‘The Lord of Dol’Amroth’, Loda’s pre-Alliance career story
Jonathan 'Loda' Berg is considered to be one of the most prolific players to have ever played Dota on a competitive level. He was part of several of the most successful Dota teams in the game's early competitive history, and spearheaded several innovations that today are considered common practice. Close to eight years have gone into his esports journey, and I hope to, in this article, help document this tale.
The beginning:
The story of the Swedish player’s competitive career started in 2005, when he - together with his classmate and friend Akke - competed in a 2v2 tournament. The unusual format aside, the competition in the tournament was fierce, and the two Swedes were still relative newcomers to the competitive inhouse ladder community. Their opponents in the tournament all consisted of several strong contenders, but the duo managed to advance far into the tournament until one of their games had to be re-made due to their opposing team experiencing a disconnect. The re-make was agreed upon, and Loda and Akke were eliminated from the tournament on a sour note, but with a new-found resolve, as they now knew that they were individually on the same level as some of the players who they had looked up to in their matchmaking games.
It was during this time that the two started their first serious team in the exceedingly ill-advisedly named Team_Team (T_T). Teaming up with three other Swedes in Tjoffen, KwoM and Bogdan, T_T created ripples in the European Dota scene. Loda himself had gained a fierce reputation for his seemingly uncanny talent in making plays with heroes that saw very little competitive play. This, combined with a victory in a stacked EMS tournament qualifier, was enough to get the attention of the Danish Dota player Jacob "Maelk" Toft-Andersen. Andersen, who had previously played WC3 professionally in the Danish team Boomtown.Odense, was forced to leave the team after Maelk and another member had been caught fake-nicking in the qualifiers of the largest WC3 team league in the world at the time, the WC3L.
Without the support of his former team, Maelk and his band of brothers - Hanni, Levent and Mania - were still considered some of the best Dota players around. As they were in need of additional players in order to form a new team, they extended their wish to have Loda be part of the new chapter in their esports careers. With that, the team JoY (Jukes on You) was born.
In the money:
The premier tournament in the Dota world at the time was the bi-monthly online tournament MYM Prime Defending, which was hosted by the legendary esports organisation Meet Your Makers. Although it had a whopping prize pool of $0, it was still seen as the most important tournament at the time, making it a high point in the early years of Dota. Teams from the US and all over Europe would compete for the glory to be known as the best team in the world. The third edition of the tournament would be the tournament that sent the newly created JoY into international stardom within the Dota scene - they went on to dominate the tournament, suffering only one loss in their run, to the best American team at the time, coL. With this finish, JoY was quickly absorbed by the tournament's sponsor, Meet Your Makers, who had seen the tournament expand quickly and wanted to field their own Dota team.
This was considered to be a rather big deal at that point in Dota history, as MYM was at the time one of the largest esports teams in terms of influence and players. Having housed all-time champions in WC3 especially, the newly baptized Dota squad set their eyes towards the Dreamhack Winter 2006 LAN. As expected, the fearsome team demolished the competition, which was made up of solely Swedish teams. With wins in the most prestigious online tournaments, as well as a solid victory on LAN, everything seemed to go swimmingly for the team on a personal as well as competitive level.
Loda, however, wasn't all too inclined to agree, and left the team, along with Akke, shortly after their victory at Dreamhack in order to revive his first team T_T with Akke. Whilst many would consider this an act of complete foolishness, it says a lot about the Swede, as he revealed in an interview with Dota-League.com.
We decided to remake T_T and this was where I completely understood that the most important part of Dota is to have fun and to make the teamwork good. - Loda, speaking in an interview with Dota-League.com
The last part of that sentence is incredibly important when looking at the MYM-squad at the time. Nearly every single player on the team was a playmaker with exceedingly impressive individual skill on playmaking heroes. Maelk's solo-mid Queen of Pain was considered godlike, and H4nni's uncanny ability to dominate with a wide spectrum of heroes made the games extremely exciting. But in Loda’s eyes, it was obvious that the team play came in second to the individual aspect. This is why many people questioned the choice he had made as he returned to the T_T squad of old, consisting of his friends Akke, KwoM, Bogdan and Tjoffen - neither of the team's players were on the map in terms of skill compared to the quickfire line-up of MYM.
Coming in to Jukes on You, we went from being able to have the final say in our old teams to falling in line with these other super-talented players who had their own opinions on how everyone else should be playing. I had the chance to give some input as a player, but most of it still seemed to go unnoticed overall, and I just asked myself, “Why should I help them improve when I was able to grow just as much when I played with my friends?” We got along very well and we had fun at the same time with no conflict. - Loda, 2014
It is therefore pretty ironic that even with a team consisting of "lesser" players, that this group would go down in history as one of the better European teams from that era of Dota.
Going Kommando:
T_T had not yet attained any of the glitter and glamour that their previous team had. Being unsponsored and playing for fun only ever takes you so far, but the team knew that they had the ability to play cohesively as a team better than almost anyone else. This played into their favor immensely in their first win together as T_T, when they won the fifth edition of the MYM Pride Defending tournament. They managed to sweep the tournament without dropping a map and secured a victory against the dominant MYM in the grand finals.
What this event showed most clearly was the synchronisation between the players of T_T in what today is most commonly known as "global strat", a strategy involving heroes whose abilities are able to strike the enemy team's heroes from any part of the map, making unusual heroes like Zeus, Nature's Prophet and Spectre forces to be reckoned with. Whilst extremely weak and fragile heroes on their own, when synchronized, these heroes made it possible for T_T to swiftly and fiercely open up the map, having no limits on where or when they would initiate upon their enemies.
