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Team Falcons has been making waves in the Dota 2 community as one of the strongest teams in the current Dota 2 pro scene. Having won the BetBoom Dacha 2024 Dubai, Team Falcons has already secured its first-ever tier 1 tournament victory. Following this, Team Falcons’ carry Oliver "skiter" Lepko got a Hello Kitty face tattoo to honor the promise he had made to Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak.
In a post-game interview with Dota 2 casters Neal "Tsunami" Khandheria and Maurice "KheZu" Gutmann, skiter talked about his wholesome relationship with Malr1ne and also shared some thoughts on Gaimin Gladiators after winning with a clean sweep over GG at DreamLeague Season 22 Group Stage 2.
“He Kinda Makes me Feel Like a Kid Again,” Says skiter on Malr1ne
During a recent interview with Tsunami, skiter enthusiastically talked about his relationship with Marl1ne and was seen with a big smile while doing so. Tsunami brought up the topic of growing Malr1ne’s relationship with skiter and asked him what the partnership of the cores is like.
To which skiter reminiscently replied, “I mean... I don’t know what that is but I think because he is from Russia. But to me when I was growing up, I was growing up with my cousin and we used to fight a lot. And just have like this type of relationship and I haven’t really found that anywhere in Dota or anywhere else before him. So, he kinda makes me feel like a kid again and brings that feeling back to when I was a kid, when I was fighting my cousin. The guy is great for just like non-Dota stuff as well. I actually, I can relate myself to him a lot, I can see myself in him.”
Away from all the nostalgia, KheZu was curious about what skiter thought about Gaimin’s recent struggles with its performance and asked skiter about his thoughts on this.
skiter says Gaimin Gladiators Feels Worse than Last Year
Gaimin Gladiators was one of the biggest teams of 2023, winning multiple majors and making it to the finals of the International 2023. However, compared to last year, GG has been struggling with its performance in 2024 and this was acknowledged by GG’s position five support Melchior "Seleri" Hillenkamp in an earlier interview.
Team Falcons’ skiter also had something to add about GG’s current form. He said, “I don’t think me or my team ever struggled against the Gaimin Gladiators even when they were in their prime. Even though we lost against them in Riyadh, I think to us, they never felt unbeatable. But they definitely feel worse than last year. I mean the reason why that is, I’m not exactly sure. I think a lot of people just learned from them and maybe, they haven’t improved as much as the other teams.”
Team Falcons' victory over Gaimin Gladiators was nothing short of pure domination. The first game's stomp set a tone of domination over GG but GG tried to bounce back in game 2 and tried its best to secure the win but were no match against Malr1ne's Huskar.
Well maybe we should now know that things are expected to get serious when Malr1ne says. "It's Time to Husk."
