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Esports
OG finally find their footing again at ESL Katowice 2019
After a quiet start to the DPC season, OG are finding their footing again with a third-place finish at ESL One Katowice. We dive into their return to form.
Shortly after tossing the history textbooks into a bonfire and authoring their own incredible story at The International 8 in August last year, OG were once again down a man when Anathan 'ana' Pham stepped away from Dota to recharge. Without their star carry, who helped them clutch out so many victories, they've since had a quiet start to this year’s Dota Pro Circuit season – but it looks like the phoenix is rising, evidently shown by their form at this weekend’s ESL One Katowice.
If the world has learned nothing else about OG, though, it’s that when they face gale force adversity, they'll embrace the whirlwind. They're no strangers to rebuilding, as their TI8 triumph demonstrated, but ana is not an easy presence to replace and it takes time for a team to coalesce and click as a unit. They first tried to substitute in Per Anders ‘Pajkatt’ Olsson, but the cohesion wasn’t there.
Igor ‘iLTW’ Filatov is now standing in on the team, and the results speak for themselves. Not only is their form rapidly improving, but it’s evident from their games that they're able to play with and around iLTW and put faith in him to do what needs to be done. Slowly but surely, OG are returning to form.
OG are more than capable of incredible clutch plays:
This year’s ESL One Katowice was a major proving ground for the new OG line-up after a period of silence early in the season. In the group stage, they were matched against arguably the current best team in the world, Team Secret, who've claimed silver and gold at the last two majors respectively. OG put the only blemish on their entire tournament record in a best-of-two, showing that same grit that put their names on the Aegis at TI8. Ultimately, it went to a tied series, and their only actual loss in the group was at the hands of Gambit Gaming.
OG fell in the first round of the lower bracket – and this isn’t an unfamiliar place for them. They famously won the Kiev Major from the same position, and on top of a promising group series performance, they ran through Aster and the top two finishers from Group B, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Fnatic.
A particularly sharp understanding of the current meta has arguably taken OG far during this tournament at the Spodek Arena. Johan 'N0tail' Sundstein has prioritised picking Radiant when given the chance just to abuse the extra win percentage Radiant has been enjoying. They've also been drafting synergy-heavy line-ups that prioritise giving their cores multiple steroids on top of the pervasive aura stacking.
OG took down Aster on the way to their third-place finish
© ESL/Helena Kristiansson
iLTW has the trust of his team. There's a marked difference between how a tier-one team like Team Liquid played around a hard carry stand-in like Chu ‘shadow’ Zeyu during The Chongqing Major and how OG played around iLTW. His hero pool is also perfect for an ana-less OG given his best hero of the event was his Ember Spirit.
Speaking of diversity, one criticism that's been levied against Topias 'Topson' Taavitsainen is the shallowness of his hero pool, but ESL One Katowice showed that he's diversifying. It's expanding, and with some rather unorthodox picks for a perennial mid-laner. He's been playing plenty of his signature Invoker, Ember Spirit, and Monkey King, but also Troll, Pugna, Puck, Arc Warden, Vengeful Spirit, and an incredible Tidehunter in his game against Fnatic.
Their run at this year’s ESL One Katowice ended with a respectable third-place finish to Gambit Gaming, a team who've proven to be OG’s kryptonite in recent months. They currently sit 4-0 against OG in series, and 9-0 against them in games, including a match in the group stage at Katowice and the lower-bracket finals. In fact, Gambit were the only team to hand OG a definitive loss this tournament.
All players across the spectrum of esports have demons needling them with pitchforks wherever they go, and the next chapter of OG’s story is likely going to have to be overcoming their mental block against the Katowice runners-up. The two will likely cross paths again soon: Kiev, the site of one of OG's most storied runs prior to this past International, will play host to The StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor next month, where Gambit and OG will both be participating for a berth into the DreamLeague Season 11 Major. But if there’s anything to show, OG are back in fighting form, and it’s still incredibly early to tell where they’ll end up at the end of this season.
