Ahead of DreamLeague Season 22 we spoke to Sébastien "Ceb" Debs, one of the two OG pillars and we are keen to learn about his drive and motivation to bring the team to a championship winning formula.
Sébastien "Ceb" Debs has been with OG for nearly eight years now. He saw and experienced the lowest of the lows and the highest peaks a Dota 2 team could possibly reach. He is one of the only five players in the history of the game that have won The International back to back, more so, doing it after coming back from retirement.
At OG, Ceb fulfilled almost every role possible. From joining the team as a coach back in 2016, to being the rock for Johan "N0tail" Sundstein when the team was on the brink of a complete dissolution, to returning to active play and winning two TI’s back-to-back, then exiting the limelight to mentor new generations of players, to retiring and coming back to stand in and win major tournaments, Ceb has proven time and time again that he would do everything in his powers to see OG successful.
In almost every aspect of a Dota 2 professional player, Ceb is built differently. There is no one in the scene to share a similar storyline and when we asked him where he finds the motivation to bounce back and overcome any obstacle, the answer was straightforward; “OG means the world to me just because of the people who were there in the beginning, the people who are here today and why the organisation was built.”
Talking about his willingness to do whatever is needed for the team at different times in OG, Ceb explained that that’s how he is built and that’s how he acted even before joining the organisation. “I want OG to win for so many reasons, and in that sense, I am ready to do whatever it takes. I feel like that has always been my approach, though, even before OG. When I joined a team, I wanted my team to win and I would do whatever it takes, in the sense that wherever I bring the most value is where I'm going to be. Sometimes it is playing, sometimes it is coaching, and sometimes it is on the sideline. If I had to be just the water supplier, I would do it.”
Ceb won TI8 and TI9 in the offlane role. His TI8 Axe play will probably never be forgotten by the Dota 2 fans, but since then he also played position 4 and now he is preparing to enter DreamLeague Season 22 as position 5 support. When we asked about his versatility and if he actively worked on that, Ceb talked to us about limitations. More precisely about not seeing limitations in Dota 2.
“I don't feel any limits when it comes to Dota, I feel capable, for now at least, of playing any role, so it made sense to play five. Obviously, it takes a lot of work and some time for me to adapt, get ready and improve, but I feel like I'm getting there,” Ceb told to us.
OG has always distinguished itself as an organisation by its ability to scout and recruit young players and turn them into true champions in an incredibly fast time. Starting with Miracle- Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi, who won his first major in 2015 soon after joining OG, to Anathan "ana" Pham and Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen, who were turned from pub stars in TI winners almost overnight, to Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf, Artem "Yuragi" Golubiev and Bozhidar "bzm" Bogdanov, who all joined the organisation at 15, 16 years old and have lifted their first Major trophies under the OG banner.
We talked to Ceb about OG’s capability of finding promising talents and turning them into champions. Is all this possible due to his knack for mentoring?
“Yes, there is a lot of truth in that, but I will also include Johan (N0tail) in that. He is not as involved these days, but he's been my mentor when it comes to that. So in that sense, wherever I convey to teams today, a big chunk of it is also Johan's approach to team dynamics and just Dota in general.
I guess when we see young players, we don't only see how fast they click and how well they play. I think we see more than that. The thing with young players is that they are usually more keen on learning and adapting, whereas some of the more experienced players might just be stuck with a way of looking at the game, or with things that they think they know and the things that they don't really want to reflect on. That's a limiting aspect for us, so I think what attracts us in young players is that we see great potential and great motivation, the will to learn, to adapt and to build something. It comes with a lot of challenges and it takes a lot of patience and hard work, but we also enjoy doing that. I would say we value the building process a lot more.“
However, 2023 was a nightmare of a year for many Dota 2 players and organisations, including OG. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the two-year war had at times made it impossible for players from both countries to travel, keep training and stay at the top of the game. OG’s performance went downhill up to the point where they missed The International for the first time in the organisation's history. From there on, OG failed to qualify for any of the tournaments from the second part of the year and unfortunately, roster changes had to take place.
The first tournament for the team in 2024 finds OG with two South American players on the roster. While Enzo "Timado" Gianoli is just a stand-in for DreamLeague Season 22 and was officially announced a day after we spoke with Ceb, the Bolivian OG offlaner, Adrián "Wisper" Dobles has joined the team in November last year and is heading now to his first tournament with a European organisation.
Wisper is far from being a newcomer. He established himself as one of the best offlaners in SA through his time at beastcoast, so we talked to Ceb about what seems to be a shift in how OG approached the team’s restructure. And while he explained to us that they initially even thought of bringing Ivan "MinD_ContRoL" Ivanov in, after having him standing in at the ESL One Berlin Major 2023, they eventually went for Wisper as MC wasn’t sure at that time if he was going to leave Nigam Galaxy or not.
“We parted ways with DM and tried with Mind_ContRoL as a stand-in and that went really well. But MC wasn't sure if he was going to leave Nigma or if he was going to stick with them and during that time we learnt that Wisper was actually looking for another venture. We always respected him and thought really highly of him as a player, so we instantly got excited about the prospect of playing with him. So, we are super happy having him.”
Despite not having a full roster right now, Ceb is already seeing improvements in the team’s development and performance. DreamLeague Season 22 is just the first tournament of the year for them, and in his own words, “it's just a matter of time” before OG will be back in shape and ready to win championship titles again.
“Right now our only objectives are our next set of games, how to improve, how to get better, and how to just win on a regular basis and we are picking up some steam. We went from not being able to qualify, 2023 was like a very dark year for the team, but now everything is different.
Now we are qualifying, we are making it to events, and now it is going to be about performing there and getting into the later stages of the tournament. We are taking one step at a time.”
OG’s first matches at DreamLeague Season 22 are scheduled for Sunday, February 25, when the one million dollars tournament is set to begin. The tournament is a part of the ESL Pro Tour and besides the generous prize pool, it also has a total of 18,550 EPT points to be split among the 16 participating teams.
At the end of the season, the top 8 teams with the highest EPT points will be directly qualified for this year’s Riyadh Masters event at the Esports World Cup 2024. OG are currently in the 8th place on the EPT leaderboard.
