ESL Berlin Major brought another defeat at the hand of Team Liquid for Tundra Esports. The TI11 Champions went home with a top 6 finish, but before leaving Berlin we had the chance to talk with Neta "33" Shapira and learn what holds his team back when playing against Liquid.
We also spoke about some of the changes in the New Frontiers patch and what are some of the OP things that should be nerfed sooner rather than later.
A lot has changed with the new patch, but I want to hear your opinion about this aura meta from the offlane. All the players I've talked to here at the Major, say it's quite a boring one, how do you see it?
I think there needs to be a place for auras, but I have to agree that right now it's a bit boring because Pipe and Crimson got a bit overtuned. Maybe it will get better when they will manage to balance them properly. The Pipe feels like it blocks three times as much as it did before, which is a bit ridiculous.
Your mid laner, Nine is usually very active in the mid lane, which of course allows you to build all kinds of strategies around that. Have the new patch changes on how the map is played impacted your gameplay as a team?
It's more of a delay now if you want to play around your mid, if you want to just focus hard on the sidelines. In the previous patch, the sidelines were always pretty much abandoned and both supports would go play with the mid, and at some point, you would connect everyone together and basically follow the mid run. Probably it was done a bit too much in the previous patch so, Valve wanted to change it a bit.
Now, with the Twin Gates, it's of course a lot easier to play for the side lanes. You also have a lot more camps to farm when you are sitting in a side lane. I think we still have a lot to discover in terms of how the map should be played in an ideal way, but right now, the good teams are still playing for the runes. They kind of realized that at the start of the patch, the mid lane was maybe a bit forgotten, but now, I think that people are kind of coming to the realization that if you secure the runes for your mid laner is going to help him own the mid lane so hard and will open the map. I think that it's good to have options with the side lanes, but probably playing for mid is still very important.
How do you like the Shield Rune?
It's a bit too strong. As a concept it's ok, but it needs to be nerfed in my opinion. The duration of it is too long. If you bottle it and you use it at the end, basically nobody can go on you for like 3 minutes or something like that. You keep it in the bottle for a minute and a half, then you use and for this whole duration, you are basically unkillable, especially in the early game.
So, I don't really like that and I think if they want this rune to be as strong as it is, then it needs to have a way shorter duration, kind of like the Double Damage one.
You are praised and super valued for your micro skills and I'd like to ask you if Chen, who seems to be fully back to the meta, at least at the Berlin Major, is actually suitable for a core, offlane position.
Chen was played in the games at the start of the patch, but he received some nerfs in the b patch and he kind of disappeared, so I didn't try it myself. But in general, when Chen is a good support, he can also be played as a core.
To wrap up this interview, I'd like to ask you what do you think is holding Tundra back when playing against Team Liquid?
Here, at the Major, we just ended up playing pretty poorly in the lower bracket series against them. We weren't really able to focus and get started playing the way we wanted. A lot of times we struggle against Liquid and it feels like maybe their style is just good against ours.
When Matumbaman was on their team, they probably had like the best safe lane and they would pick very toxic lanes to try and punish you as hard as possible and that was pretty hard for us to do it. I and Saksa we were always used to kind of doing well in our lanes no matter what, but Liquid would always punish us with counter picks.
Nowadays, with miCKe, they play the safe lane a bit differently, they play for the farm, and they don't punish as hard. So, for me, it doesn't feel as challenging anymore, but obviously, they are a very good team and if you don't bring your A-game when you're playing against a good team, you just gonna lose. I don't think it's anything to do with style, at least not right now, it's just that we ended up playing poorly.
Alright, it's time to wrap up this interview. Thank you so much Netta for coming to talk to us, we wish you a great Summer tour in the DPC and the best of luck in the next tournaments.
Thank you and thank you to everyone who came to watch us.
