This article is brought to you by StatBanana, the best Dota 2 strategy tool.
Ylli “garter” Ramadani has been playing Dota since the original game came out, going pro in 2007 and becoming one of the most well-known Albanian players in the scene. And after playing out the 2019 season on a smaller team and seeing very little success, he decided it was time to try something new.
With a simple message of “out with the old, in with the new,” Garter announced his retirement from professional Dota 2 and that he would instead be switching his efforts onto becoming a competitive LoL player.
“What should have been a hard decision has now come easy to me after all of this,” Garter said. “There comes a time when you can’t keep fighting against a broken system that won’t give. Dota 2 is really an amazing game and I have met some incredible people and had some positive and impactful experiences, but it’s time to hang up my Dota 2 hat and start the new year, the new decade with a new start.”
Garter had the chance to play with some extremely talented players that have gone on to achieve incredible things in the competitive scene. Just a few of those names are Sébastien “Ceb” Debs, Michael “miCKe” Vu, Neta “33” Shapira, and Aydin “iNSaNiA” Sarkohi. All spent time on a roster with him, but they could just never get off the ground.
He is probably best remembered as the cornerstone player of Prodota Gaming, but even after the team managed to put together some strong rosters, the competition was too much for them to compete against in the European region. And once Garter left the organization in June 2017, it folded and he has been a journeyman ever since.
Following his initial message, Garter criticized how larger organizations poach any player from smaller rosters.
“Any high level or even $500 salaried team can poach any player from your team at any given time – mid season, one day before qualifiers, mid event even,” Garter said. “The most recent example is (Danil “Dendi” Ishutin’s) stack who won a tournament and a day later (Alexey “nongrata” Vasilyev) was poached by Team Spirit which possibly ruined a team with potential.”
He pointed out that he loves the game and playing it, but the competitive scene has so many flaws at the top level that then trickle down. He also bashed the MMR system and how it has no bearing on the individual ranked matches because the matchmaking doesn’t work to place you with players that compliment each other.
Garter isn’t the first Dota player to also play LoL, but he certainly plans to be one of the first to make a successful jump between the two competitive scenes.
