among the most experienced coaches in the Dota 2 competitive scene who has dealt with teams in both the Southeast Asia (SEA) and the European (EU) regions. In an interview with Daniel “MrBigJams” Offen on the Position Six podcast 110, SunBhie described the differences between the players of the two regions stating that the Asian players require a little more monitoring than those of the EU. The Asian players, SunBhie discovered, were also quite talented but lacked direction. As such, he had particularly returned home to coach a SEA team in 2019 after spending time coaching Team Secret for more than two years.

SunBhie talks about Asian Dota 2 Players and his return to SEA

SunBhie had established himself as a top tier Dota 2 coach following his time with Team Secret from 2017 to 2019 where the team won the MDL Disneyland® Paris Major, the Chongqing Major, and placed 4th at The International 9 (TI9). After that, SunBhie, who is a South Korean, returned to SEA to coach Fnatic.

SunBhie explained his discovery that European players are different than Asian players, saying:

“Asians, they have the discipline but it almost needs to be forced or topped down. They are more used to being topped down. So it’s like, “Hey guys, go ahead and grind games, and if they don’t, they are not in their best shape. The European players are artsier, more self managed. From what I understand, for the Asian players, it’s much easier to tell them, “Yeah, check this out. Go play games. Go grind eight games a day or whatever.” And they are like, “Yeah Okay.” And they do it and they are in good shape, you know. That is it. I think there’s something about discipline.”

It was with TnC Gaming that SunBhie had his first major coaching experience, although it was for a very short time. Following Team Secret, his decision to coach a team in the SEA region, Fnatic, was influenced by personal reasons.

Players in SEA are extremely serious about Dota 2, which he admires, but they lack guidance, and SunBhie thought he could help them with that.

“I purposely wanted to be in SEA because it’s the region with the most amount of raw talent that requires a bit of direction, guidance that I feel I could lend. That’s like where my edge could prevail although I am sure, I have enough confidence that I could work with any team and in any role that is important to the team’s success. I like SEA, I like SEA a lot because people are really serious about the craft of Dota and they take it seriously.”

According to SunBhie, if SEA players and teams played more international events and faced teams from other regions, they would improve significantly.

Fnatic and SunBhie had a tumultuous Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season this year but managed to book a spot at TI10 by reigning supreme in TI10’s SEA qualifier. The team will soon be seen in action at the BTS Pro Series S7: SEA, which is currently underway and runs until August 15, 2021.