In the days leading up to The International 10 (TI10), OG faced a harrowing situation when offlaner Sébastien "Ceb" Debs had to undergo emergency eye surgery. Michael "miCKe" Vu of Team Liquid was called in to replace Ceb, in case he was not able to recover in time, but fortunately, that wasn’t the case. JMR Luna, OG's CEO, recently revealed behind the scenes the details of this incident in a conversation with Johan "N0tail" Sundstein. Luna described one particularly intriguing incident where after knowing that Ceb had recovered, miCKe boarded the wrong flight and landed in Bucharest, Romania instead of going back home!!
OG’s CEO and N0tail recollect Ceb and miCKe’ stand-in situation at TI10
In the week preceding TI10, Ceb suffered a retinal detachment and was only a few hours away from losing his vision entirely. His chances of making it to TI10 were slim since he had flown to Paris for emergency surgery.
In Episode 2 of OG's Monkey Business Show, Luna and N0tail explained how devastated they were to hear about Ceb’s predicament. As a result, they contacted Team Liquid, and miCKe was asked to travel to them the next morning as a potential stand-in. Based on a past eye surgery that Ceb had undergone, N0tail was very skeptical about Ceb recovering in time, and all their thoughts had shifted towards miCKe.
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Nevertheless, Ceb's ability to recover and eventually play at TI10 not only surprised the fans, but also his teammates. “Ceb didn’t say he was coming until the morning that we were actually leaving, I think. We were all waking up, we were all going to the airport so I flew by myself there. MiCKe was coming and Ceb said, “I am going. I’ll be there tomorrow” and we were like - what?” said Luna.
As a result, OG had to talk to miCKe again, who was very understanding of the situation as per Luna. “So, we sat down and talked to miCKe. MiCKe was obviously a super gentleman, he said - whatever you guys need, obviously, I understand this is Ceb’s dream, but now the tricky part happens.”
In the midst of everything that was happening, Luna described how their mistake resulted in miCKe being sent to Bucharest, Romania, where TI10 was held, instead of him getting back home!
“So, we had two flight tickets for miCKe because we had one to Romania and then we had one for him to go back home. But by the time he went to the airport, he checked in on the wrong one. I am going to take responsibility. We checked him on the wrong one and then he actually went to Bucharest instead of going home. So, miCKe went to Bucharest, slept in the hotel next to the airport, and then flew back!”
Ceb eventually made it to Bucharest, Romania in time and OG played at TI10 with its full squad. In the attempt to break its own record and win the largest Dota 2 event for the third time, OG was denied the opportunity by Team Spirit and ended up finishing seventh-eighth. Team Spirit eventually became the TI10 champs.
MiCKe’s Team Liquid had failed to secure a spot at TI10. Team Liquid then returned to competitive action in the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) 2021-22 Tour 1 in November 2021 and recently finished as the Western European (WEU) Division 1’s top seed.
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