Aside from the perfection of the global strat, it was also at this time that the 6.41 map version of Dota was released. Having received multiple buffs, the Blink Dagger item became a staple on any hero willing to instigate fights, and line-ups focused upon early-game skirmishes. It became exceedingly popular. Here, Loda helped raise the popularity of Shadow Fiend through the use of the now ridiculously efficient Blink Dagger, and the regenerating properties of the item known as "bottle" (that, when returned to the player's base, would fill it up with three very potent regenerative charges). Loda's Shadow Fiend became one of his staple heroes at that time, as his presence in his designated lane would be prolonged for an extremely long period of time due to the bottle. With the use of the blink dagger, he was able to blink straight into engagements and dish out ridiculous amounts of damage in the blink of an eye.
Whilst they won MYM Pride 5, it would not be enough to carry T_T to victory at Dreamhack Summer 2007, where they lost to their rivals, MYM, in the grand finals. This MYM line-up was unlike any other team that had participated on LAN. With the apparent collapse of many of the most prominent Dota teams in the US, following the demise of the CPL and it's amateur league, CAL, which were the biggest Dota events in the US, one of the strongest teams in the Jax Money Crew had disbanded. MYM seized on the opportunity, and boasting a ridiculously huge Dota roster, picked up even more star-studded names in the form of Merlini and Fang. Dreamhack Summer 2007 would end up becoming a display of innovation and invention, as the previously mentioned Merlini flew over to compete at the event. To this day, he considers the win at Dreamhack Summer 2007 to be his proudest moment as a competitor in Dota.
I’m most proud of our victory in Dreamhack of 2007 because of the way in which we won. I think the current Dota community is very familiar now with odd-jungling heroes in competitive play (such as Puppey’s Storm or Pudge), but back then, experimentation was not very prominent. - Merlini speaking with it's Gosu in 2011
Whilst the global line-up was still fresh in MYM's minds from the previous iteration of the recent Pride tournament, the Danish’American team struck back with Merlini playing a beastmaster to seeming perfection in the jungle role, which was the first time the hero had been in played in that specific fashion in a competitive game.It caught T_T off-guard, and impressed the world.
Even though T_T lost that day, their recent results were enough to garner the attention of SK-Gaming, one of the to-date oldest esports teams around. Like their rivals in MYM, the team had fostered an insane amount of success throughout the course of western esports history, with incredibly impressive WC3/Quake and CS 1.6 players. Being among these legends spurred the newly crowned SK-Gaming team on, and were one of the hottest contenders in the Dota world in 2007-2008.
Fighting for supremacy:
With the hype the members of team had created for themselves, expectations on the team succeeding were exceedingly high, and in the first year under SK Gaming's banner the pattern was clearly one of silver-linings. Having a very successful early start with their new organisation, SK Gaming seemed to be on a rise following their Dreamhack Summer 2007 experience, as they went into the online tournament The Frozen League with high expectations, but were plagued by a shaky group-stage, SK persevered and managed to qualify for the playoffs, where they would have to face up against the most consistently dominant team in online cups as well as Russian LANs in Virtus.Pro. The team has been the vessel for many of the CIS-scene's greatest players like NS, ARS-ART, and most famously, Vigoss.
VP, who became reknowned for their incredibly aggressive style of playing predicated heavily on the blink dagger at the time, which allowed players to blink even when they were taking damage. The team dominated competition for months on end, but it was Vigoss who became the star of many frag videos with his aggressive nature even garnered an overall win streak of 26 straight wins when he played Queen of Pain. Such a feat was almost unheard of at the time, and most people assumed that when he got his hands on it that the game was over.
There was one team who had managed to defeat VP when they had gotten their hands on the QoP, and they were now playing as SK Gaming. The match in which the Swedes had beaten them in saw SK fall behind early, and looked to be defeated as so many others had before them. But it was in that game that Loda's Shadow Fiend had gone far beyond what anyone expected and snatched the victory out of VP's hands. Their encounter in the first round of playoffs in the The Frozen League was a bo3 that went the full distance in three extremely long, painful games where Vigoss had gotten to play his signature hero in the two final games. Whilst he did defeat the Swedish team in game 2 with the hero, it was not enough to stop a variation of SK's global strategy, and SK had once again managed to defeat the Russian juggernaut when few others could.
You couldn’t play their own game against them, they were the perfect team at that time and if you tried to be aggressive towards them you were at a disadvantage because you played them in a way they were going to be extremely familiar with. We had to create our own meta in order to beat them. - Loda, 2014
Through to the next round of playoffs, the team was brought down to the lower-bracket of the tournament as the rivalling MYM defeated them with a score of 2-1, making the climb to the finals a long and rough road for SK. They persevered however, defeating eMazing Gaming, Check-Six as well as eXtreme Dota Team to get to the finals of the tournament. The Danes, who had cruised through their side of the bracket started the series with a 1-0 lead over their Swedish counterparts, meaning that they only needed one win against them to attain victory.
SK Gaming took the first game by the aid of Loda's SF once more, and the series was now at 1-1, one more game to decide who goes takes the title. With the time the team requested before the next drafting-phase began and including the time they spent on picking their heroes, almost 20 minutes had passed them by, and in the end it rewarded them as their choice of heroes made MYM incapable of decisively picking fights, leading to SK Gaming claiming their second gold in 2007 against their rivals.
