OG Misha: “Usually for OG stand-ins, we give them full freedom to play their heroes…I try to empower what they see and build around it.”

It certainly wouldn’t be an OG Dota 2 game if there weren’t any stand-ins involved. Prior to the start of Week 2 in the 2023 Western Europe Dota Pro Circuit Summer Tour regular season, OG announced that Adam “Aramis” Moroz would stand in for Tommy “Taiga” Le once again for their match against Team Secret.

The move marked the second time the Israeli player would play as a substitute for OG this tour. The first occasion saw him play against Tundra Esports in a 1-2 defeat in Week 1. Contrary to that encounter, OG took down Secret 2-1 to grab their first win of the season and stay in contention for one of the four slots that sends each team to the Bali Major.

Amidst OG’s stream of stand-ins this year, which also included Ivan “MinD_ContRoL” Ivanov and Kartik “Kitrak” Rathi’s involvement during the Berlin Major, there was one person who helped the team navigate through such obstacles and led them to respectable showings despite them: head coach Mikhail “Misha” Agatov.

Following OG’s victory over Secret, Misha talked to Natalie “NatTea” Mahoney, Robson “TeaGuvnor” Merritt and Maurice “KheZu” Gutmann for an interview on how the team went about integrating Aramis for this series and more.

Natalie “NatTea” Mahoney: Congratulations! It was a bit of a tough series [against Secret]. I want to know what the talk was between Game 1 and Game 2 when it comes to drafting. What was the conversation you had [with the team] and what was running through your mind?

Mikhail “Misha” Agatov: We understood that this Monkey King was a big problem that we gave them, and when we had the first pick in Game 3, we decided to ban Monkey King. They grabbed Techies but it was, as you saw, much less valuable. I think Crystallis is so amazing with his heroes and they have to be respected so hard and if you make little mistakes in the draft, he’ll punish you super early, so we kind of adjusted to that.

With Aramis playing and you having a stand-in, how is that drafting going? Is it very much Aramis putting forth some heroes that he wants or is he very comfortable with whatever idea you have for him?

Misha: It’s a mix of both but usually for OG stand-ins, we give them full freedom to play their heroes and I not try to make them pick something in the way I see it. I try to empower what they see and build around it. He’s just picking what he feels like.

Is it difficult to have to do that because OG has had a lot of stand-ins quite recently? Have you had to change a lot of your ideas?

Misha: Yeah, it’s difficult. Of course, even though OG maybe has had a lot of success with stand-ins, we have a good system. We are very good at empowering people and making them feel comfortable. Still, it’s a very tough process for our guys no matter what so it’s not easy.

Robson “TeaGuvnor” Merritt: Regarding the Major, when DM and Chu weren’t playing, were they still working within the coaching system and doing stuff online? What was their role, if they had one, for OG’s success at the Major?

Misha: They were giving advice but they were not coaches. They were writing to me every day about what they thought about the meta and some of the things they were writing were sent to the players themselves. For example, MC was chatting with DM a lot so he could kind of find the flow and stuff and see what heroes are good, but I then decided that it was better to give those guys some time to get in shape because, while they would be watching [those games] all the time, they could no longer be as good mechanically or lose their track of the meta, so I felt it was a better idea to let them play pubs, play a lot, and just have me coach [the team]. Basically, it was just only me. They were giving advice but [they were] not full coaching.

Coming into Tour 3, OG is currently 15th in the DPC with 404 points. Is this something that you spoke with the guys as in “this is the most important season for [us]” or are you treating this as any other tour?

Misha: No, we don’t do that. We have a “next game” mentality. We play one game at a time. We don’t even know where we are in the standings. We just play the game.

Maurice “KheZu” Gutmann: People will focus on many things depending on what kind of coach you are, but what is the one thing that you’ve been focusing on the most lately? What’s been the one aspect where if you help the team with it, it will help them more than anything else?

Misha: From recent, it’s definitely not even drafts. I think the most important [thing] is the game. We’ve been watching a lot of replays. We’ve been watching how some teams strategize, what they do, when they do play with course, when they stack, how you split on the map and we’ve been working on it super hard lately because we had problems. We weren’t doing all the little things and right now, I think I have a big impact in that area in terms on how the game goes, where we play, and which heroes stack together in order to play.

Feature Image Credit: Valve