BOSTON -- 3,600 people are gathered in the the City of Champions' Wang Theatre to watch a new year of Dota 2 kick off. $3 million in prize money is on the line as the sixteen teams playing in the Boston Major have been competing for the grand prize of $1 million. Familiar teams have made it to the events bracket stage, but only one team can say it won in this exact situation two out of three times before.
OG and its Israeli captain Tal "Fly" Aizik are no strangers to Valve majors. The European team took first convincingly at 2015's Frankfurt Major and 2016's Manila Major, proving their worth and earning themselves an invite at 2016's The International 6, where they, as a favorite, ultimately failed to make it higher than ninth-twelfth.
Now, headed into another year of competition, Fly says that he wants to make up for their rough International placement.
"After The International, it was very sad for me," he tells ESPN. "I definitely felt like I could give more, but I was looking forward to a new year because I'm still not done with Dota. I still haven't achieved everything I've wanted, so for me it's just more motivation to do better and to learn from my mistakes and hope it doesn't happen again."
Several weeks after The International, in late August, his team made changes to three slots in its roster, bringing in players from Team Liquid, Invictus Gaming and Alliance into its ranks. And while no majors have occurred since, the team recently took second to Virtus.pro in both The Summit 6 and the European qualifier for ESL One Genting.
"It's been great [playing with the new team]," Fly says cheerfully. "I know some of these guys from way back, especially [Gustav "s4" Magnusson], who I played with for a little bit on Team Secret. These guys are great. [Anathan "ana" Pham], he's a newcomer, but he's definitely gelling with the team; I think he has a lot of potential and he's a good guy. All of the people on the team are good people. That's what I want the most: I want to play with good people who have similar values and get along well. I think we have that going for us."
Russian team Virtus.pro, for its part, has exploded onto the scene over the past few events. V.p's Dota 2 squad was dropped this past June due to poor results and then recreated after The International 6.
"I think Russia and the [Commonwealth of Independent States] area, in general, has always had very good players, but they never really gelled the right players together," Fly says when asked about Virtus.pro. "I think those players are amazing and they kind of have this huge momentum going for them. Right now, it doesn't matter what strategies they use, they play it so well, they play it together, that every game feels smooth from them. I think they're going to keep doing well but someone is going to break their momentum eventually... But I mean it's a good thing for the scene to have a CIS team. I think there are so many CIS teams, I'm very happy to see a good CIS team."
Regardless of the outcome of the Evil Geniuses and Virtus.pro quarterfinal [Editor's note: Evil Geniuses won the series], OG's road to winning another major requires facing very challenging opponents in an unusually punishing tournament format.
"Honestly, I'd be happy to play [Virtus.pro or Evil Geniuses]," he explains. "The mentality that you have to go into a single-elimination [tournament] is that you have to be ready to play everyone. I don't even think so much about who I'm afraid of, I'm only thinking about how I'm going to win. I'm ok with anyone, honestly. Of course the matches are going to get harder as you go through [the bracket.] If we do happen to win the next one, the next one after that will probably be harder, so I'm just looking forward to it really."
On the other side of the bracket, many of those teams aren't considered as highly skilled, but many have surprised their opponents, such as Ad Finem, who reverse-swept bracket favorite Newbee. If the Greeks do make it to the final, Fly says he has another team in mind for his anticipated opponent.
"I would like to meet Digital Chaos [if we make it to the grand final]," he says. "It'd be cool to beat a former teammate [in David "MoonMeander" Tan], it'd make for a good grand final. It's hard to say and it's also a hard bracket. Newbee and LGD look extremely strong, it's really hard for me to predict. But I'd like to play [against] DC."
Should OG make it to the finals and win the the Boston Major, the finish would certainly make up for a botched performance at The International 6. Moving forward, Fly wants to see his team succeed both before and during The International 7.
"For me, it's just to keep focused and keep improving and work towards [The International 7]," he says. "That is the main goal. I just want to keep improving for myself and the way I view things, the way I make my team work together, because I feel like I made mistakes last year. I had success but I also had downfalls, and I want to try and correct that and to be more in a steady role in my team so we'll do well no matter what."
"[We're] very confident [we can win this event]. I always feel like we can win. If you don't play to win, you shouldn't play at all. That's what I think about it. We can always win."
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