OG 3-0 Team Aster to win ESL One Malaysia

Even without Sebastien “Ceb” Debs and Mikhail “Misha” Agatov, OG won the ESL One Malaysia 2022 — a very important Dota 2 tournament that featured some of the top teams like Team Liquid, Team Secret, Entity, Nigma Galaxy, and Team Aster.

This was a demonstration of strength on the side of OG, who showed the world that as long as the masterminds behind the team know what they’re doing, the roster representing the team doesn’t necessarily have to be invariable.

OG’s success at ESL One Malaysia

It feels surreal to see a team at this competitive level winning with a partly improvised roster. Normally, you would think that months or even years are required to fully solidify a group of players and teach them how to think as one. But in OG’s case, the process seems to have happened a lot faster.

The team started the tournament with serious roster issues, facing strong opposition in group B: Fnatic, Nigma, TSM, BOOM Esports, and Liquid. With the exception of BOOM, nobody managed to defeat OG in this group. In fact, only TSM managed to draw against them. Meanwhile, Fnatic, Liquid, and Nigma lost.

Despite winning game one in the playoffs, OG started with a defeat against Clement “Puppey” Ivanov’s squad Team Secret. Unfortunately for Artem “Yuragi” Golubiev and his crew, games two and three saw Secret pick heroes capable of dealing an enormous amount of damage while being assisted by a terrifying Enigma.

This sent OG to the lower bracket, where instead of succumbing to pressure, they won match after match by picking a lot of aggressive early-game heroes such as Viper and Dark Willow.

For some reason, a lot of teams tried to make the Razor work at this tournament, and almost all of them failed. OG took a slightly different approach and picked heroes that were able to contribute a lot even with very little farm. And they mostly relied on team play to get the job done. In the lower bracket final, OG first eliminated Fnatic with a 2-1 score and then smashed Secret 2-0.

Grand Final

In the Grand Final, OG faced Team Aster. The Chinese squad seemed to be the clear favorite, but OG surprised them with their drafts.

In game one, they picked Omnknight and Shadow Fiend, two heroes we’ve rarely seen this year. In game two, they picked Techies! And in game three they went with Phantom Assassin and Puck. Each time, the game was long and difficult but OG won in the end. The final score was 3-0 in their favor.

Header: OG