esports
We now know Team OG as the all-conquering double winners of The International, but back in 2018, before TI8, things were looking very different indeed.
The snapshot:
The founding member of OG, Johan 'N0tail' Sundstein, has dominated the multiplayer online battle arena video game Dota 2 since it started.
But in 2018, going into the International 8, the annual Dota 2 world championship tournament, it was hard to think of a team competing that could have been considered more of an outside bet than OG. However, with a new-look lineup and some relatively untested new players, they fought tooth and nail all the way to the grand final, where they lifted Dota 2's Aegis for the first time.
The big picture:
In the grand scheme of things, Team OG were by no means the little guy here. They'd been around a while and they'd won their share of prize money, but it's easy to forget that they'd been largely written off after an indifferent season and a series of high-profile departures that rocked the team meant they couldn't secure a direct invite. Instead they had to make their way through the European qualifiers with a hastily cobbled-together roster.
Once qualified, life didn't get any easier, but by now the team had begun to gel. With lowered expectations and lowered pressure, the team were free to express themselves. "This TI has felt different from other tournaments," N0tail observed. "Everyone feels free to play without shackles. No nerves. No pressure."
They clawed their way through a stacked upper bracket and the grand final saw them up against the tournament favourites, PSG.LGD. They were forced to come from behind in every one of the five epic games, eventually triumphing 3–2.
The departures:
What perhaps made this more of a personal triumph for N0tail is that among those aforementioned departures was Tal 'Fly' Aizik. Fly and N0tail were both founder members of OG and had come up together as pros. When Fly left in late May, it meant the end of one of the longest-standing partnerships in esports. That he would no longer be playing alongside a man he'd described as "like a brother" must have been tough enough, without also having to play against him twice with his new team, Evil Geniuses, during the tournament.
Everyone feels free to play without shackles. No nerves. No pressure
The legacy:
After fighting and coming from behind in every game of the final at TI8, the following year saw a far more dominant performance from OG, as they swept all before them to become the first team to lift the Aegis in consecutive years.
