Cover-Credits:
The three young players on OG's revamped Dota 2 roster - Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf, Bozhidar "bzm" Bogdanov, and Artem "Yuragi" Golubiev - recently played their first significant LAN event at the Gamers Galaxy Invitational Series 2022 in Dubai. During the post-match winner's interview, after their victory over Nigma Galaxy in Tour 2 of the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) 2021-22, OG's 20-year-old carry player Yuragi recalled their experience at the Gamers Galaxy 2022. Despite being the first LAN event for them, where players tend to fumble, Yuragi stated that they didn't get stressed out and simply focused on the game.
Yuragi says OG did not experience too much stress at the Gamers Galaxy 2022
During the first week of March, Gamers Galaxy 2022 brought together the best teams from around the world for the first third party LAN event in two years. The LAN event was also a first for young squads like OG and BOOM Esports. Some of their players had in fact never previously participated in one.
In the post-match winner's interview after the dominant DPC victory over Nigma on 15th March, Yuragi was asked how the team felt about participating at the Gamers Galaxy. In addition to saying they enjoyed the event, he also mentioned despite it being their first LAN event they did not panic or feel stressed.
“I think it was a great event. We all enjoyed it. I don’t think it was actually a hard experience or something. We didn’t panic, we didn’t stress like - first LAN or whatever. Just played the game and was nothing extraordinary.”
OG started off well in the group stage at the Gamers Galaxy, but then lost back-to-back series - first to Nigma, and then to Team Spirit in the playoffs to finish in 5th-6th place.
At the event, OG missed its captain Mikhail "Misha" Agatov, and coach Evgenii "Chuvash" Makarov had to fill in. Yuragi said that the stand-in situation, however, was a valuable learning experience for the team, especially for Misha and Chuvash. “I think it helped both ways - for coach and for Misha to see the team from outside. It was a good experience,” he said.
Before this interview, OG registered a 2-0 win over Nigma, with the second game demonstrating an unconventional yet effective Vengeful Spirit carry pick. Continuing the tradition set by the previous OG roster, this new one also regularly generates such new, intriguing ideas.
According to Yuragi, such drafts resulted from the input of each of the five players, and not one person taking charge of the process.
“I mean we all are bringing up some heroes. One of these heroes was just picked up in the scrims, improvisation you know. But the patch as a whole didn’t change that much I think so some old heroes, some new heroes are still there. Some new heroes are getting here. We all are bringing some heroes discussions and it’s very open,” he said.
OG will next exhibit its strategies and gameplay in the DPC 2021-22 Tour 2 against Team Liquid on 19th March.
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