Shortly after their victory at TFL, Loda decided to take a break from esports. SK Gaming compensated for this fact by adding in two new members to the squad; Tompa- as well as Snow' . This line-up did not find much room in terms of airtime, as the team was currently not enrolled or committed to an ongoing tournament, but Tompa was part of the very successful Team Sweden in the MYM National league, and Loda had firmly found himself back in the team before Dreamhack Winter 2007. The first real competition SK faced in their side of the bracket was the Singaporean team zenIth in the semi-finals of the tournament, SK were able to take the win in a hard 2-1 series and advanced to the winner bracket finals, where a very old and all too familiar enemy was awaiting the Swedes. MYM had encountered no difficulties at all getting to the WB finals, and SK were able to take it to a final game in the series, but were not able to close it out. 2-1 in favor of their Danish adversary saw them once again move on to the grand finals, the team's third Dreamhack final in a row.
SK were now in dire straits, as they would go on to face up against zenIth once more in the LB finals in a bo1 series. Having dropped a game against them on the previous day, this game would be one of the most important in their careers yet. They pulled through, and once again Akke, Loda and their bands of merry men would have to try against their former teammates in MYM, and once again the opposing Danes were 1-0 in the lead due to them advancing through the winner bracket. SK took the first game without much trouble, as their level-dependent carries in Tiny as well as Mirana, backed up by the support of Drayrich's Lina dominated the game. The series was evened out, but once again, Tiny appeared to be an unstoppable force in the event and took the game handily, unfortunately for SK, the Tiny was in the hands of Maelk, and had just ensured him and his squad their third Dreamhack championship in a row.
At the end of the year, SK Gaming stood with 2 silvers and 2 golds, both silvers handed to them by their eternal rivals, making 2007 a definitive year of the two team's growing rivalry. 2008 was just around the corner however, and this time around, things would be considerably different.
Top Dog:
Merely two weeks after Dreamhack Winter, SK announced that Drayich would be leaving the team on his own volition as him and Loda had started showing signs of internal struggle.
When you face top teams you need to know who's in charge and how you want to play the games. Around the time, when we faced KS in MYM PriDe we once more played in 2 different ways during the game and this all ended up with the whole team getting pissed at each other. - Loda in an interview with Dota-League.com
Drayich had transitioned from a carry role in his previous team, to becoming a position 5 support. A role that, at the time, would be elated if given the chance to hold anything in his inventory other than boots and wards. Something the Swede found as incredibly unrewarding.
It was my call, I'd say. I could've decided to not argue and simply find myself continuing doing what the team asked of me but I've never been able to do what somebody else tells me without questioning it. This doesn't mean that I thought that I could provide a better alternative to what Loda proposed, but not being able to air my own opinion on matters like these and have them make an impact got to me. - Drayich, speaking in 2014.
The initial months of 2008 yielded a great deal of success for the team in the first ESL Major Series Dota tournament, where SK Gaming once again played against MYM in a grand final, and won an, at the time, massive prize pool of €750. The freight-train kept on rolling for them as well, as the next season of MYM Pride rolled around the corner. The last edition of the tournament prior to this edition had ended rather harshly for SK, having been put in the losers bracket by the second best Swedish clan TeamQ, SK ended up getting eliminated by the Romanian clan TeG (The Elder Gods) in the fourth round of the losers bracket. Given the volatile nature of the tournament's format (bo1 until the third round of the winner's bracket, and straight bo1 throughout the entire loser's bracket) even the slightest mistake could see a favored team go down seemingly in flames.
But when the 10th edition of Pride rolled around the corner, the team had gone through another series of line-up changes, as the team had removed the players Renji and Kwom due to inactivity as well as leaving them one man short at the prestigious ASUS LAN tournament in Russia, in favor of another Swede in Hailo and their first international member in ARS-ART. AA had previously been part of the utterly dominant VP-roster that featured Vigoss, NS and Jolie among others and he was considered one of the best players in the world at the time. But there were many questions surrounding his departure even though it had occurred quietly, mostly that the CIS scene's largest team was in a state of chaos and that the young Russian had jumped ship before it had all gone down in flames. Loda himself revealed in an interview that AA would never have joined a foreign team if it hadn't been for the issues VP were facing internally.
I'm pretty sure ARS wouldn't have joined if he didn't have problems with VP. Why would he leave one of the best teams around that includes his real-life friends? - Loda talking about AA joining SK with Dota-League.com
Nevertheless, the addition of the exceptionally skilled Russian saw them fly past the winner bracket of MYM Pride 10, smashing opponents like +46 (a Danish all-star team) and TeG who had eliminated them from the previous Pride tournament. Ready for their first Pride final in almost a year, SK were going to face up against the Ukrainian Wolker Gaming team in the finals. Wolker had made a substantial amount of noise when they managed to reach to the LB finals of MYM Pride 9, where they were eliminated by VP. Today, most people will remember WG as the team where the internationally acclaimed players Goblak as well as the Na'Vi playmaker Dendi got accustomed to competing in Dota. The two would later on become part of the CIS super-team DTS.Chatrix.
Both teams were hungering for the opportunity to secure this title, WG's way to victory was now not obstructed by VP, and likewise SK's wasn't blocked by their bane MYM. Starting out with a 1-0 advantage in the now redacted bo5 finals, WG now had two games to lose, giving them ample time to adapt to what the Swedish team might throw at them. The first game ended in a rather standard draft for both teams, but in the end SK dished out a loss to the Ukrainians. One final game remained in the series, and the Ukrainians draft in the final game reflected their emotions as they in very quick succession picked up the heroes that they had had difficulties with in the previous game in Tiny and Mirana, and then topped it off with three more comfort-picks the team had. SK were in the driver’s seat, and despite the potent line-up WG had drafted, the Swedish team managed to eliminate WG in a second straight game and made Loda and Akke tied up with the legendary VP roster in terms of PriDe gold medals.
