33: "I honestly thought, “Holy shit, we’re about to get stomped in this game.”

It feels really good, and has given us a confidence boost, especially after our rough showing in the last tournament [PGL Wallachia 6]. The Slam 4 final was amazing, and finally winning the event on LAN felt fantastic. To be honest, it was one of the best events I’ve ever played.

I wasn’t even panicking when I saw them running for the throne. I just thought, “Wait, what’s happening? They can’t do this. This isn’t going to work.” I had a strong feeling that we could defend it easily. They messed up when they were hitting our rax, which gave us an extra glyph. After that, it wasn’t a close game anymore.

The early game was the rough part though. We had a poor laning stage, and I honestly thought, “Holy shit, we’re about to get stomped in this game.” But then they made a mistake on the Wisdom Rune fight, and we got some kills, including two on Gyrocopter. After that, the game was pretty much in our hands.

Honestly, it was funny. Not only were the drafts the same, but the game itself played out very similar to the previous one. Same item builds, same movements, same failed push attempt… it felt like déjà vu.

I’ve had drafts repeat before, but never everything so precisely. I expected them to change something; usually if you lose, you switch things up, even if you think your draft was good. I thought they’d ban Morphling, but perhaps they were as confident as we were.

Funnily enough, after the finals, Ammar [ATF] told us he wanted to replay the same draft because he still felt their draft was better than ours.

It was extra nostalgic for me because it was in Singapore, where we won TI for the first time [with Tundra], and even in the same venue. Lots of nice and happy memories.

As for the tournament itself, everything was great: the stage, booths, setup, crowd, location…everything. I hope we get to play the next one with a live crowd as well.

Firstly, we had a lot of travel, so we fell a bit behind on practice. After BLAST, we stayed a few extra days in Singapore for a break, while other teams were grinding for PGL.

But that’s not the whole story. For some reason or the other, we lost a bit of confidence in how we wanted to draft and play. We became more reactionary instead of sticking to our own ideas. To add onto that, we just played badly. You can look for excuses, but at the end of the day, we didn’t perform. All I hope is that we bounce back in the next tournament.

No doubt we might be the slight favourites heading into BLAST Slam V, but also a bit less because we just came off a bad tournament. In a way that’s nice because the pressure is less. I’m confident, but the idea is the same: You go in, play your best, and hope things go well.

Yeah, because both teams always had potential. There are many teams with high ceilings, and sometimes they break through. I don’t think anyone was surprised, especially because they have such strong players and clear team identities. Moreover, it’s always great to see new teams at the top.

It’s all about stability, and not just during your peak, but how good you are on your bad days. Tier 1 teams, even when they’re playing poorly or having a bad tournament, are still very hard to beat. That’s what defines the top teams. Their consistency is what separates them from the rest of the herd. It might not necessarily always work that way for us either, but that’s the goal.