OG (esports)

OG
Sport Dota 2
Super Smash Bros.
Founded 2015 (2015)
Location Europe
Head coach Cristian "ppasarel" Banaseanu[1]
Manager Evany Chang[2]
Partners Red Bull
Website ogs.gg

OG is a professional Dota 2 eSports team based in Europe. Formed in 2015, they are best known for winning The International 2018, a US$25 million tournament, as well as four wins in the Dota Major Championships series. They also represent other games, such as the Super Smash Bros. series.

History

It was founded as (monkey)Business by players Fly and Notail, who were former players from Team Secret, in August 2015. Soon after a dominating run through the European qualifiers for the Frankfurt Major, they adopted the moniker OG. They went on to win the inaugural Dota 2 Major Championship in Frankfurt in November 2015, earning US$one million in prize money.[3] Despite placing in the bottom half of the next Major in Shanghai in March 2016, the team would rebound and take first place at the Manila Major in June 2016, becoming the first team to repeat as champions of a Valve Corporation sponsored Dota 2 tournament.[4]

OG entered The International 2016 as one of the favorites after earning a direct invite, but ended up finishing 9-12th out of 16 teams. In August 2016, founding members MoonMeander, Miracle-, and Cr1t- left the team, with s4, ana, and JerAx replacing them.[5][6] Despite the new roster, OG won the Boston Major in December 2016, giving them their third Dota 2 Major championship.[7] For the first premier tournament following Boston, OG advanced to the grand finals of the Dota 2 Asia Championships in Shanghai, where they were swept in a best-of-five series against Invictus Gaming.[8] Following that, OG won the Kiev Major in a best of five series against Virtus.pro.[9] At the Kiev event, the team made an appearance on Valve's True Sight documentary series.[10] In May 2018, the organization signed James "Swedish Delight" Liu to represent the Super Smash Bros. scene.[11][12]

Team coach Cristian "ppasarel" Banaseanu (front) with the rest of OG inside the playing booth before one of their games at The International 2018

That same month, Tal "Fly" Aizik and Gustav "s4" Magnusson left the team to join Evil Geniuses, with Roman "Resolut1on" Fominok joining VGJ.Storm. Due to post-deadline roster changes, OG would no longer be eligible to be directly invited to The International 2018 nor for the Regional Qualifiers and were required to play through the Open Qualifiers.[13][14] Needing three new members just a few weeks before the qualifiers began, OG quickly signed Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen, a newcomer to the scene who had never performed at a major LAN event prior to the event, Anathan "ana" Pham, a former member of the team who had taken a year-long break following their previous elimination at The International 2017, and Sébastien "Ceb" Debs, who had previously served as the team's coach.[13][14][15][16] Finishing outside of the top eight in the Dota Pro Circuit final standings, which granted a direct invite to the International 2018, OG earned theirs by playing through and winning the European-region open qualifiers.

Following that, OG were then placed into group A of The International's group stage, finishing fourth with a record of 9-7, which seeded them into the upper bracket. There, OG won every series to advance to the grand finals.[17][18][19] Facing the lower bracket winner PSG.LGD in it, whom OG had just defeated in the upper bracket finals, OG won the game one, but lost the next two games.[18] Needing another win to avoid losing the series, OG forced a late-game comeback in game four, and subsequently won game five, making them International champions and winning them over US$11 million in prize money.[18][19][13] Their victory was considered a Cinderella and underdog success story, as they had came from the open qualifiers and had beaten some of the more favored and accomplished teams along the way.[18][19] Their win also broke the historical trend of Chinese teams winning the International in even years.[14]

Roster

Alias Name Position
ana Australia Anathan Pham Carry
Topson Finland Topias Taavitsainen
Ceb France Sébastien Debs Offlane
JerAx Finland Jesse Vainikka Support
N0tail (captain) Denmark Johan Sundstein

Notable tournament results

Placement Tournament Date
1st Frankfurt Major December 2015
7th Shanghai Major March 2016
1st Manila Major June 2016
1st ESL One Frankfurt 2016[20] June 2016
9th-12th The International 2016 August 2016
1st Boston Major December 2016
1st Kiev Major April 2017
7th-8th The International 2017 August 2017
1st Mars Dota League Macau December 2017
1st The International 2018 August 2018

References

  1. ↑ Stubbs, Mike. "Ana is our MVP of The International 8". Red Bull. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
  2. ↑ Ring, Ollie. "OG's Fly and n0tail look back at their Dota 2 career in Esports Unfold". Red Bull. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
  3. ↑ Stubbsy, Mike. "How OG surprised the world at the Frankfurt Major". Red Bull. Retrieved June 29, 2016.
  4. ↑ Cocke, Taylor. "OG wins Manila, becomes first team to win two Dota 2 majors". esports.yahoo.com. Yahoo. Retrieved June 14, 2016.
  5. ↑ Van Allen, Eric. "OG loses MoonMeander, Cr1t-, Miracle- in roster shuffle". ESPN. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
  6. ↑ Partridge, Jon. "Fly on what's next for the rebuilt OG". redbull.com. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
  7. ↑ Van Allen, Eric. "OG defeats Ad Finem at Boston Major for its third Major title". ESPN. Retrieved December 11, 2016.
  8. ↑ Elliott, Travis. "Dota 2 Asia Championships Main Event: Invictus tops OG in finals". ESPN. Retrieved April 4, 2017.
  9. ↑ Ballenger, Jack. "OG cements its dynasty at the Kiev Major". ESPN. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
  10. ↑ "True Sight: The Kiev Major Grand Finals". Dota 2 blog. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
  11. ↑ "OG on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2018-08-04.
  12. ↑ "Esports team OG steps into Super Smash Bros. by signing Swedish Delight". Shoryuken. 2018-05-07. Retrieved 2018-08-04.
  13. 1 2 3 Rose, Victoria. "OG Dota win The International 8 for $11 million top prize". The Flying Courier. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
  14. 1 2 3 O’Keefe, David. "OG fill us in on their epic TI8 victory". Red Bull. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
  15. ↑ "A Shift in OG". Facebook. Retrieved May 28, 2018.
  16. ↑ "OG". Facebook. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  17. ↑ "OG beats PSG.LGD in winners bracket thriller; Evil Geniuses advances". ESPN. Rotoworld. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
  18. 1 2 3 4 "OG wins five-game thriller to take The International 8 title and $11 million". ESPN. Rotowire.
  19. 1 2 3 Strom, Steven. "Dota 2 championship ends in a pulse-pounding, curse-breaking Cinderella story". PC Gamer. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
  20. ↑ Cocke, Taylor. "OG wins ESL One Frankfurt, continues dominant spree". esports.yahoo.com. Retrieved July 12, 2016.
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Team Liquid		 The International winner
2018		 Succeeded by
Incumbent
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