[Fire Dragoon] Dota Team's First Rumble
The very first outing of our newly minted Dota team.
Editor's Note: The original Fire Dragoon website was not preserved or archived properly. So limited amount of images or media managed to be saved. The purpose of these posts is to keep them for posterity.
Last weekend, we had the debut of our new Dota 2 roster, with new signees Adam "adam" Shah, former coach of compLexity, Digital Chaos & former player of Fnatic and Lai "AhJit" Jay Son, who hails from WarriorsGaming.Unity, and most recently, played with the Fnatic roster in The International 7 not more than a month ago.
Both adam and AhJit are well-experienced playing in international tournaments, but they are in no way content with their previous achievements. Although, having played with or been a part of teams that have made it to the top stages of the International, they have yet to hold the storied Aegies in their own hands.
It is precisely that hunger for success, which drives them to join the Fire Dragoon Dota 2 roster and strive towards achieving the vision of wanting to be the first full Malaysian team to compete on the main stage at The International after the previous iteration of Team Malaysia by Chai "Mushi" Yee Fung, whose team was then acquired by Fnatic and everything else was history.
adam and AhJit are both joined together with the current players on the roster, South East Asia's 9K MMR player, Hiew "AlaCrity-" Teck Yoong together with FDG's veterans, Pang "BrayaNt" Jian Zhe and Yang "yaNG" Liang Ying.
After less than 1 week of training together, the team joined their first official tournament last weekend at the Malaysian Esports League Qualifiers in Selangor alongside 63 other aspiring Dota 2 teams, which was organized by the Mineski Events Team. The MESL is claimed to be the largest esports competitive event in Malaysia, with a total prize pool of RM500,000.
The 2-day qualifier started off with group stages on the first day with the team winning all 3 of their matches in the group stage and qualified for the elimination stage the following day. The finals stage went on as expected from the team, dominating most of their opponents with quick matches, separated with huge score lines between the teams.
It would have been a perfect streak until their very last match-up against 818 Reverse Heaven in the finals.
The team was poised to win it all but unexpectedly dropped both games against Reverse Heaven after a tough fight against the Johorian team, who had arguably better synergy within the team. Reverse Heaven was most recently the champions of the previous Logitech Play Advanced Dota 2 Tournament.
It was a tough lesson for the newly formed FDG team but is definitely one that it will take in stride as the team is still new and will continue to work on their team play.
"Mistakes were made at times where it should not have, and while we've been playing against each other on and off since the beginning (in Fnatic & WG.Unity), we haven't really been together in the same team." commented BrayaNt after their loss.
"The team was formed less than two weeks ago before the qualifiers and as a result, we did not have much time to train together," he continued.
The same thoughts resonate in the entire roster, with yaNG agreeing to his teammate's opinion. "We just haven't found our groove yet. We were thinking a little too much and lacked the built-in synergy between the team, and that made us hesitate in our decision making," said yaNG.
However, the team is still positive when it comes to having the roster to progress and improve.
"The team that made the least mistakes won that day, but we are not fazed by the loss. We'll be heading back to training as soon as possible to iron out our kinks and I am confident that we are able to perform better in future tournaments," said adam.
We wish the Fire Dragoon team all the best in their training and future competitions!
FDG and 818, the two teams that qualified for the MESL main event from the Selangor Region.