A mere month later, a Swedish rendition of the SK line-up attended Dreamhack Summer 2008. This was a special year for Dota at Dreamhack, as many high-tier European teams were attending the tournament, not just MYM and SK. Teams like mouz and the Canadian EG squad made the event truly international. The four teams as mentioned were all the favorites to win the tournament, and in the end the top 4 consisted of exactly those teams. SK made their way into their third Dreamhack final overall by defeating the now Drayich-lead mousesports, and MYM were part of a definite upset as the Canadians of EG toppled the Danish favorites. As per usual, the team that had advanced through the WB finals had a 1-0 advantage over the team that came in from the LB, meaning that they would only need to win one game to win the entire tournament. SK had for the first time had this privilege in a Dreamhack final and they took their advantage to the fullest and dominated EG, and the two faces of SK, Akke and Loda could finally share another Dreamhack gold together after so many disappointing 2nd place finishes. It was obvious that SK Gaming were attaining a level of play that they hadn't possessed previously, and they showed no signs of slowing down throughout the year.
The team quickly made their way over to France for the ESWC Masters of Paris tournament and claimed the title without dropping a set whilst once again defeating teams like MYM and TeG to lay their hands on the 1st place prize: $7500 and a ticket to the ESWC finals in San José, California. At ESWC, Loda once again showed his prowess and knowledge of the game by reviving the popularity of another hero, Spectre. Whilst SK had used her efficiently in their global line-up, it was deemed necessary for her to farm and take the game past 30-40 minutes in order for her to be truly efficient, this lead to many teams figuring out how to stop Spectre from even becoming a factor in a game by repeatedly targeting the player who handled her, often leaving the hero under-leveled and not able to bring anything to fights. Loda found out that Spectre in conjunction with the item "Diffusal Blade" made her an exceptional mid-game hero as well, and dished out extremely punishing games against MYM and TeG at ESWC.
With these three major tournaments in the bag, SK Gaming were on the top of the European Dota scene, few had ever had as much success on LAN and online as the Swedes and they looked to translate all of the momentum they had in their favor in to yet another victory at the ESWC Grand Finals.
Heavy Tides:
The ESWC Grand finals were structured exactly like the Masters of Paris event, with the competition being split into two groups, playing a round-robin format and the entire playoffs as well as finals in a bo1. Meaning that every team had to be on their guard as teams could make the most out of that one game they had on their hands. SK were riding off of an incredible wave of success, finding another gold at the Prime Defending 10 tournament as well, SK had garnered four gold medals throughout their 2008 alone which made them undeniably one of the top teams in the world. Their victories were also all the more impressive given the fact that their triumphs included wins over teams from outside of Europe, and teams from Asia as well as America gave SK an aura of world domination.
The ESWC grand final was the largest Dota event of the year and promised a lofty $10.000 prize for the 1st place finisher, making every game count all the more for all of the contestants. SK were placed into group stage 1, that featured EG, srs, s3x , nafu and KingSurf. SK started the first round with an expected victory over S3X, but soon after that losses started piling up for the team. With losses to srs and EG it was made evidently clear that SK would not advance to the playoff stage of the tournament, sending them home after a mere day of competition.
It was after this result that the glory days of SK.Dota took a turn for the worst, as constant roster re-shuffles now became a norm for the team. In the span of a few months, key members like Bogdan and Akke left the team. Much can be said about Loda still being an anchor in terms of consistency after that, but Dota was a team game of the highest level, and both Bogdan and Akke were central in making the team work as a cohesive unit and they had been developing their relationship for a total of 1/½ years in both T_T and SK Gaming. The loss of Akke was truly the proverbial nail in the coffin for the team as he was the last of the captain’s real-life friend on the team.
People who was behind us stood and all thought we were gonna lose, but as the game went on we started to win more and more fights. It wasn't our gameplay that made us win, it was our strat. We played horribly in the early game but still managed to win because of the strategies.
- Akke on the drafting and playstyle of the team that led them to success in an interview with SK Gaming.
This showed in the final Dreamhack-tournament the new rendition of SK played together, where even though they made it to the finals, it ended up becoming yet another disappointing showing against the Danish MYM.
With the results hinging more and more on Loda’s own performance in-game, and his ability to carry the game, it finally took its toll on the one part that held the team together, and on March 10th, 2009, it was officially announced that SK-gaming was closing their DotA division.
I don't want to lead something in which I have the feeling that it isn't going to work out properly. - Loda
When all was said and done, SK Gaming’s 2008 was still the most successful of all non-Asian teams with a total of $15,000 earned, broadcasting a statement of exactly how dominant the team was when it really mattered.
Individual insecurities:
With the departure from SK Gaming, Loda was once again asked to join his rival team in MYM, and after only having been teamless for a few days he had once again rejoined the team where he found his first competitive success. However, their time together was cut short as the franchise holder of MYM at the time, Frontspawn, had declared bankruptcy, leaving all teams within the organisation effectively teamless.
Loda continued his competitive career in a team with a band of stragglers from SK and MYM which they dubbed The Last Try. Ironically, that year’s Dreamhack Summer would be the last try for him to win his third DH-title in his WC3 Dota career as this would be the last Dreamhack he attended until the winter of 2012. With the aid of MiSerY, Twisted, Kwom and png, they made the tournament’s final where they would face up against the other half of the old MYM line-up in Maelk’s new team Roskilde Ravens that also featured many of Denmark’s overall most proficient players in MaNia, anGel, Pusher-Street and miGGel. Both of the teams captains had been at the top a few months ago, and to have no been reduced to playing in smaller teams must’ve undoubtedly fueled each player’s desire to win the LAN.
