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OG's captain, Johan "N0tail" Sundstein, spoke briefly about the decision of the team's former carry, Anathan "ana" Pham, to retire from competitive Dota 2. According to N0tail, the Australian carry became "burnt out" and had lost the motivation to play, so he decided to step away. In addition, N0tail went into detail about when they decided to recruit Ana's replacement, Syed Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan. He explained that the team didn't actually think they would play with SumaiL again but that things fell into their favor when the latter departed from Team Liquid after the WePlay AniMajor. With a lot on the line in the coming days, N0tail also touched upon SumaiL and the team’s current dynamic and motivation levels.
Ana’s retirement was because of burnout
After the 2-0 victory over AS Monaco Gambit in the ESL One Summer 2021, N0tail appeared for the post-match winner’s interview. He went on to explain why ana decided to hang up his gloves and the team's subsequent hiring of SumaiL.
“Ana had kind of burned out, lost motivation to play. You know, we gave it a try, and when that didn’t work, we of course started looking into the future. Everybody was very motivated to play, everybody really wanted to find something that we were really hyped about. Stars aligned for us, I would also say because we didn’t think we had the chance to play with SumaiL again but also as in there were many players that are in teams and were playing at the Major and the timing was going to be really hard to figure out. So, we had it in mind but nothing moved until of course after the Major.”N0tail
The Dota 2 world was caught by surprise on June 14, 2021, when Ana announced his departure from OG and stepped away from the competitive scene. Thanks to the timely recruitment of SumaiL, OG filled the void and won its first game in ESL One Summer 2021.
OG has had a medicore performance in the DPC 2021, not qualifying for either of the two Majors. This meant that the two-time TI champions also failed to directly qualify for TI10. During such a challenging time, N0tail discussed the motivation of SumaiL and other teammates. The players feel good and are trying not to feel a lot of pressure with the TI10 qualifier looming, N0tail said.
“One thing is definitely motivation being high for SumaiL, but for all of us super high. Probably the dynamic right now is also very healthy. I would say we have been dealing with disappointment and kind of underperforming at least in your opinion. But now our mindset is simply to deal with things as a blessing even though we are not at TI yet and we have had a rough reason. We are not out of it, we get to play and we have an opportunity to go to TI. I think everybody just appreciates that and is grateful for that. There’s not a lot of pressure on us. Everybody feels good. Everybody is just playing the game and playing their best.”N0tail
In the coming days, there will be a lot at stake for OG with the TI10 qualifiers beginning on July 7. The two-time TI champions will have to make a flawless run to take the only remaining TI10 slot from the region to have a shot at defending their title in Stockholm, Sweden.
