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Tundra Esports feared Liquid the most at TI11, were 'kind of' happy when Secret knocked them out: 33

Tundra Esports' offlaner 33 has long been considered one of the game's most creative and unique players, and now he has the Aegis to show for it. (Photo: Valve Software)
Tundra Esports' offlaner 33 has long been considered one of the game's most creative and unique players, and now he has the Aegis to show for it. (Photo: Valve Software)

Tundra Esports had a near-flawless run at Dota 2's The International 11 (TI11), placing first in the Group Stage and dominating the Main Event, dropping only a single game against Team Secret in the upper bracket finals.

But even as Tundra looked nigh-unstoppable at Singapore, there was one team that they were wary of — Team Liquid.

Tundra offlaner and TI11 champion Neta "33" Shapira shared this on the OG Monkey Business Show podcast, where he talked about his hero pool, and which teams they feared the most at the tournament.

Liquid faced Tundra five times prior to TI11 and won four of those encounters, though the two never met in the tournament's Group Stage or Main Event.

When Secret defeated Liquid in the lower bracket finals, 33 said Tundra breathed a sigh of relief.

"The team we were not looking forward to play the most was Liquid because we played them a lot throughout the year and we struggled against them," said 33.

"So, in one way, you wanna play against them and get your revenge when it matters the most, but also it's like if you always lose to a team, it would be nice to avoid playing them, so we were kind of happy to see Secret beat Liquid in the lower bracket finals."

South American teams 'tough' to play against

Tundra Esports experienced most of their losses during the group stage, dropping four games in total. Half of those games were against South American teams, whom 33 considered tough teams to play against.

"In the groups, we had a couple of hard series against the South American teams, both Beastcoast and Thunder Awaken, I think we went 1-1 with both," said 33.

In the playoffs, it was another Western European team that gave Tundra a harder time than most.

For 33, their first Main Event encounter against Team Secret was their hardest match of the tournament.

"The game in the upper bracket against Secret, it went to three games and I think if they played [game three] a little bit better, we could have easily lost that game. They had a pretty good draft against us. So I would say that was probably the hardest game in the playoffs," said 33.

A big part of Tundra's success was 33's performance.

Considered one of the best offlaners in the world at the moment, he focused on applying pressure in his lane in order to shrink the map for his opponents and give them no avenue to farm for gold and experience.

To accomplish this, 33 decided he only wanted to play a handful of heroes in order to perfect them.

"Everyone had a lot of confidence in the heroes they wanted to play. And at least my idea was that I didn't really want to branch out too much before the tournament. I wrote down six heroes and I said guys, if [Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov] can play three heroes and win TI, I'm gonna do it as well," explained 33.

"I only want to play Visage, Broodmother, Beastmaster, Doom, Tidehunter, and Enigma."

In patch 7.32, 33 ended up only playing these six heroes only, but with awe-inspiring results.

He won all five games he picked Doom as well as the four games he chose Tidehunter. Visage was his most-played hero, with seven wins and two losses.

Otomo is a long-time gaming enthusiast and caster. He has been playing games since he was 10 and is the biggest Dota 2 fan.

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