Cover-Credits:
With four Major titles and two The International (TI) titles, Johan "N0tail" Sundstein is the most decorated Dota 2 player in history. He won his first of these six championships at the Frankfurt Major in November 2015. As N0tail explained in a recent OG podcast, this was the moment that defined his Dota 2 career. His career up to that point was filled with hard work but it had not resulted in trophies, and as a consequence, he was on the verge of giving up. However, N0tail cited that he stayed the course, won the Frankfurt Major with OG, and eventually climbed to the top.
N0tail speaks on the impact the Frankfurt Major victory had on his Dota 2 career
From the time he switched from Heroes of Newerth to Dota 2 in early 2012 all the way up till the Frankfurt Major of November 2015, N0tail had played for some of the best teams in Europe but without significant and extended success. “I want to say I tried from the beginning to do right by myself and by others and be a good player and to then have not felt like I got enough out of it and sacrificed so much and had it was so hard that you know, I almost didn’t go for it. I almost didn’t go for the next run, the next season - OG, Frankfurt, and all that,” he said.
By the time the Major rolled around, N0tail had formed OG (formerly (monkey) business) with Tal "Fly" Aizik a couple of months prior to the event and had recruited relatively inexperienced players. Based on all these circumstances, N0tail acknowledged that the Frankfurt Major was a critical period for his Dota 2 career. He needed things to come together, and they thankfully did.
“I must have been 21 at the time. I think if I wouldn’t have won Frankfurt, if that part of my Dota career would not have gone well, I wouldn't be here telling a story of how I got out on the other side happy. Because at that moment it had been half a year with C9, getting kicked from Team Secret after making it and going really hard and really trying hard with Fnatic for almost three years. Yeah, eventually struck through it. It took everything,” N0tail said in OG’s Monkey Business Show.
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In the aftermath of winning the Frankfurt Major, N0tail began to believe in himself. His attitude changed completely from wanting to retreat from Dota 2 to now wanting to give it his all.
“Yeah, that was definitely my redemption arc for me. I started believing in myself. I started feeling that this became worth it, that Dota was a thing I wanted to fully immerse myself into from almost being at the point of like - I don’t want to do this anymore, I can’t do it. I actually don’t know what I would have done at that moment but yeah, that was probably my crossroad. That moment, I had to really change something and it started out really well, couldn’t have for anything better.”
Furthermore, he applauded his OG team's effort at the Frankfurt Major, which laid the foundation for the second leg of his career. “I mean the Frankfurt run and I mean the team we had like - the energy and the motivation that was put into it was super inspiring and definitely continued my career in the direction it went,” he said.
From the Frankfurt Major in November 2015 to TI9 in August 2019, N0tail was the only player to be present in all editions of the OG roster that won four Majors and two TIs. Considering all these achievements, he is not only the richest player in Dota 2 history but is the richest in all of esports ($7,183,837 USD) when it comes to prize money as per esports earnings.
Sitting on the inactive roster of OG, N0tail currently serves as the mentor for the current squad and also focuses towards content creation for the organization.