It would turn out that The Last Try had it in them to bring down the other half of their former team, and the Swedish captain would taste victory over his Danish counterpart on his home turf of Sweden. Following the success at Dreamhack Summer, the Australian-based esports organisation Fnatic decided to sign TLT. The lineup for the team was unlike anything that the Swedish carry had ever played in as it featured a truly unique assortment of nationalities with its players: Kwom (Swe), Kebap (De), Aidar (Kz), Twisted (Dk), Misery- (Dk) and Loda.
Playing a number of small online cups to start, the team made their first LAN-debut at the Riot Games-sponsored GamesCom Dota invitational. Whilst this might seem extremely ironic now in today’s political esports climate, the admin and owner of the biggest English-speaking Dota community on the internet, Dota-allstars.com, had become a Riot games employee and sought to influence their new game League of Legends with several features which were present in Dota and used the game to promote their own title at GamesCom. Whatever anyone may wish to say about the relationship between the LoL and Dota communities today, it is undeniable that the tournament at GamesCom was an extremely large event for any of the teams attending and brought on a spectacle in terms of hosting yet another international tournament featuring the premier teams from each nation in a LAN setting.
Interestingly, the line-up that competed at GC was not the original Fnatic line-up as they had opted to use a stand-in for their fifth man in the Romanian player Freezer, a player few of them had played with outside of public matches and had only had the opportunity to play next to no games with before the tournament. Issues plagued the team after an early loss, and tensions rose as their stand-in barely spoke any English, and a discussion to replace him mid-event broke out. Eventually the team settled to just continue playing on, as they advanced through their group with one map loss. Moving on through the competition’s group stage their next opponent would be Razer, a team that today remember most famously for being host of the two Na’Vi supports Puppey and Kuroky. Whilst the semi-final between the two teams was indeed a close affair, fnatic marched on towards the final of the tournament where they would face up against the Roskilde Ravens.
It says quite a lot about the quality of players that Maelk and Loda were in those days as they consistently found themselves facing one another in almost every final of each LAN they attended, and even in this international tournament with competition from all around the world, it would still be them butting heads in the end. The bo3 finals became a one-sided affair as Fnatic defeated Ravens in a 2-0 sweep. Fnatic had won one of the biggest prize pools in western Dota in surprisingly dominant fashion after having played with a stand-in and little to no practice. In many people’s eyes, this would be regarded a success story, but it quickly became obvious that the team was indeed not playing a team-game. Loda was now focusing on less farm-dependant heroes, and having a more individually skilled roster surrounding him made it seem like everyone played their own game, rather than the team game. In fact, the in-game leader, KwoM revealed in an interview with Fragster.de after they had won the tournament that they hardly communicated at all, and that his own microphone was broken throughout the entire tournament.
No, not in this tournament. But – maybe! I really talked a lot in the last games, but we kinda sat a bit far away from each other. - Kwom talking to Fragster.de
The fact that the team wasn’t functioning overall also made itself painfully obvious when Kebap as well as Aidar announced that they would be leaving the team shortly after their victory in Germany. Many things then seemed to fall apart for Fnatic following this, including a potential contract-twist that included Loda, the team’s latest addition Misery- and Kwom who felt like the team wasn’t being taken seriously in terms of the deals their contracts offered them and that Fnatic didn’t provide them with the support they needed. Due to this, the three players forwarded their wishes to join the team AEON.Int, who had long been considered one of the premier Dota teams in the world. The discussions were not all too civil, and Loda commented on the entire ordeal on his blog in a less than satisfactory manner:
Since our oh so sweet ex-manager decided to tell the world of these "talks" [of receiving an offer from AEON.Int] this has all escalated into a mess not easy to solve... But I believe that a clear decision will be made during this week. After this I will hopefully be able to confirm if we're going to SMM or not.
Fnatic did not end up going to China for SMM 2009, but decided to instead focus their attention on the Chinese 30-day league Alienware Dota Challenge with yet another new lineup, this time excluding Freezer in favor of the Danish Unique eSport player Donald-Duck. With suitcases packed, the team headed towards the fabled land in the east for their first taste of Chinese culture, and Dota.
The Fabled Land:
The arrival of Fnatic to China was highly publicized in the nation's Dota circles. The league in question was televised and far ahead of any western tournament that any of them had attended, most notably, the team found out that they all were considered to be a massive deal in China.
The ADL tournament started out with a lot of controversy surrounding the Swedish/Danish alliance, as the band of players appeared under the clan title of “ENotHome” (a pun on one of the strongest Dota teams from China, EHOME) rather than the Fnatic tag in-game. They seemed to be taking the competition seriously, and were still wearing their Fnatic apparel when they arrived at the venue, so it divided the opinions of the community, who either thought that they were joking, and others who thought that they had really left the team.
Their play in the tournament showed much promise, as they went 3-1 in overall games played in the bo1 group of the tournament. This was enough to have Fnatic advance to the semi-finals of the tournament where they would encounter the Russian team Rox.Kis who had been the only other non-Chinese team to attend the event. Being played as a bo3 in the semi-finals, ENotHome were unfortunately not able to defeat the Russian squad, ending the team’s run in the ADC.
Following the loss to Rox.Kis, Loda took to his blog once more and opened up about a lot of things that he had a hard time swallowing about the current state of Dota, whether it being his current team’s inability to find a place for him in the team and his own individual performance.
