"It's surreal": Tundra Esports on winning Dota 2 The International 2022, their mindset, and more

Tundra Esports's win at the Dota 2 The International 2022 came after a string of dominant performances which saw them win every single series during their run at the main event. The final against Team Secret was more one-sided than most would have expected, ending 3-0 in favor of Tundra Esports who finally had their hands on the Aegis of Champions.

Tundra Esports is the TI 2022 champion (Image via Tundra Esports)

At a recent press conference, I had the good fortune to engage with the players and the coach of Tundra Esports who shared insights regarding winning the hallowed title, their thought process during the Dota 2 tournament, and more.

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Tundra Esports talk about winning the Aegis of Champions, Dota 2 TI 11, their preparation beforehand and more

Q: Tundra Esports lost no series throughout The International 11 main event. What drove such consistent dominance?

Skiter: I think it is the accumulation of knowledge gathered over the course of the time we have played on this roster together. It's like a machine that you keep building on. With every loss and every win, you chat and improve going into the future.

Once we were done building the machine, we focused on the mental aspect and then during TI it was like we already put in so much work and so much time so we will just have to see how it goes. And apparently, we did a very good job.

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Q: The clean sweep over Team Secret by Tundra Esports in the Grand Final was a treat to watch. No matter what they tried to do, Tundra Esports never really lost their grip on the match. How did you guys feel during the match? Were you all confident beforehand of such a one-sided result?

33: Beforehand, we did not expect this at all. Before every series, you always want to plan for a really hard series. Obviously, we watched Team Secret come from the Lower Bracket and they had the momentum on their side. Even after the first and second games, we kept telling ourselves that we won this game because we had a better draft or this and that, and it does not matter. That we should not worry about it and expect a harder game next time.

But apparently the hard game just never really came. I think it was mainly that we were kind of very comfortable. For me, I always had my best comfort heroes and I felt like the game was under control. Even in games where we were slightly behind at some point but we were so confident in our draft that we were not worried at all.

It's just really nice to play when you have this much confidence in your draft. Obviously, the confidence is only there because you have not lost yet. Once you start losing, your confidence can get broken. Luckily for us, that never happened during the tournament.

We just played with the mindset that nothing can really go wrong, we have a good draft and we will beat them no matter what. But of course, as I said, we took every game by itself and we always expected a hard game.

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Q: What was it like to play and lift the Aegis of Champions in front of a live audience?

Skiter: It was surreal. I am not really sure how to describe it. It was great. I expected the finals to be closer than it was. I enjoyed some of the other series we played in the tournament more than the finals. But the whole feeling that you are the best team in the world and therefore the best players as well, it's surreal, I don't know what else to say.

33: It's amazing. It is what you work towards during your Dota 2 career. It's like a distant dream, I always think like this is the goal but it's almost impossible because you have 20 teams at The International and only one team gets to win. It always looks unreal to me. So, it's like a dream come true and is an amazing feeling.

Aui: It is always amazing. I think it's the accumulation of your entire year's hard work in Dota 2 that you get to compete at TI and to win it sort of affirms all the hard work. As a coach, to see our Tundra Esports players lift it, it's a different feeling because you are so proud of them and what they've accomplished and there's nothing quite like it.

Saksa: I could say it was amazing and fantastic and all these things, but these words can't really describe the feeling. It was something that we have been striving for like the last ten years and more. The best way to describe it is that it is a dream come true for all of us.

Sneyking: Of course, it feels over the moon and I am very blissful and happy that we have won. I think what winning TI means in front of a live crowd proves to show that all the years that you have spent playing the game, and practicing and training hard for this moment, was not in vain. We were finally able to prove ourselves. That's the best feeling you can get from any competitive sport.

Nine: Honestly, I was very overwhelmed after winning. I did not really understand everything that was going on because it all happened so fast. You play for this moment for so many years and then when it happens, I don't know. I was so playing the game and as I took off my headset and suddenly all these things were happening, so much noise and everything. I was so overwhelmed. It took a while till I really understood what was going on.