Topson can’t prevent Tundra from getting eliminated at TI12

Tundra Esports showed us that a great start doesn’t mean anything at The International.

The team obtained 7 points out of 8 in group D, defeating opponents like TSM, Talon Esports, and PSG Quest in the process. But when it mattered most, they lost.

Tundra’s defeats

The first defeat came in the Seeding Decider, against nouns. The match was a brutal 2-0 in which Tundra tried to make use of Earth Spirit, Sven, and Invoker, but had an approach that was too simplistic and very predictable.

Nouns, who probably studied Tundra’s group stage matches carefully, figured out exactly how they play and then devised a strategy to beat them. The reason why this was possible is because of Tundra’s decision to compete with a stand-in.

No matter how good your 5^th player is, if the roster hasn’t been playing together for a long enough time, there won’t be enough versatility and a deep enough understanding of what doesn’t work. You’re making all of the errors on the fly, under extreme pressure. And that leads to poor results.

Tundra’s playstyle worked well in the first four matches because nobody had time to study them carefully. And even if they wanted to do it, there were too few games to analyze. But after phase one and a one day break, it was much easier to figure out what they were doing.

In these moments Sneyking always finds the right words to say. Thank you @SneykingGaming @33Dota @RAX_Nine @Skiter @topsondota @Aui_2000

And most importantly thank you to our fans. #Dota2 #TI12 pic.twitter.com/E57XAMMP0i

— TUNDRA (@TundraEsports) October 22, 2023

Topson, despite being a solid player, cannot win games on his own. Dota 2 is a team game that’s won through superior strategy in most cases. Rarely does one man’s individual performance make a decisive impact at the highest level.

We sometimes see Sumail accomplishing this great feat, but even he is not a one-man army. The proof of this is his team’s failure to qualify for TI12.

In the playoffs match against Entity, Tundra were regarded as the better team. And in the first game, they had a 15.000 gold lead at the 22 minute mark. However, in some strange way, they managed to lose that game against a Naga Siren that didn’t look very dangerous at first. But as time went on, Tundra’s squishy heroes couldn’t deal with her anymore.

In game 2, something similar happened. Tundra picked Alchemist, got an 8000 gold lead but couldn’t close the game fast enough. Entity’s Terrorblade got his items and then simply destroyed the entire Tundra lineup.

Header: OG