I agree with the point someone wrote about me being the core of Fnatic and still not really being the core. This is weird thing to handle since I do not know what spot to fill. It was always much easier playing with teams where everyone believed 100% in me, but here we have no clear leader so our results strats and so on varies a lot! In this team I often feel lost as a player.
He also lambasted the western Dota community as a whole, claiming that both players and fans were nothing but cut-throats who cherished him when he was able to win, but would just as fast also shun him like a leper as soon as the tides turned against him.
I think I will quit Dota for a while when I come home to Europe, because there is no fun in getting there. The manners are low from several teams, inhouse leagues are just chaotic, and the fans there are two faced and backstabbing.
Upon their return from China it was all but confirmed that the team had parted ways with Fnatic, stating that they had paid for their own tickets to and from China and that the tensions between their management and the players had only grown more and more. When all was said and done, 2009 was far away from the glory days of 2008 and the future didn’t necessarily look all too bright either.
New Horizons:
The subject of Dota-clones is a rather interesting one, as the patented three lane and five hero setup is still wholly unchanged even after having been around for more than a decade. The only thing that the games that copied Dota have changed are in-game mechanics like creep denying, objectives and gold gains, but the overall core of the games are still identical; push towers, kill off creep waves for gold, stack your hero with items and destroy the enemy base.
Whilst League of Legends had already been in development since GamesCom 2009, S2 games had started to develop something that can best be described as a spiritual successor to the original Dota All-stars map with their game Heroes of Newerth. Porting over heroes from said map, and increasing the tempo of the game, many saw HoN as the potential future of Dota as the WC3 engine which the game was built upon had now reached seven years of age. With updated graphics and stable servers and a company’s direct support being present, HoN was a breath of fresh air for many old Dota players, and saw people like H4nni and Levent focus their efforts on this new incarnation of the game they loved.
The Dota community in the west were not as welcoming of that idea of having “their” former champions switching over to a new game, and when it had been revealed that Loda would start playing in a HoN team with his friend POLISEN, the iconic carry player seemed to suffer a meltdown. In a barrage of insults on his blog, the Swede managed to bring forth that he was not transitioning to HoN full-time and that he was simply helping his friend in making the team become stable. He assured everyone that ENotHome, who had once again changed their name to Ducky’s Dream Team, were still sticking together.
Throughout the months between February and May, Loda could still be seen competing more with his HoN team Button Bashers where they were able to win several online cups without many issues in-game. But as the captain of team Button Bashers revealed in an interview, many of the players couldn't mesh well as a team.
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But Loda was still, even after the disbandment of Button Bashers not all too present in team DDT’s various tournament appearances and a mere day after it had been announced that DDT had been picked up by Team Blight the Swedish team DruIDz announced their new HoN line-up that was going to be attending the Dreamhack Summer HoN tournament with none other than the carry player from Sweden and his friend from the times of old, Akke.
A subsequent wave of confusion was then sent across the Dota community, few had been able to find their footing in two games at the same time before in esports and with promises of being sent to SMM in China as well as ESWC in Paris with DDT, many wondered if Loda would be replaced or chose to forgo either of the tournaments. Fortunately for Loda his efforts spent playing HoN at Dreamhack ended up being a wiser decision than potentially travelling to China, as the trip never materialized. It was made painfully obvious that Blight’s owner who had personally recruited the team never would be able to sufficiently send the team to either of the events, DDT’s participation in at least one of these majors was now threatened, and only days before the ESWC Paris event, they were picked up by the organisation LOST, who paid for their travels to ESWC.
Before the ESWC trip, Loda and Akke had been able to reach a 3rd place finish at Dreamhack Summer 2010 with the DruIDz line-up, they were sent down to the 3rd place decider only after having been defeated in a close 2-1 set to the eventually most consistent HoN team in the world in FnaticMSI, less than 10 days after their success at Dreamhack, the Swedish player joined his teammates in LOST at the Parisian event.
EIsHome:
At the time of ESWC, one of the biggest stories surrounding the tournament would be the fact that the Chinese EHOME would be in attendance. The LOST line-up had shown promise during their stay in China during the ADL league, and that they could face up well against most competition, no matter the nationality in a bo1 group stage. ESWC still had a fairly similar format in terms of every game in the two group stages being a bo1, which made many fans hopeful of seeing the established European teams competing for the title of ESWC grand champion. All the teams people had come to expect were there; LOST, the recently revived MYM and DTS made fans excited over the thought of seeing them compete in another LAN.
The one Chinese team that were attending, was EHOME. Having reshuffled most of their roster since 2009, the current-day EHOME at the time was now made up of Burning, X!!!, QQQ, KingJ and 820. The precursor to LOST in DDT had faced up against them in the ADC league a few months earlier, but the line-up of EHOME in 2009 was a completely different story to this year’s. No team in the tournament could touch them, their games transcended mere victories, they were humiliations as the team did not drop a single map throughout the entire tournament, ushering in one of the most one-sided periods of Dota competition. The east had arrived in full force, and the west had capitulated.
One of the most revelatory aspects of EHOME's strategies going into ESWC 2010 was how the team kept working for one another in every single game. Too often have the many traditional powerhouses in the Dota scene been accused of having inflated egos which got in the way of the team's success.- soloZ, editor at MYM
With superior teamwork, decision-making and more consistent players, EHOME swept all thoughts of a western 1st place finish with such authority that Loda remarked in an interview with rakaka.se that the Chinese "raped everybody".
