Can Sumail Help OG Qualify to TI 10?

Right after WePlay AniMajor, ana announced his departure from OG and left the team in a bad situation. Without a carry, Ceb had to find a replacement asap. His choice was Sumail, with whom he has played before. But can he do a better job this time?

Sumail’s Previous Results with OG

Sumail first joined OG at the end of January 2020 and played for them for 6 months. During this time, the team had several good results, but they were all regional and for some reason, the relationship didn’t work out. OG finished 2^nd at ESL One Los Angeles 2020, 3^rd at OGA Dota PIT Season 1, and 2^nd at BLAST Bounty Hunt.

I suspect that OG wasn’t satisfied because their expectations were high. After winning two Tis in a row, they wanted to dominate European Dota. But with some much competition around, that wasn’t going to happen. And in fact, it didn’t happen even after ana re-joined the team.

Sumail’s Qualities and Weaknesses

Sumail is known to be an exceptional player. Individually, he’s one of the best midlaners in the history of the game and his TI 5 title is proof of this. He can also play in the offlane, but it’s not his strongest role.

The main issue, however, is that OG cannot offer him one of his best two roles. He will have to play the carry position and it might not be as easy as it seems. In theory, a midlaner needs to be just as skilled as a carry in order to have a big impact on the game. And the two roles have a good deal in common. But they’re still different in a lot of ways. When your mentality makes you want to make something happen around the map after the 10-minute mark, the act of passively farming may seem unnatural to you.

Sumail is an aggressive midlaner. His mentality is perfect for this role. But how will he deal with the burden of not doing anything important for the first 15-20 minutes? Or with the micro-tactics that decide the safe lane in the first 5-10 minutes of each game?

Can Sumail play the carry role? For sure. But can he do it well enough to carry his team to a victory at the highest competitive level, against the likes of Nigma and Liquid? It remains to be seen.

The First Challenge

Sumail’s first challenge with OG will be ESL One Summer 2021. The tournament starts today, and his team is playing against Gambit. If they win, their second match will be a much tougher opponent: Virtus.pro.

Whatever happens here will let us know a little bit about OG’s new roster and their ability to compete in this formula. Of course, they still have almost 2 weeks until the regional qualifiers for TI. But if it’s to work, it should work right away, especially against the likes of Gambit. Cause if they can’t beat Gambit, how are they going to beat Nigma?

 

Photo credit: Valve