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Over the next few days will we be releasing part of our interview with Fantic’s Chief Gaming Officer and Counter-Strike legend Patrik “cArn” Sättermon. Last time he spoke about Fnatic’s CS:GO woes in 2016 and while today he jumps into the Fnatic Dota 2 teams recent roster changes.
After the fan favourite European Fnatic team fell apart in the massive post TI4 shuffle few people expected that the next team the organisation sponsored in the world of Dota would be from south east Asia. Out of the four major regions they have always been the weakest, and Fnatic is an organisation that likes to be one of the big dogs.
But that is exactly what they did, picking up Team Malaysia, which included Dota legend Chai "Mushi" Yee Fung as the team’s captain. They didn’t get off to the best start under Fnatic, and more than a few roster changes went down, but they secured top six in Shanghai and Manila so heading into TI6 they were tipped to do well.
Fnatic ended up grabbing forth at TI6, which while it wasn’t unexpected, was certainly a good finish for them. They took home almost $1.5 million and were on top of the world. However as is always the case post TI, more changes were afoot. Fantic ended up bringing in DeMon, Raven and eyyou from TNC, who also had an amazing run at TI.
This was supposed to be the SEA dream team, Valve even followed them for the True Sight documentary, but it all fell apart. The team failed to qualify for Boston and the three new players all left the team, leaving Fantic with just two players currently signed. To find out what happened, and what is next we chatted with Fantic’s Chief Gaming Officer, Patrik “cArn” Sättermon.
eSports Pro: It has been, let’s say interesting, over the last few months in regards to your Dota team. What happened post TI and over the last few weeks?
Patrik “cArn” Sättermon: “In every off season, there is, changes right? You cannot just guarantee that the new ingredients that you throw into the mix will mesh well with your current players. eSports and any other sport for that sake, it’s really small margins every now and then. It’s being one map away from qualifying for a major, taking you to the next stage where you can gain your major spot for example. That could change everything. It’s the small details. Getting the last hit or hitting that skill shot a little bit better. We haven’t had that on our side.”
“Could we have acted and reacted better to the roster changes post TI? Could we have kept players and worked harder to make everyone happy together and staying in Malaysia? Surely, we could have, but this is part of the journey and now we just had to reassess how to move forward post Boston Major. Now we have Ohaiyo and Mushi still in the team. We’re not planning to go anywhere. We are very happy with our Dota guys. They are taking us back into the limelight in Dota with a remarkable top four finish, starting from lower bracket in TI and lot of top placement in major tournaments.”
eSports Pro: Outside of winning TI, which is ultimately everyone’s goal, what do you want to accomplish in Dota?
cArn: “Obviously, we want to be crowned champions of a tournament in Dota. It’s been awhile so to speak because you have to go back to online tournaments years back. But I think we have a solid base.”
“I think it’s been great for Fnatic as a brand [to go to SEA]. I think it’s been great for eSports in south east Asia as well. For teams like us to come into the space, maybe setting a higher standard, maybe leading the way a bit and showing how the Western eSports are done and meanwhile learning from what they do over there. It’s been a really exciting journey working with Mushi and Ohaiyo and obviously everyone else that’s been in our team.”
“Similar to what we’re seeing with CS:GO, good times or bad times, we’re just going to get through it. That’s what good teams do.”
eSports Pro: Now you only have two players on the team how are you going about finding new talent. Have you already started looking or are you waiting for the post major shuffle to kick off? [Note: This interview was conducted before the major ended.]
cArn: “I think it’s just a monitoring process that includes checking into the streams and the games of the major, assessing the semi-pro level or the soon to breakthrough player, based in south east Asia or any other region. Again, I mentioned earlier on another topic or another question, we don’t really have any borders, right? We consider yourself a global team. We showed that before with Black^, coming over from Germany, we had DeMoN, Jimmy, coming from TNC, but obviously he’s an American player.”
“We don’t put any restrictions down, but surely it’s going to be a team that is headed by and representing southeast Asia Dota, so qualifying from those qualifiers and whatnot. You probably have to give us five, six weeks to get back with a full roster, but we’re not sitting and chilling. We are assessing the landscape. We are preparing ourselves for somewhat of an off-season that naturally occurs after a completed major.”
Next week cArn tackles League of Legends.
