The story of Arteezy: The Dota 2 professional who is yet to win a Valve tournament despite being one of the best

Artour "Arteezy" Babaev is a celebrated name in the pro Dota 2 scene. Since his meteoric rise to fame following his debut in 2013, Arteezy has performed consistently in the upper echelons of competitive Dota 2. He currently plays the carry role for the Evil Geniuses squad.

Initially characterized by the BabyRage emote (the BabyRage Twitch emote used to mock someone throwing a tantrum for no reason), with time and experience, Arteezy has molded himself into a much more amiable personality.

When he first came into the Dota 2 professional scene, his mechanical skills alone were the talk of the town - farming patterns, team fight positioning, item efficiency, team synergy, game sense, and huge hero pool. Arteezy has been on the bleeding edge in all of these aspects of Dota 2. While most players would peak and stop improving, he has continued to push the envelope.

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Arteezy's Dota 2 career

Before Dota 2, he honed his craft in Dota 1 and Starcraft II. Arteezy played Protoss and reached Masters before he started playing Dota 2.

As a mechanically talented player, it did not take long for the other Dota 2 pros at that time to notice the then-16-year-old prodigy. This is a time when ranked matchmaking has not yet been introduced to Dota 2.

Kanishka 'Sam' "BuLba" Sosale and Gustav "s4" Magnusson took him in as their training partner following stellar performances by Arteezy in IXDL, which was a third party ranked ladder.

Arteezy in Epicenter 2017 (Image via Epicenter)

On November 22, 2013, Arteezy had the opportunity to stand in for Pittner "bOne7" Armand and play for his previous team, Speed Gaming (formerly Kaipi), at MLG Columbus.

After a four-month-long tenure with Kaipi, Arteezy went inactive for a while to focus on his studies. In April 2013, Arteezy finally committed to a team and joined Kaipi for the summer, which later became known as Speed Gaming.

Arteezy handily defeated several elite mid-laners, including Chai "Mushi" Yee Fung and Danil "Dendi" Ishutin, en route to an underdog victory for Speed Gaming over Team DK in the finals.

MLG Columbus was the first Dota 2 LAN event that Arteezy attended. The victory heralded the rise of a new star into the Dota 2 competitive scene.

In January 2014, Arteezy, along with legendary North American Dota players Saahil "Universe" Arora and Clinton "Fear" Loomis, as well as former HoN players Peter "ppd" Dager and Ludwig "zai" Wåhlberg created SADBOYS. This team was an instant success winning sixteen out of their first eighteen matches.

This included their undefeated championship win at the Electronic Sports Prime/Shock Therapy Cup. The Evil Geniuses organization took over the SADBOYS squad on February 21st, 2014.

Team Secret TI5 squad ft. Arteezy (Image via Team Secret)

Arteezy also became part of the Team Secret all-star squad for TI5. Later in his career, he will again be taken to Team Secret before finally settling into Evil Geniuses in September 2016.

Although Arteezy is yet to win any Valve tournaments (TI or majors), his accolades include 3rd place at TI4 and TI8. A “3rd place curse” is often attributed to EG as a meme, which is not too far from the actual stats. EG with Arteezy has consistently placed third in plenty of major Dota 2 tournaments but struggled to finish higher.

It's 2021 and EG is still consistently makes top 3 at the big events. Consistency. A team name for the legend books. #SingaporeMajor

— Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) April 2, 2021

Recently, EG was the runner-up of both WePlay AniMajor and ONE Esports Singapore Major, which is most likely good news for EG before TI10.

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Arteezy - the gamer

He revolutionized how midlane is played in Dota 2 when he came into the scene around 2013-14. His highly efficient farming patterns, lane dominance, and game impact were unheard of in the erstwhile metagame of Dota 2.

Arteezy pioneered the 'farming mid' archetype, which the next generation of midlane players like Syed Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan and Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi built upon.

Although Arteezy does not regularly stream anymore, he used to be one of the most prominent Dota 2 streamers in the past. Even now, his stream attracts huge viewership whenever he decides to stream.

Arteezy’s outgoing personality, eccentric taste in music, coupled with exceptional skills, make for a fantastic Dota 2 live stream.

Arteezy has always hovered around the topmost solo MMRs in the Dota 2 leaderboards. He reached Reached 11,000 MMR on October 18th, 2020.

EG already qualified for TI10. Arteezy fans worldwide will be rooting for EG’s TI win this October.

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