The tale of Arteezy, the uncrowned king of Dota 2

Whenever it comes to Dota 2 carry players, there is always a certain name both veteran and newbie players can think of in an instant — Arteezy. 

Artour Babaev, better known by his alias “Arteezy” or “天鸽”, is a former position 1 player for Evil Geniuses, currently playing for Shopify Rebellion. Needness to say, he’s been a top-tier player since the start of his career. 

Early Days

Arteezy was what many would consider a prodigy. Coming to the professional Dota scene at a young age, he quickly pioneered a way that carry players would think and play the game. However, due to his age, he had to focus on his studies.

Along with some legendary players from the scene at that time, he created a North American team known as S A D B O Y S in 2014, which became a huge success. The team went undefeated during their run at Electronic Sports Prime and Shock Therapy Cup, making Evil Geniuses sign Arteezy for the first time along with the squad.

Cursed?

Despite being one of the favourites going into The International 2014, EG only placed third at the tournament, getting eliminated by Vici Gaming. After a disappointing finish at TI4, Arteezy left EG to join Team Secret in the summer 2015. 

At Team Secret, Arteezy played a new role that became his role to this day — position 1 (hard carry). Following the transition, Team Secret became an all-star team, debuting their roster at Dota 2 Asia Championship that year and going undefeated in the group stage.

However, in the lower bracket finals, the team got eliminated by Arteezy’s former team EG.

 

Team Secret secured multiple tournaments that followed, including the title at ESL One Frankfurt, and were considered favourites going into The International 2015.

However, at TI5, they were only able to secure a 7th-8th finish after getting eliminated by Virtus Pro. To add salt to the injury, Evil Geniuses were crowned the TI champions that year. 

Considerable choices

After a disappointing result at TI5, Arteezy rejoined Evil Geniuses and the team would secure the top-three placement at multiple tournaments that followed, while only winning The Summit 4. Consequently, Arteezy rejoined Team Secret again going into The International 2016, where the team got eliminated by LGD at the start of their lower bracket run.

Desperate for a Valve title, Arteezy once again left Team Secret and re-joined EG for the third and final time. 

Thirdteezy 

When he was back at Evil Geniuses, the community were quick to notice a weird phenomenon, the team would always place third at every Valve-sponsored event. They traced this curse back to Arteezy and nicknamed him Thirdteezy.

No matter how hard he tried, third was the highest he could get. In an interview from TI8, his EG teammate Syed “Sumail” Hassan replied to the question “What do you think is the biggest thing standing you and the Aegis?” famously: “Artour.” 

Cliffteezy 

The Thirdtheezy curse was broken at ESL One Birmingham 2019, however, there was another curse that the team had not anticipated — Cliffteezy. Going into The International 2019, Arteezy would get cliffed a lot during team fights, and the community once again nicknamed him “Cliffteezy”.

Hope for redemption

Even though Evil Geniuses had their achievements, they couldn’t manage to win a single Valve-sponsored event since Artour rejoined the team. Last year, after their disappointing run at The International 2022, the team announced that they were parting ways with Artour along with the squad. 

On December 9, Shopify Rebellion announced that they will be picking up a former Evil Genius squad together with Arteezy. The team is set to debut on January 10 against Thiuth in NA’s DPC Division I.

The only question that remains is — is Artour really cursed or will he finally get his redemption at Shopify Rebellion and win his first-ever Valve-sponsored event?

Header: Valve