Cover-Credits:
Tundra Esports’ carry and The International 2022 (TI11) champion Oliver "skiter" Lepko recently talked about the possibility of meeting Icefrog after winning TI11 amongst other things during an interview. Following Tundra Esports’ championship win in Singapore, the roster decided to stick together for the upcoming season as well taking a well-deserved break during the off-season.
While skiter can been seen live streaming a few times during the off-season, he also joined Janne "Gorgc" Stefanovski’s stream coverage of the Western Europe (WEU) Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) Open & Closed Qualifiers as a guest along with teammate Leon "Nine" Kirilin.
Skiter looks forward to meeting the man behind Dota 2 in real life
While Oliver "skiter" Lepko spent most of the season live-streaming & taking a well-deserved break, he also allocated some time to do an interview with Slovakian caster Peter “c1RcA” Trávnik.
While the duo mainly talked about Tundra Esports’ win amongst other things during the hour-long interview, the carry player also talked about Dota 2’s lead developer Icefrog and rumors surrounding the developer’s involvement in the recent patches. However, he also believes that the upcoming major patch will be a game-changer following Icefrog’s rumored return to the Dota 2 development team.
"Icefrog had not been working on DOTA much the past two years, according to rumors. That's why there weren't any big changes to the map or economics. Icefrog supposed to be back since the last patch so we can expect bigger changes again"
Skiter also stated that he will be looking forward to meeting Icefrog in real life in 2023, following Tundra Esports’ TI11 championship win as the roster gets to meet with the man responsible for the game itself.
"Valve also told us that we can meet Icefrog, I mean as Tundra Esports (because of the TI victory) not sure when, but probably next year."
Many within the community had doubts regarding Icefrog’s involvement in the recent patches, as they believed that the recent patches lacked some sort of “wow-factor” that makes the game interesting. This includes popular livestreamer Gorgc, who pretty much confirmed the rumors regarding Icefrog’s absence however was surprised to see skiter, a recent TI champion leaking the information.
As of now, skiter & Tundra Esports are preparing to defend their TI title in 2023 as it will be playing in the first division of the WEU DPC 2023, with their first match of the year being against OG next week.
