Wrote some stuff about my dota life post-TI6 and my current team!

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Post-TI6

So I’ll start off Post-TI6, when FNATIC secured Top 4. I felt sadness, I felt happiness, I felt gratefulness, I was also pissed at myself. Thinking about the way FNATIC had played 2 weeks before TI, I would never have thought we could make it that far. But thinking about the way FNATIC played during TI mainstage, I’d say we could've gone further. It was my first TI. It was weird. I always thought TI was the greatest event of the year for a DOTA player. What I didn't realize was, it was also the saddest event for any player. Every player’s TI dreams dead. The amount of effort, hard work and whatever a player has gone through throughout the year, suddenly feels like it was all for nothing. The worst part is that it's your fault, you, the team who had beaten them. That was how I felt after my first two-three games on the main stage. We were pretty close to Alliance, Liquid, and some of the NiP guys, so I had a really hard time not feeling sad after the games. That’s when I told myself that I’m not going to take our wins for granted. I’m going to make sure we do well enough to make their losses worth it. We didn't win but Top 4 was at least that to me.

The Shuffle

Post-Ti6, the shuffle starts. I’ve no idea what to do at this point, I didn't know how anything went down. Eric (our manager) asked me if I wanted to continue with the team. I honestly didn't have a fucking clue. I felt like the world was my oyster and I wanted something more. At the same time, MidOne and DJ were not staying and I felt that nobody in SEA - and I mean nobody - could replace them two. So by the time I made my decision, yada-yada, its 2 weeks after TI and I thought to myself: nothing’s happening. What should I do? So, I start talking to people. Pajkatt was the first I spoke to - mainly because throughout the year, at LAN events I enjoyed talking to him the most. I was really keen on playing with him so we set off on this 2-man hunt for the remaining 3 players. We came up with a long list of names but most players are already done with their shuffle and we end up with nobody. This was when I started talking to FATA - mind you this was sometime in September, post roster lock. The both of us kept in touch whilst me and Pajkatt started talking less. Eventually, in November, FATA talked to Yapzor ( who was in in NiP at the time) - they were close cause FATA coached NiP at one point. Yapzor liked the idea of us 3 playing together – so we became a 3-man roster. We decided we needed a Pubstar that can go off and Yap brought up his close friend, Feero, another Jordanian player. FATA said he'd played with him before and he likes him so, 4-man roster. Moving on, considering few players for Offlane, we decided we need a less farm heavy Offlaner. After considering a few, Forev ( who wanted to learn new things as well as change his playstyle ) was the one we liked the most. So here we are, 5-man roster that had never played together before with no sponsorship(YOLO). A team made based on nothing but talking about the kind of DOTA we wanted to play and the team we wanted to be - B)ears was born.

B)ears

First boot camp – The first few days were weird as Forev and I were new to this concept of talking less than what we were used to. FATA wasn't used to drafting. Feero had some things to learn going from a pub atmosphere to a competitive scene. Yap was just balling every game. We lost to liquid 2-0 in DAC finals. It was not ideal but we all felt super confident moving forward and we felt like we did well for a first time team - which we did.
Second boot camp - Something changed. I won’t speak on behalf of my teammates but I was playing badly. It was because I started to focus more on gameplay, rather than my own play because we decided that was what the team needed after the first boot camp. At this point, I started to feel uncomfortable , I had issues getting my cores to make moves with me. Everything suddenly felt farm heavy and I wasn't sure why. So after the first week we fixed some of our shit and we were playing well again in Week 2. Major qualifier games in 2-3 days, yada-yada. Nothing much to say about the group stages and stuff. We could've played better as a team but we lost to Alliance and got 3rd in a 1 slot qualifier. We all felt bad and more problems arose. We talked a lot about it and the next day, we went home.
Things felt weird. There were sponsor and contract issues and we decided that it'd be better to just go our separate ways.

Mineski

Fast forward a few weeks, Mineski approached me to help them stand in / try out playing with them. I was looking forward to playing with Mushi again - I come in, with nothing but confidence, excited to show off what I learnt overseas. The team felt super strong and I felt like I was a missing piece in the puzzle. We did really well despite losing to Faceless in a tournament final 2-1 so, I agreed to join them. We changed kyxy to wenn, and then, Mag came in pre-roster lock. During the time with them, I realized that the team didn't lack skill but lacked gameplay, which I tried my best to make up for. I started focusing on the team instead of myself but I started to play worse. Around 2 weeks after roster lock, we lost both Zotac and another qualifier, all games we could've won. I felt like I underperformed - everything looked downhill to me. The team was just not getting better, rather, it was getting worse. So, I decided to leave the team before It reached the point of no return and so, I left.

Coaching Complexity

I approached Complexity because they were one of the teams that approached me pre-lock. However, they had a full roster. I asked if they wanted a coach (because I’ve always wanted to try coaching) - and they did!
I have a good relationship with Swindlezz, one of the coolest guys I know. He decided that no matter what happens, even if I ended up being useless, I wouldn't have a negative impact on the team so they took a chance on me. Within the 2 - 3 weeks that I was there (before qualifiers), I felt the team improved so much although I merely helped them out with really small things and everyone was playing well. We found heroes, playstyles, op stuff, everything that just fit right into our hands. TI quals - groupstage was okay, we knew as long as we made it to playoffs, we'd have a good shot. The team played well, all the way to the end, facing DC, who had beaten us 3 times in a row in group stages. That’s when the thought of “losing = not being able to go to TI”, got to some of the players. It was pretty sad and I wish I could've done more. I really felt like I let the team down as a coach. Sorry.
Coaching DC
Post-quals, Bulba asked me if I wanted to coach them alongside brax, where I’d be focusing more on helping supports. I’m down with it and hyped to go to TI with them. Unfortunately, I lost my passport - don’t ask me how I have no clue – so, I ended up coaching DC remotely (which kinda sucked). The scrims were good; they had a good playstyle– During group stages, there were a lot of games that they lost which they could've won. There was a heavy prep for IG.V , they go on stage, go ham, game looks easy - next day, prep for LGD could've been better. I definitely take a lot of responsibility for this as the team felt like they didn't really have a direction going into the series and lost 2-0. Again, Sorry.

What’s my plan now?

So, here I am post TI7. I had a pretty shitty year as a player and hoping I miraculously get some good offers to play. I did get two offers but before I could decide on anything, they’d found other players. So at that point, I was kinda teamless, again. I started to think about what went wrong, when did I become a player without a value.. I was mad at myself, I feel like I made a lot of mistakes but I learnt a lot from them as well. I want to show the world what I can do. So, here I am, announcing that I’m now playing for Fire Dragoon esports with Alacrity, Yang, Brayant and Ahjit. I will be playing offlane. I still believe in myself as a player, I believe I can do this , I want to win. This is me trying to prove to myself that I am good enough to do it all over again. To my fans, all I can say is that I am sorry that I haven't been anything special this past year but thank you so much for your support. I will do my best. Cheers to a new DOTA year!

P.S.: Everything I’ve written above is solely from my own point of view.

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