The International 2023 will mark Tobias "Tobi" Buchner’s second appearance at the most important Dota 2 tournament. He made his TI debut last year with Entity, but this year he merely missed out on a ticket to Seattle after being removed from his team before the regional qualifiers.
With under two months before the last chance at securing a spot at TI12, fate was on Tobi’s side as Quest Esports were looking for an offlaner. He took the trials while being away from home, on a summer vacation, and had now secured one of the two slots up for grabs in Western Europe regional qualifiers.
Ahead of his first big tournament with Quest Esports, DreamLeague Season 21, we had the chance to talk to Tobi and learn from him how all the changes happened, what are his thoughts heading into TI12 and how he adapted to the new team.
You were with Entity for almost two years before being kicked. Could you walk us through how everything happened, your departure from Entity and your arrival at Quest Esports?
I had no team talk with Entity about my removal. I mean, our last good result was at the Lima Major. Then we didn't qualify for Berlin, we got last place at DreamLeague Season 19, so we got no results and the team thought they needed a change.
You got removed at the end of the DPC season, which meant that you had a very short time frame to find a new team for TI regional qualifiers. How did you put yourself together after that news and started looking for options?
I wasn't really looking to join a team until after TI. In my mind, the season actually ended when I got kicked. I was thinking that I would wait for the post-TI shuffle and look for a team then.
So, then it was Quest who approached you?
Quest couldn't play the qualifiers with the stand-in that they had at Riyadh Masters, with Malik, because he is under contract with NAVI and he was set to play the same qualifiers with his team, so they were looking for an offlaner. They actually tweeted while I was on vacation in Spain, so I messaged them from my phone, "oh, yeah? I'm ready to play." And then, they wanted to play tryouts and I was on vacation, so I played from some office on the computer of my girlfriend's sister.
Ok, so you did that while you were in Spain? How were you able to play with the standard office peripherals, I imagine no proper mouse or keyboard?
I actually had to go to a computer shop there and buy a gaming keyboard and a mouse because I couldn't play with what was on that computer.
Money well spent then, I guess. How hard was it for you to integrate and gel with the team in such a short time and do so well in the regional qualifiers for TI12?
I would say we underperformed in the qualifiers. We had some super close games, we should have won easier, so I guess, I didn't quite integrate as fast. We are still improving and we have work to do for TI, for sure.
Does the patch help you in the offlane, do you like how the meta is going right now?
Definitely, this patch suits me and overall the offlane better. If you think at like three or four patches ago, offlane was an underwhelming role. It was funny because at the Majors, for instance, the teams that placed in the top 4 were literally the ones that had the mid players ranked 2,3,4 in the world. Those who had the highest ranked mid player, had placed 1,2,3,4 at the Majors, which was like ok, why am I playing this game in the offlane?
In the current patch, I would say that the position 4 heroes are much weaker compared to previous patches and position 3 are much, much stronger.
How does it feel sharing the lane with Omar, who is a very aggressive 4, how do you guys get along?
Laning with Omar is NICE! We got on the same page pretty fast, we got help from our coach and yeah, it's important that both of us play as aggressively as we should play.
Which duo would you say is the most annoying to play against in the offlane these days?
I didn't get to play a lot against Team Liquid, but the games we had were hard, so I would say miCKe and Insania.
We had a lot of bugs in the game coming with the latest small updates. Most of them have been cleared out, but is there anything that you might have encountered and you feel like it should be fixed before TI12 starts?
Generally, I just play around whatever I might encounter. If I experience it once, I see how it works and the next time I will play around it. I wouldn't get upset about a stupid bug that will get fixed.
When coming into DreamLeague Season 21, where you also have your former team, Entity, do you personally look at them as the team to beat, is there any bit of grudge there?
To be honest, there are many European teams that have underperformed compared to a few months back. I think I want to play against Talon the most because they got top 3 consistently throughout the year, while the top 1 and 2 were European teams. So, with EU seemingly getting a bit weaker, Talon might be the ones to beat.
How did you like the tournament schedule for this year, when besides the DPC, you also had two DreamLeague Seasons and the Riyadh Masters, and some other smaller events in between?
This year went like this: DPC for three weeks straight, three days later DreamLeague for three weeks straight, then three days later Major and three days after the Major, the DPC started again. This was insane. It was way too much and awful for the players.
You made your TI debut last year with that insane 107-minute game on stage versus RNG. What do you hope to be your experience this year, when TI is returning home, to Seattle?
I don't know much about Seattle or even North America so I'm excited to go there, to see the culture, see the Pacific Ocean.
With that in mind, we wish you the best of luck at TI12, have a great experience there, achieve your dreams, and have a wonderful time in Seattle!
Thank you!
