trackingdota2players

MDL is almost over! Tonight EG is going up against OG in the loser bracket final which means that whatever teams wins that matchup goes up against EHOME in the grand final. Being as EG is doing their typical thing and losing early in the tournament then winning their way through the lower bracket I decided to focus on one of their standout players today.

Arteezy. RTZ. Allison. Babyrage. YB. Helena Live? Recently Margaret Thatcher. But if you sat next to him on the bus you would call him Artour Babaev.

You might ask why I choose to focus on Arteezy when I could focus on literally any other player on EG. SumaiL for being the young star. PPD with his insane drafts. Universe making game winning plays from the offlane. Or Fear using his experience to make heads up moves. I could and may very well choose to focus on one of those players later but today is reserved for Artour. Before I explain that lets give a little background.

Artour “Arteezy” Babaev is a Canadian mid/carry player who originally hails from Uzbekistan. He played the original Dota and was involved in the competitive scene on and off until he stood in for bOne7 in Speed Gaming at MLG Columbus. This was his big breakout because it was there that the defeated several very big mid players including Mushi and Dendi one on one. Let me say that you don’t defeat Dendi mid and no one notices.

So after that he decided that he could postpone school and instead focus on his professional Dota 2 career. He joined the newly formed team SadBoys which after incredible success became the current EG. But after a disappointing 3rd place finish at TI4 he left the team to join the brand new Team Secret. Here we would find RTZ playing less mid and more of the carry role. While Secret had an incredible debut at the Asia Championships the momentum wouldn’t last forever. There were personality clashes inside the team between Artour and the german player Kuroky so after a disappointing finish by the team at TI5 which they really expected to win Arteezy left Team Secret to return to Evil Geniuses as their carry player.

In the intervening time though EG the American team he had left and would eventually return to won TI5. Immediately after they won the largest tournament in the world though the captain PPD made the decision to kick their support player Aui2000 so that RTZ could return. This would mean that Artour is now the only player on this team who has not won an International and no one lets him forget it.

So now we now that we know all about his past we have to ask what makes him so special that I decided to focus on him today? The answer is two-fold. First is in game he can make some incredible plays. Go on youtube and look up Arteezy highlights and you won’t be disappointed. Second is his personality. Seriously it was inevitable that I would have to focus on him at some point. He just has this attitude that you either love or hate but you cannot ignore.

We’re going to talk in game first though. You don’t get invited to standin for a team like Speed Gaming in the first place unless you’re an impressive player. Whether you watch RTZ’s stream or just his professional matches you’ll see that he’s always doing more. Stacking ancient camps with a HoTD creep or microing his manta illusions to get last hits when he plays carry Artour knows how to make his GPM skyrocket. Or even on more play making heroes theres the highlight of him at MLG Columbus getting a timber kill with timber while the casters yell that its “Too EZ for RTZ.” Which definitely has a nice ring to it by the way.

Okay I’ll be honest I took my own advice. In order to get a few specific examples of some really game winning plays he’s made I looked up some of his highlights on youtube. That was half an hour ago. I just got lost looking at everything he’s done. You forget how nuts he went while standing in for Speed Gaming. How much of a micro king he was on naga during his first stint with EG. How dominating his shadow fiend was in the group stages at DAC. And don’t even get me started about the game vs Cloud9 when he just ratted the base as Lycan! RTZ knows how to win a lane, win a fight, and win the game.

So know we’ll talk about his second aspect, his personality. Some could call it cocky, others just confident. He’s been known to not be the nicest person at times, yet at others he’s been extremely humble. I think what makes watching any interview that he does or any stream that he puts on so addicting is the fact that like Marshawn Lynch he’s not here to talk to anyone he’s here to win the game. In interviews he would do RTZ would be very uncomfortable talking about himself and would instead prefer to talk about the game. Or if he was streaming he would largely ignore the thousands of people watching him and would instead just focus on winning his ranked match.

At least that was the case, as Artour has grown both as a player and a person we’ve seen him relax and open up more. Not be so arrogant but more down to earth. Thats also part of the reason I think that people love him so much is that you can watch him change as a person. This doesn’t mean that he likes his twitch chat or that he’s stopped saying really dumb things on twitter. It just means that he’s stopped doing things like trash talking Team Malaysia on Sing’s stream the night before a match where he got wrecked by them. He still has really weird in game names, like recently he’s been calling himself Margaret Thatcher. And now he’s been doing this thing where he disconnects before the game is officially over right when one side calls gg. These are what makes RTZ unique.