The eventual top three consisted of EHOME, the Russian DTS which was made up of three members (LightOfHeaven, NS and Dread) from the Rox.Kis line-up that participated and eventually eliminated LOST from the ADC tournament in China, and MYM. LOST were not able to make a statement in the tournament, and team leader Ducky wrote on his blog that the team was in a complete state of disarray.
Loda hadn't been active the month before ESWC "online", and at the bootcamp it became clear to us all that at the moment no other player could lead the team in France, at least not with the players involved. Even though Loda didn't want to lead the team there were no other option at ESWC. - Donald Duck, in a post-event blog about their ESWC performance.
Shortly after, Loda’s chapter in the book of WC3 Dota ended as he left the team on the 15th of July the same year, and he would not return to the original game that he had helped popularize and dominate in. His sights were, for the time being, set on moving to Ireland to work with IBM.
On the fields of Newerth:
A month passed before any more news on Loda surfaced after he had broken off from LOST, and when the news broke that he was joining the recent Dreamhack HoN champions kD-gaming’s HoN team with Akke it was all but confirmed that his days with Dota were done and dusted and that HoN was going to be his choice of game at the time in his esports career, but it turned out that nothing was certain for him at this point in time and promptly left the team a mere month after joining. This was due to him moving to Dublin to work. Loda was not seen again in the public eye until June the next year.
This was not the end for Akke however, as he had found his desire to compete once more in esports and his return was exceedingly impressive. Especially considering that the former solo-mid player of SK Gaming had now become a fully fledged support and extremely solid all throughout the year with kD, who were later absorbed by the Online-Kingdom-organisation.
Akke’s most revered hero in HoN was the game’s adaptation of the Dota character Chen, known as Ophelia in HoN. This support character wields immense strength as the skill set allows him/her to add jungle creeps to join the teams cause which could make up for any area the hero was lacking in. Be it damage, stuns or other utility-based skills. Akke’s Ophelia garnered him a considerable amount of attention, and he was at the end of 2010 nominated in the “Best support category” in the Gosugamers year-end awards.
The OK-roster experienced some shaky initial months in the beginning of 2011, whilst being successful in ongoing tournaments as well as qualifiers the team was only made up of three core players in Overpow, Akke and Magix making their results all the more impressive considering that they were in need of stand-ins for every game they had played previously. Eventually two new members joined the team in H4nni and SemiJew who had both been part of the kD roster who had played in and won Dreamhack Summer 2010.
Finding stability in their line-up at long last, OK became one of the the most feared teams in Europe as they regularly took games off of the best teams in the world in qualifiers and tournament, earning them several high placements in various online tournaments such as the ESL Major Series and the Gosugamers-sponsored GosuCup series, but it wouldn’t be until September the same year that OK.HoN transformed into one of the best teams in the world as a very familiar face made a re-entry onto the scene.
OK.HoN had made a very impressive run through the HoN Super Series tournament, beating out teams like Reason and SK Gaming to make it to the finals of the tournament where FnaticMSi were waiting eagerly for another victory to collect under their belt. FnaticMSi were the undisputed kings of the game at the time, having already won the HoN World Championship as well as the recent EMS due to their brilliant understanding and communication that was feared worldwide.
OK at the time, after having enjoyed a relatively stable period of 6 months without a roster-swap had to suffer through one in the most inopportune moment as SemiJew had decided to leave the team, leaving them one man short. There were many who wished to play with OK at the time and many were then surprised when the grand finals of the HoN Super Series invitational saw Loda join the lobby.How well could he hold up without having played on a team for almost a year? The truth is that no-one knew what to expect of Loda’s return besides himself. In a full bo3 final, OK.HoN overcame the hurdle and were crowned champions of the first HoN Super Series tournament, it seemed that the formula of Loda + Akke was more efficient than ever since Akke had transitioned fully to the support role and they did not let up the gas after their victory over FnaticMSi either, and qualified for Dreamhack Winter 2011 on the same day and were the 3rd team to be announced as participants in the second season of the North American Star League. Things were shining bright once more, and the lost son seemed to have found home.
Unfortunately despite their success as a squad, the OK-organisation had seen better days financially and disbanded mere days before Dreamhack Winter. Worse yet for the former OK.HoN team, now known as ZmackTrix, was that the organisation had not yet paid for their travel or hotels at the upcoming Dreamhack Winter tournament, which resulted in the team having to sleep on the floors of other team’s hotel rooms. Needless to say, ZmackTrix could not perform up to snuff and found themselves out of contention for the trophy that FnaticMSi took ever so happily, winning their third Dreamhack trophy in a row and once again solidifying themselves as the most consistent HoN team in the world.
ZT were in a state of disarray at the time and many signs pointed towards the team disbanding after their string of tournaments through the rest of 2011 were completed. After all, the first International tournament that was hosted by Valve had taken place in this period of time, where the grandest esports prize pool of all time had been given out, it was almost inarguable that many eyes from the Dota and HoN community were directed towards the successor of the game that had fueled so many professional HoN player’s competitive dreams.
But this would have to wait for the players in ZT, as they were California-bound to the NASL S2 grand finals which they had qualified to through the regular season of the tournament along with Trademark eSports, LIONS and the almost omnipresent FnaticMSi. Out of all the potential first opponents that the team could’ve drawn for their semi-final, they drew the shortest straw at the time and faced up against the recent Dreamhack winners.
In a twist-ending that only appears once in a blue moon, ZT exited the bo3 as winners over the favorites to win the entire tournament, after a very back-and-forth first game that included aegis denies, full-on team wipes and a bacerace, the second game was a complete steamroll from ZT who decided not to prolong Fnatic’s suffering and ran them over, meeting little resistance and moved on to the grand final of the tournament.
