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Tundra Esports’ Dota 2 squad has seen a meteoric rise in popularity this year towards the tail end of the DPC season. While this has not secured them a spot at the biggest Dota 2 event of the year, TI10, they are touted as one of the best teams currently in the world by experts and fans alike.
Tundra Esports’ offlaner, Neta "33" Shapira, has been an instrumental figure in the team’s rise to success. 33’s playstyle has been a talking point in the Dota 2 community - especially his fascinating micro-skills have made into highlight reels.
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In a conversation with Sportskeeda Esports’ Manodeep Mukherjee, 33 talked about his thoughts on TI10 and the DPC system thereafter, the future of Tundra Esports, and other Dota 2 tidbits.
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Here is an excerpt of the conversation.
Q. How does the preparation for the next season after TI10 look like for Tundra Esports?
33: For now, we are kind of having a bit of a break. We are not practicing right now as a team. Everyone is kind of having their own time off, which of course, means individual practice. I’ve been playing all day, every day, just watching the teams from TI play. I just try to play a lot of pubs and work on my individual skills.
We haven’t decided yet when we’re going to start practicing, but it will probably be after TI. I think everyone else is doing the same.
Q. Which are your favorite teams on the stage of TI10?
33: It’s a hard question. To me, I’ve been playing for a while, and I got to know a lot of people, mostly in western teams. So, of course, I have friends in pretty much most of the western teams there. I always like to cheer for them. It’s hard for me to choose a favorite team.
Of course, LGD has been a super interesting team to watch just because of the playstyle and how they’re inventing the meta and playing the game. They seem like the favorites of this TI, so they’re definitely a team to look for.
Other than that, it’s like the usual – OG, Secret, EG. It’ll be interesting to see what these teams will do, and I don’t have a favorite specific one.
Q. With TI10 being less than a month away, do you think 7.30c is the patch TI will be played on? [The interview was done prior to the release of patch 7.30d]
33: I would think so. I would be surprised if they make a patch two weeks before TI, but you never know. If something comes up that looks extremely broken before TI, they might decide to nerf it, or they might just let it be. Honestly, I don’t think they’ll make another patch, maybe just a little fix, but that’s it.
Q. Which heroes, in your opinion, will dominate the TI10 metagame?
33: Interesting question. There are two parts. One part is how strong some heroes are right now. For example, the heroes we played in ESL got nerfs, but some remain strong.
Heroes like Beast Master or Nightstalker right now are very strong and give you so much vision in each game, and especially in TI, that can get very important. A lot of vision makes everything easier to play, as the enemy team feels stressed when you see them and they don’t see you.
Another part is that there are always heroes that always become popular when TI comes around, Earthshaker, for example. At some point, every TI every team just reverts to “guys, we just need to have a good team fight, and we cannot lose this game.”
You get a lot of pressure during TI, and having a hero who can just blink in, press a button, and kill an enemy helps. I think players look for the easiest ways to win in TI because you just want the game to play itself out. You don’t want to bother with high-execution line-ups. Easy heroes will become the most popular, I think. I would consider Nightstalker, Beastmaster, Tidehunter. You want a stun, things like that.
I also heard that a lot of people are running global strats, having a lot of global presence. The kind of stuff LGD played at Dota PIT, so that’ll be interesting.
Q. The DPC system has had its fair share of flaws this season. After TI10, which changes do you want to see implemented going forward?
33: I think there are two big things. One is that the season was spread out over such a long time. Basically, each league was nearly two months. It ends up being too long, and you only play like seven games over that period, and that feels too spread out and a bit of a waste of time, honestly.
It’s hard to stay in maximum tryhard mode, and you don’t really want to boot camp for two months three times a year; it’s just a bit too much. It’s not even intense either – you play a game once every two weeks. It’s too laid back and makes me want to be at home and chill, but I cannot because you have an important game every now and then.
I would like the league system to be a lot shorter. Seven games can be played out in about a month or even less. There could be games every day or every other day, and you could honestly be finished in three or four weeks.
I would also maybe go back to the original system, you go through Qualifiers, and then you boot camp hard, and that’s it, you know if you got a Major or have time to chill and prepare for the next one.
Another big thing was that there was very little money this season from Valve, I feel. I would like them to put a lot more money in the non-TI tournaments because Majors that have the best teams in the world and the prize pool is only 500K is very low, especially compared to what the tournaments were in the past.
Q. With Sven, Clinkz, and the whole stacking meta nerfed with patch 7.30c, which carry heroes will emerge as the winners of the patch?
33: I think stacking will still be very important, maybe not as important, but when you stack a camp, you still get more than a 100% value of the camp for the whole team. Stacking it takes ten seconds, and you get 200 extra gold from it. It definitely will impact things.
The Svens are not going to be six slotted at 1:25, maybe 1:27, which sounds kind of silly but can be a big difference. I wouldn’t think the hero stacks will disappear. I think the Clinkz just got a massive nerf for the hero, and it’s not so much about the stacks. It would still be really imba, I think. Sven, I didn’t really look at much, but maybe it is the same.
Other heroes I think will become storm this patch are heroes like Specter or Void. They always kind of pop up just because of how good they are overall. Specter gives you this insane team fight vision and kind of securing late game for you, Void kind of does the same. You always feel safe when you have these heroes, and I think TI is something where a lot of people will appreciate that.
Q. Tundra Esports has seen a meteoric rise to fame, especially after the second-place finish in the TI10 Western European open qualifiers. What do you want to say to your new fans?
33: We appreciate the support! I am happy we have new fans that watch our games and like what we do. Just a big thank you to everyone, that’s it!
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