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Team Liquid.Insania on 33: " There will be a friendly rivalry"
Team Liquid ended last season on a high note. They overcame their demons at The International 2024 (TI 13), with a little help from then-former TI champion, Neta "33" Shapira. As a result, they successfully immortalized their names on the Aegis of Champions. The victory also solidified 33's legacy, making him a two-time TI champion.
Shortly after TI 13, 33 parted ways with Team Liquid and rejoined his former team, Tundra Esports. Consequently, Liquid recruited a new offlaner, Jonáš "SabeRLight-" Volek, for the 2024-2025 Dota 2 professional season. The two teams faced off against each other in the group stage of BetBoom Dacha Belgrade.
Insania on the first game
Before 33 joined Team Liquid, they were known for their high-ground pushes, which occasionally backfired spectacularly. However, during the first match of the series, it was Tundra who tried this move unsuccessfully.
Despite the opportunity, Team Liquid missed the chance to capitalize their comeback. At the 36-minute mark, Tundra Esports executed a brilliant bait play by Artem "lorenof" Melnick, causing Liquid to overextend and lose two core heroes.
This allowed Tundra to comfortably breach Liquid's high ground with their safelane Luna, leading to a significant economic disadvantage for Liquid. With Liquid’s buybacks unavailable, Tundra forced another skirmish and closed out the first game at 41 minutes. In his post-game interview, the hard support of Team Liquid, Aydin "Insania" Sarkohi shared his thoughts on the match.
"To be honest, usually when I play Dota games, I have like perfect memory so I remembered everything that happened but I think I'm a little bit out of practice. I had a long break after TI. So, I don't really remembered the game, I know I was doing a lot of feeding, so I'm not sure why the comeback didn't go through."
Insania: "We were very obsessed with killing Neta"
In the second game, Team Liquid hit back hard as their midlaner, Michał "Nisha" Jankowski, made plays with Tiny. He picked off Tundra's heroes across the map, enabling his Razor to scale and helping his offlane Beastmaster catch up. Despite this, Tundra still executed a few surprise skirmishes, thanks to 33's signature Doom.
However, Liquid's significant lead allowed them to close out the second game at 44 minutes. Insania also shared insights into his team's approach for the second game in his post-game interview.
" To be honest, we were just very obsessed with killing Neta. So, you know we just wanna give it to him, because we have seen what he can do with Doom first-hand on our own team. We didn't really want to get him to that point, but I feel like somehow we still did like when he popped out with a Refresher. That was like okay I guess he's just that farmed. Big respect to him but we just really want to shut him down. Towards the end, you wanna beat your old team mate. I felt that in our atmosphere."
Insania talks about his relationship with 33
33's time with Team Liquid was short. However, during this period, he helped them overcome numerous obstacles, even securing a prestigious trophy in the Dota 2 scene.
He parted ways with Team Liquid on good terms, and in his interview, Insania also expressed his thoughts on Neta's new team.
" I think there will be a friendly rivalry throughout this year. I think they are very good, he's obviously very good. His entire team looks really promising. So, I'm very much looking forward to every matchup with Tundra."
The series ended in a tie, as both Team Liquid and Tundra Esports won a game each in the best of two (Bo2). However, thanks to their victory in the first match, Tundra Esports became the first team to advance to the next stage of BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2024. Stay tuned to Strafe for coverage of all the latest action unfolding at the tournament.
Featured Image Source: Valve
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