OG to miss TI for the first time

OG won’t be at The International for the first time since the organization was founded, back in 2015.

A rough competitive year closes with many dreams shattered in the Western European qualifiers for The International 2023 (TI12) as the competition is down to just four teams on the hunt for the two tickets up for grabs.

While Luna Galaxy, formerly known as D2 Hustlers, and Entity are one series away from claiming one of the two tickets to Seattle, most of those who were seen as favorites are already gone. 

OG’s road to Seattle was cut short in the lower bracket rounds by Quest Esports. More so, the lower bracket in WEU is far from what many would have predicted, but that’s just a perfect picture for how stacked the region is.  

Quest are one of the teams to be feared the most, but coming into the qualifiers for the most important tournament of the year with huge target on their back, upsets were likely to happen.

Luna Galaxy knocked Quest in the elimination rounds and messed up with other teams’ plans as well.

OG were first to fell at the hands of Quest Esports after a thrilling series that started with an 83 minutes first game.

Quest EsportsvsOG

Naga Siren combos seem to have been what Quest had prepared for OG. In the first game they pared it with Dawnbreaker for fast team fight connections and with a Pangolier that past the 60 minute became impossible to be taken down. OG ran a Medusa-Keeper of the Light duo and had plenty of initiations between a Storm Spirit, a Legion Commander and a Vengeful Spirit. However, the execution was at times hard to land as Quest countered most of OG’s ideas with a support Silencer.

Even so, the game went to extremely late stages where every team fight could have been decisive. It took Quest 83 minutes until they decided to take the win with a rat Dota maneuver, going straight for the Throne with a Desolator purchased on Downdbreaker.

Moving into the second game OG, banned plenty of the patch flavor heroes, including Dawn, Naga, Gyro and Pangolier and managed to even the series with a nearly perfect Terrorblade game from Artem "Yuragi" Golubiev.

However, they allowed Quest to run another Naga draft in game three and on top of it, Quest also had a Shadow Demon to swarm the enemy with even more illusions and also counter the enemy Luna. Despite tremors efforts to keep the lanes balanced, OG were pretty much overwhelmed by the incredible push power and had to take the loss.

While Quest will continue their road to TI in the lower bracket rounds and will face Team Secret next, OG will have to watch the tournament from the sidelines for the first time in their history.