After heading West, Jonas "Saberlight" Volek has struck gold with TSM FTX.
In 1848 gold was found in a streambed in California. What resulted after was a rapid influx of prospectors that were westward bound to claim a portion of the success and fortune for themselves. They risked disease, hardships, and even death.
Some endured and struck gold and riches, making history and their dreams come true.
Although Dota 2 players thankfully don't have to worry about facing physical death heading out west, disease (ehm COVID) and hardships (lack of sponsors and financial burdens) are still plenty.
While many will try, not all will succeed. And few will strike gold.
Jonas "Saberlight" Volek is a fun-loving personality who is always ready to do interviews and make the fans smile. He is down-to-earth, grounded, and genuine.
This is why his striking gold and his recent success with TSM FTX (formerly Undying) are even more satisfying to witness.
Humble Beginnings
A self-proclaimed clash royal professional SabeRLight started playing with Dota 1 more than ten years ago.
I remember playing the game in the computer classes in school with my friends. I would beat them 1 v 5. It wasn’t that I was exceptional, but in Dota 1, you used to get more gold if you were alone. I would just buy Dagon in the first minute and beat them all!
I thought about going professional when I hit 5000 MMR. I wasn’t too interested in school. I was playing chess professionally back in the day and would get excited at the prospect of skipping school while attending chess tournaments. And then it hit me, I could do the same thing with Dota tournaments. Dota is basically chess on [steroids]; it’s much more exciting!
In 2017 he competed as part of the Hippomanic's squad, an organization based in Slovakia that was founded in 2016 to develop esports in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. He played there for approximately two years where he enjoyed an emerging career with some success in tier 2 events and in qualifiers.
He moved on to Team Singularity, Chicken FIghters, and Ninjas in Pyjamas. A tour of Europe and the tier 2 scene.
Westward Bound
It wasn't until the start of 2021 that things changed for the player from Czechia, starting with a change of regions.
I believed the players on Undying were really good and I wanted to learn from them, but I also just felt like I needed a bit of change in my life, having played most of my previous career in EU.
He played the entire 2021 Dota 2 year across the pond from his teammates. Late hours, 120 ping, and physical isolation from his team didn't stop SabeRLight and undying from finding some initial success and qualifying for The International 10.
- Read Interview with Undying's offlaner Saberlight: "DuBu and MoonMeander have helped the team a lot"
Undying took a commendable 13-16th place finish (and $600,300) at The International 2021.
Commendable because prepping for the pinnacle of all events was the first time that the teammates were actually in the same place together and met. Also because they decided to head to TI without the support of an organization backing them.
They made no roster changes after The International 10, and a year after their formation, their commitment to stay at the top of the NA competitive scene paid off.
Team Solo Mid FTX announced their signing of Team Undying ahead of the Dota Pro Circuit Winter Tour Regional Finals in January.
And that meant that SabeRLight was westward bound in search of his fortune.
I think getting signed by TSM certainly is a very big part of it [surge in success this year] -the motivation, the stability, and the support we get from them with the personnel, salary, and stuff like that. On top of that, I think it is kind of the experience we got from last year (...) we didn't disband or anything like that, we didn't kick anyone. We stayed together coz we believed in the team and this trust in one another I think helped us a lot.
Right now we are very comfortable with each other, we fixed all the mistakes we did last year — like some people were like for example I think too stressed out or too nervous when we started losing so those people worked on that, I worked on ... my laning wasn't the best so I focused on that. We all improved ourselves, and I think we became a much better team from it.
And a much better team they did become from it all. In fact, they struck gold.
TSM reached the grand finals at their first-ever Major together in Stockholm last month. They started the playoffs seeded in the upper bracket courtesy of a third-place finish in Group B and had a perfect run to the grand finals. They took down OG and Gaimin Gladiators before being pitted against Tundra Esports, who they overcame with a 2:1 victory.
Although they didn't take the championship title (OG overpowered them 3:1 in the end), they did strike it rich.
The points that they earned at the event (610) and through the league play landed them in 2nd place in the overall DPC rankings for the start of Tour 3.
We asked SabeRLight, "Did you ever imagine being 2nd place in the DPC rankings?"
Not really, that's kind of insane honestly. Even though this season 1 it was already looking pretty good after we won the regionals, we were like ok, we have a very good shot at qualifying with DPC points (...)
We are going into the major with the mindset that so far at every LAN we've been at, we've ended second-to-last. So let's just not just end second-to-last, let's just try to be top 6 so we get the points to qualify to TI and we can chill after.
And then we made the really impressive run to like to top 2 and we got so many points for that so it's a really crazy feeling that there are only two teams that are really qualified for TI at this point and it's us and LGD ... and LGD is like the best team in the world basically so it feels cool.
This is just the start of SabeRLight and Co. journey under the TSM banner. With one more Major and The International 2022 on the horizon, they have even bigger fortunes and fame to unearth.
Check out our full talk with SabeRLight in our exclusive video below