With their Dreamhack-performance behind them, all eyes were set on a Trademark eSports vs SmackTrickz final, but even here the outcome surprised many as the up-and-coming and not nearly as established LIONS made their way to the grand finals. ZE looked solid, but LIONS would in the end to display even more desire to win as they won the playoffs without even dropping a map and picking up 20.000 USD for their endeavours. SmackTrickz split up shortly afterwards, but the fire for competition was there, and most importantly, Dota 2 had reached a level of popularity and recognition few had been able to ever imagine and for the Swedish duo in Loda and Akke, the future was there.
HoN wasn’t a game I ever dedicated myself to fully, I think the game was very poorly designed and played it mostly because I felt like my time in the original Dota had come to an end, and I found that I could compete at a high level in HoN without putting in much effort. I don’t mean to come across as cocky, but the level of competition in the game at the time was really low in comparison to Dota at the same time, and I feel like my time in the game was more like a way for me to see how good I could become with the limited time I had to play. I should’ve never been able to make it as far as I did off the back of pubbing for a year and a single scrim together with my team. HoN was a past-time, more than anything to me. - Loda, 2014
Singapore Swing:
The two Swedes wasted no time, and quickly formed a new all-Swedish team together with Pajkatt, Miracle and Pinoy. Starting out as eXperience Gaming, they received an offer from the already firmly established Counter Logic Gaming organisation a mere month after forming. The team found themselves quickly up in the upper echelons of competitive play, being invited to several prolific online cups such as The Premier League and The GDStudio Arena.
The team also managed to qualify for the first Starladder LAN final where they defeated the Russian dream-team Darer 2-0 in the semi-finals, but ultimately fell to Na’Vi in the winner bracket finals and were later eliminated from the tournament by M5, garnering them with a 3rd place finish. But change was in the air, and Loda left the team for a position in the Singaporean Team Zenith.
I felt that Pajkatt and Misery took over the team, and this isn’t to say that their leadership was poor. But I feel like that’s been the biggest thing I’ve always been able to offer consistently in all my teams, and I need that belief in what I’m doing from the players I play with in order to stay consistent. In CLG, Pajkatt and Misery were convinced that you had to play like the Chinese did to be able to win, and I simply couldn’t accept that because it felt like they had no faith in the team and our play overall when the day would come when we would face China. So when I got the offer to join Zenith I felt like that was my chance to try and play against Chinese teams regularly and try and take victories off of them in my own way.
- Loda, talking about CLG in 2014
With the acquisition of the Swede, Zenith’s roster included xy-, Hyhy, iceiceice and xFreedom. Together, Zenith enjoyed a fair amount of success prior to TI2 in the AMD Premier League tournament and the Gigabyte Dota challenge. Both of these tournaments featured several of Asia’s best teams. With consistent results and solid showings throughout their time together in Singapore the team were seen as a definite top 8 finisher of the ever-looming second edition of the world’s largest Dota tournament.
But at Seattle, it was obvious that not everything was as fine as everyone had assumed. Losing five out of their six games on the first day of their group made the Singaporean squad look extremely shaky, the members themselves had felt that the communication wasn’t coming across fluently and that this was costing them game. As a result, the lone Swede and his band of Singaporean allies decided that it would be best if the native speakers handled the drafting on their own, excluding Loda from it all together.
After the first day of losing all the matches I decided for day 2 to have confidence in Ice picks and not second guess his strategies and therefor not get involved. It was a personal choice from my side. The first match of the main event I was actually involved in the picks but afterwards we decided without being too serious to do like the second day. - Loda in an interview with Rakaka at TI2
The image of the group’s ability to play together may have been hampered that day, but Zenith managed to eek out enough victories to send them to the tournament’s winner bracket. Advancing through to the winner bracket is considered to be a huge advantage in the tournament of tournament’s in the world of Dota, as each team in the bracket will play full-on bo3 sets, whilst those who fall to the losers bracket will have to endear the pressure of losing a million dollars for a total of four rounds of straight bo1 play. Zenith made good of this fact and advanced past the first round of the WB by beating coL.
No matter the outcome now, the team was now in the money, which would grant them a minimum of 35.000 USD which can be considered an immense success given the fact that the tournament’s main storyline was the continued consistency of Chinese teams, who had obliterated all Western competition in the group stage of the tournament. LGD would be Zenith’s opponents in the second round of the WB. LGD had already smacked Zenith down brutally in the group stage, and were sitting on a 16-0 win streak in the tournament at the time of their match, and even though the Singaporeans + 1 fought hard, the tidal wave that was LGD simply engulfed the resistance and continued on towards the finals of the WB.
From there on, Zenith didn’t stay in the tournament for long as the Chinese Team DK, led by the EHOME legend Burning robbed the international roster of any hope of advancing past a top 6 finish at The International 2012.
If there is one thing that The International has brought about more than any other event in Dota history, it is re-shuffles. Team’s that performed poorly, team’s that didn’t qualify and team’s that found that they couldn’t co-operate when they really needed to all shed players, and CLG and Zenith were no exceptions. CLG dropped their squad completely, and a short while after the tournament, Loda had announced his departure from the Singaporean organisation and beyond a return to Sweden, the Swedish carry stated in his announcement:
One thing is certain: Akke and I will play together again.
And together, they would make history.
Photo Credit: Valve, SK Gaming, GosuGamers, Prodota.ru, Cyberfight, ESWC, Dreamhack, MYM, NASL, Replays.net, Riot Games, Penny Arcade
