Winning in any high-level esport is hard, and consistently winning is something very few teams can achieve. So for Gaimin Gladiators, who had a historic Dota 2 win streak this season, they had to approach every event with no expectations just to stay composed.
After becoming the first ever team to win all three Dota Pro Circuit Majors in a single season and taking home two DreamLeague titles, Gaimin cemented themselves as one of the most dominant teams to ever play Dota 2.
After their third DPC win at the Bali Major in July, the team suffered its first “setback” in the form of finishing fourth at Riyadh Masters 2023. This is where Gaimin support player tOfu thinks the biggest drawbacks started to show for his team, because with all that success came the burden of a bigger target on their backs—not just from other teams but from Valve as well.
“When you win a lot with a hero or a certain strategy, they’ll get nerfed and you’ll have to adapt to a new situation,” tOfu said to Dot Esports. “Because when you’re successful with a certain strat, other teams also start copying you, and you often have to play against yourself, rethink what you do. This takes quite a bit of time, I think this was what hurt us toward the end of the season.”
The team bounced back at BetBoom Dacha with a first-place win after coming back from a month-long break from the game.
TOfu notes that this was an extremely important period for Gaimin as, during the bootcamp for Riyadh, he only played two games of Dota because he “didn’t want to touch the game.” That mentality was a setback several players carried with them while preparing for the big event, and it led to poor adjustments and a “desperately” needed break.
“We weren’t happy with the way we played the game [at Riyadh], and we tried to improve and get on track. But leading up to that point, the way we played the game had got nerfed so we had difficulties trying to adjust,” tOfu said. “During the lower bracket run, I’d say we learned the most, but in the end, it wasn’t enough for us. And the other teams outplayed us. And if you show a weak side, you’ll get punished immediately.”
Despite not performing up to their own standards at Riyadh or DL21, where they finished seventh right before TI, Gaimin has not changed their approach to tournaments at all.
From the moment this iteration of the team formed in December to the lead-up to TI12, Gaimin enters them all with no expectations and the goal to play their best Dota.
“Every tournament we go to, we go in without expectations. We basically have the talk about how much time and effort we would like to put into it, and we want everyone to be on the same page on this,” tOfu said. “When it comes to a major tournament like Riyadh everyone wants to win it. But for us, we just treated like any other tournament, yes there was more money on the line, and we still wanted to just play and not think about that.”
Right before TI, tOfu told Dot Esports that he was “not sure whether the pressure is going to be any different” at TI this year considering there is a lesser prize pool and Gaimin entered as one of the favorites. However, he did say that he was looking forward to testing himself at the most prestigious event as he likes “being on the stage and on high stakes.”
“As a player, I don’t think there should be any additional stress because it’s just another tournament, if a tournament is big, you should always prepare for it on the same level,” tOfu said.
That approach did not help Gaimin in the early stages of TI12, where they had a middling group stage performance and were knocked into the lower bracket before the playoffs by Talon Esports. They did make a solid recovery after that to qualify for the main event with back-to-back sweeps over Evil Geniuses and 9Pandas.
Gaimin will once again face elimination against the TI12 NA Cinderella story, nouns in the first lower bracket series for Finals Weekend at 12pm CT.
