Regional qualifiers for The International 2023 in Dota 2 are coming to an end, which means that for some teams that could not qualify for the main tournament of the year, the season is already over. One of them was Alliance – the roster of Gustav s4 Magnusson won only one series in the qualifiers. And this hardly surprises anyone. Rather, the opposite outcome would have been a sensation. How did the once legendary tag come to the point that his absence at TI is taken for granted, and the community openly laughs at the organizational skills of Jonathan Loda Berg?
Already tier-2.5 team
In case you forgot, Alliance has never been in the top DPC division this season. That is, the team did not just drop down to the second league once – it firmly settled there and now loses the competition in general to everyone in a row. In the summer DPC draw, the team took seventh place. That is, Alliance has long been not even the level of Nigma Galaxy, which also flies out of the top division, but at least sometimes returns.
In the two years since The International 2021, the team has performed only once at a decent international event – ESL One Malaysia 2022. And even then the team received an invite from the organizers and, in fact, took the last place.
All. The rest is impenetrable darkness in the context of the results. In two years, the roster played only twice in the top division (only one match won in the first division in two years!).
And yes, now even the organizers of off-season tournaments are in no hurry to call Alliance. If Team Secret or Nigma, even with unsuccessful periods, has at least some brand or status, then the Loda roster no longer has this.
Why train?
Entity support Dmitry Fishman Polishchuk, after defeating Team Secret in the semi-final of the upper bracket of the qualifiers, answering the question why the match turned out to be so simple, suggested comparing the number of matches in matchmaking between the participants of the two rosters (according to the cybersportsman, constant playing practice in the pub is an important aspect of preparation ). And there, indeed, the advantage was on the side of the Entity players, albeit not so impressive. And what, interestingly, with the preparation of Alliance? You may be surprised, but half of the roster players do not appear in matchmaking at all.
We all joked about KuroKuroKy Salehi Takhasomi, who does not enter the matchmaking, and then flies off in the first round of the qualifiers, but the same Simon Handsken Haag is exactly the same. The Swede is already 29 years old, and he probably doesn’t have time for pubs. After all, over the past eight days, he has not played a single game in matchmaking. And in general, for a couple of months he has only two or three maps and a Battle Cup. But not so long ago there was a patch that just needs to be “felt”.
Midlaner Ki CHYuan Chuan Eng also has not a single game ahead of the qualifiers, and in just August he played ten matches. Charlie Charlie Arata and s4 have slightly better statistics: eight and 12 games respectively. But this is also not enough. Axel Pablo Kalman, with 44 games, is the only one who truly takes the rap for everyone in matchmaking.
Sitting and crushing publics is not always a guarantee of success, but if you don’t look into matchmaking at all, especially after the recent patch, when everyone is looking for unusual heroes, builds, and so on, then you can’t hope for good results.
Bad composition? And so it will come down
Last year, after the failure of Alliance at the qualifiers, we said that Loda should stop clinging to Nikolay Nikobaby Nikolov, who is obviously not interested in this whole professional scene. Loda was able to overcome his father’s attachment to Nikobaby and broke up with him… and immediately returned s4 and built a line-up around him, flavoring him with Handsken.
It’s a waste of time to disassemble the fact that the Alliance roster was initially incapable of combat, everyone already understood this very well (everyone except Loda). However, probably, the failures of the first seasons should have prompted the team and management to the idea that cardinal changes were needed. Well, if you can’t handle teams from the second division, then you’re going the wrong way. However, in all this time, only one permutation was made.
The old fable about having to play only works for a limited time, and then mostly with young, still inexperienced players. How long does it take to determine that Handsken is not capable of competing with other supports in the tier 1 scene? How long does it take to realize that s4 with his Meteor Hammer on Dawnbreaker and Legion Commander is a weak trio that only once in seven games won’t lose a lane?
Even the teams that are in shape and qualify for TI, but not Alliance, change their lineups. Alliance is fine.
Loda is simply inept as a leader
The funny thing is that such a team is led not by some big boss who does not understand the industry and has flown into Dota 2 on a hype and is now trying by all means to recoup investments, but by the champion of The International. Which, as it turned out, does not understand anything at all in management and team building.
How is it that a former professional player can’t find young talent? Yes, when you’re in the second division, you can’t sign tier-1 players, so you need to find future stars yourself and grow them. But in the current Alliance lineup, the youngest member is 25 years old. And in general, to put it mildly, they are all at the end of their careers. Yes, perhaps, the same s4, if he moved to the “five” and took young and hot ones to him, he could show something else. But the entire roster of Alliance consists of such s4s. Why even Nigma, with her very conservative and ossified KuroKy, for example, takes Mikey for herself (yes, Nigma flew out of the qualifiers, but this guy may well turn into a top player), and Loda just goes through the contacts of the Swedes she knows on her phone and tries to make a team out of them ?
And why hasn’t Loda found a normal coach for the roster for so long, able to stage the game? The former Malaysian caster is great, but, again, it is clear that this does not help.
And separately, of course, I would like to recall Loda’s motivational speech before the start of the qualifiers.
If you don’t know that this is Loda, then such a speech can be mistaken for postironic pasta in Telegram from some Vladimir Maelstorm Kuzminov. I don’t even have the strength to give any analogies, it’s just that such a boss’s message doesn’t even sound naive, but simply stupid, ostentatious and hypocritical. I don’t think that s4 lives in his fairy-tale world, where he seriously believes that he is the best trio of qualifiers. To call a person “the best” after he hasn’t crawled out of a black streak for a year, and hope that this will cheer him up, is a mockery.
Who is this all for?
Fun fact: on the official website of Alliance in the Dota 2 section, Remus Ponlo Guo Zhi Xian, who left the team in early July, is still listed in the roster. Well, that will do, right?
This, of course, is a trifle, but it says a lot. The team hasn’t had any results or even any noticeable progress for a long time. The management makes almost no changes and does not try to correct the situation. No media, no views. Do you know how much the commercial from Loda got on YouTube in a few months? Less than a thousand views. The vlog before the start of the qualifiers collected 1.1 thousand. But there, videos with Alliance players in Apex Legends collect 8 thousand each. That is, even on the club’s channel, the doter team turned out to be of no interest to anyone. Who is this for then? After all, keeping a Dota 2 roster that often ends up at the bootcamp and needs a salary is not a cheap pleasure. But for what? The team obviously does not bring in money, crowds of fans do not gather at Alliance matches – in the summer season of the DPC, there is not a single game with the participation of the s4 roster in the top 5 most popular meetings of the second season.
Source: Esports Charts
That is, even the conditional B8, which also had no results for a long time before the qualifiers, at least generated interest around itself. Alliance, even as a meme, no longer attracts anyone. And judging by the inaction of the management, which does not try to revive the team, but simply artificially keeps it alive, the club itself does not care about the Dota 2 roster.
Screenshot from club video
It seems that Loda is just playing as a counselor in a children’s camp, where the important thing is not to win, but to participate. In a camp where you can have a delicious meal with your friends, play computer toys for half the night, and most importantly, your wife will not scold you, she is also a counselor in this camp. You can also pretend to be a great motivator, just like in sports dramas, and give a cool speech. Yes, it won’t work (why would it, without a thousand other points that you missed), but it looks great, and you yourself are all so serious, just like from Rocky. It’s good, isn’t it? In a couple of months there will be a new shift at our summer camp. Wow, that’ll be great.
2023-08-30 13:42:00
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