So now that he’s back with EG they’ve been doing well. Some say underwhelming being as every one of their players is top tier but I think they’re just starting to figure out what really works for them. But with players the caliber that they have and under the unarguably best captain in North America PPD success is never far away. Even now they are still in the running for MDL. It won’t be easy because OG is looking strong and EHOME stronger yet but EG loves to win from the lower bracket and if RTZ keeps getting freefarm like LGD gave him in the last game of their best of three then I think they’ll do very well.

So you could say that its his incredible in game play. Or you could say that its his personality because reading his tweets is so entertaining. Regardless Artour is incredible to watch and addicting to follow on social media. This is why he is one of my absolute favorite Dota 2 players.

-David Wintrode

 

 

So here we are! My first blog post. What i’m trying to do here is to focus on professional Dota 2 players with every blog post and talk about what makes them special. Now without stalling any further i’m going to introduce to you fine people Admiral Bulldog.

Bulldog. Bulldong. El Dongerino. The rat king. But if you saw him on the street you might call him Henrik Ahnberg.

The main reason I decided to start with Bulldog was because of the recent success that his team Alliance had at the StarLadder tournament. They came in first without seeming to break a sweat. This can be heavily attributed to Bulldog himself but before we get into that lets give a little background.

Alliance has traditionally been an all swedish team that Bulldog was on since its formation. The team itself did very good from the start and after locking a final roster of Bulldog, Loda, s4, EGM, and Akke they became one of the best teams in the scene. They won TI3 in perhaps the most exciting way possible with an insane Bo5 against Na’Vi but ever since then they struggled. With limited success afterwards a few players left the team in search of greener pastures. Bulldog was one of these except he didn’t go to another team. He had plenty of money from TI so he just did what he wanted which was basically streaming and playing pubs. Clearly he wasn’t satisfied with this though and rejoined Alliance in May of 2015 where eventually with the rejoining of s4 they got their entire original TI3 winning lineup back.

Now Alliance still wasn’t doing well even with their original five back. But recently something changed. Something huge. Patch 6.86. Now really quick for anyone not as familiar with the game of Dota 2 the game itself changes even 6 months or so. Certain heroes are made stronger and others weaker, the map may change, and new items may be added. So why did this help Alliance? Because every Dota player has heroes that they prefer and naturally do better on. This patch 6.86 made the heroes that Alliance prefers extremely strong, specifically Bulldog’s heroes.

So now you have a very good offlane player have one of his best heroes in the meta. Lone Druid. And Natures Prophet is never not strong when Bulldog plays it. So right there if you don’t ban those two heroes against Alliance theres a heavy chance you just lose and this isn’t a joke. Theres a saying that goes around the internet that makes this point very clear and i will transcribe it here.

“You play against Alliance. You do not ban Natures Prophet because you can counter it. Alliance instantly picks Natures Prophet. You lose against Alliance. You ban Natures Prophet next game because you’re not stupid.”

This actually happened very recently. StarLadder finals that I mentioned Alliance against EG. Evil Geniuses have been very strong recently and I will definitely cover at least one of their players later. But they were boasting before the match on social media of having a plan to beat Alliance’s specific play style. So what happens? They don’t ban the Bulldog Natures Prophet first game. They get stomped. Second game they ban the Natures. Well thats fine because then Bulldog gets his Lone Druid which EG didn’t ban either for some reason. Alliance won the best of 3 with an easy 2-0.

In game with these heroes or even others like Broodmother, Clockwerk, or Dark Seer he is such a dynamic player that often his heads up plays win the games for his team by himself. Teams sometimes take advantage of his limited hero pool by spending the whole banning stage just removing his heroes. Alliance played NiP in TI5 and there was so much respect for Bulldog that all five bans were against his heroes specifically. Bounty, Prophet, Broodmother, Dark Seer, and Beastmaster. This is how seriously Ahnberg is taken as a player.

Also though I want to talk about what makes him more than a great player. Henrik is also just a great guy. While he wasn’t on Alliance for about a year he spent that time streaming.  And if you’re a casual viewer like me then you’ll watch these streams. I can’t tell you how many games I watched of his on Twitch, just enjoying watching this professional player act dumb in a regular game. He never fails to make you laugh and that is what people love about him. Bulldog certainly doesn’t take himself to seriously and thats a blessing for fans like me who just want to laugh along as he has fun.

So in conclusion Admiral Bulldog isn’t just a superb player who brings a ton to his team. He’s also great to watch and follow as he never fails to entertain. That is what makes Henrik Ahnberg one of my favorite Dota 2 players.

-David Wintrode