Prelude

It’s 2010.

It’s still early in the year. A younger Chong “Ohaiyo” Xin Khoo, who plays basketball for his school, has yet to watch the LA Lakers defeat the Boston Celtics, 4-3, in a marathon series.

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But tonight he sits at home and basketball is the last thing on his mind. Instead, he is staring at his computer screen, waiting for a game lobby to fill. He alt-tabs to find a gaggle of people typing messages on the chat channel.

“Tunnel please host”

“only AP, g?”

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A stream of phrases in mixed Mandarin and English fills the channel. He minimizes it and tabs back into his game. He’s playing DotA, shorthand for a wildly popular custom map for WarCraft 3 called Defense of the Ancients, on the Garena platform.

As his lobby fills up, he sees a name. He recognizes this as the in-game name of one of the best players in Malaysia. In time, they will become friends, teammates and ultimately one of the most dominating forces in all of SEA Dota.

“Mushi.”

The match is a blur to Ohaiyo. He doesn’t really remember much of it in details. “He just added me after and we started playing together from then,” Ohaiyo said in an interview with eSports by INQUIRER.net.

It would be two more years before Ohaiyo would make his true professional debut, playing for MUFC. But in those early days, it was his relationship with Chai Yee “Mushi” Fung that put him on the path to becoming one of the highest caliber players in SEA.

“We trained together, even before I played for MUFC,” Ohaiyo recalled. “I used to always play solo mid. I would learn from Mushi because we would 1 v 1. We played a lot of clan wars then. One day, he even asked me to attend a small LAN in Malaysia with his team. That was the first time I played a tournament with him.”

Ohaiyo remembers those days — from his short stint with MUFC to his The International run with Orange, Titan and his more recent career as a member of Team Malaysia — vividly.

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“It was 2012. Before I played professionally, it was Mushi who would coach me. Later, I joined MUFC. When we had a problem in the team and we all decided to part ways, it was Mushi who called me and asked me to join Orange,” Ohaiyo said.

In team Orange, the young Ohaiyo shifted away from the midlane to the offlane. It was at this time that Mushi took the world by storm, leading the then-unknown Malaysian team by posting dominating performances against Western squads at The International.

“I lost myself as a midlaner for Orange. I found that I wasn’t suited there,” Ohaiyo recalled. “I told Mushi that i wanted to move to offlane.”

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It’s 2016 now. Ohaiyo and Mushi have attended multiple LANs since their first adventure in 2010. ESL ONE Manila, however, will be both a familiar and different beast.

While Mushi will still be giving the young SEA Dota player direction, it is Ohaiyo who will lead the team—the hot-streaking Fnatic Dota 2—into what could be the team’s first LAN title.

Preparing for ESL ONE Manila

Ohaiyo is a tall young man, but shy for his stature. He prefers taking long, considered replies before answering questions.

When asked how much he’s grown since his days in MUFC to today as one of the pillars of Fnatic, he says teamwork is key.

“When you’re fixing problems, sometimes it depends on the team. When we’re losing, how you fix the problem depends on your fellow players. As a professional player, we have to discuss with each other on how to fix the problem,” Ohaiyo explained. “You can’t rush. If you have problems with a team, you have to take your time.”

But when asked about their preparation for Manila, Ohaiyo answered with more resolve.

“I think a lot of teams are starting to look at Fnatic. I think many teams can now see that we improved a lot,” Ohaiyo said. “We’re definitely worried about Liquid and Secret. We’ve never met a stronger team in the online tournaments. We’ll need more analysis if we want to beat them.”

“Team Secret is the team I really want to beat in Manila. Their lineup is quite strong,” he added.

Fnatic’s preparation for Manila began right after Shanghai ended. The Winter Major revealed key gaps in the team’s play and they were determined to learn their lessons.

Since Shanghai, Fnatic Dota has climbed the fastest out of the teams present in that tournament, dominating all of March and April in online qualifiers. To date, the team has qualified for three LAN events since the Winter Major.

But a LAN event title continues to elude the Malaysian squad. For ESL ONE Manila, Fnatic will have to draw from their recent experiences—the Shanghai Major and the last month-long stretch as the kings of SEA—to win.

At Shanghai, Fnatic prepared by arriving at least a week ahead of the tournament to practice with Chinese teams.

“In SEA, we realized that the playstyle is not stable enough. When teams are winning, it is not clean; the SEA teams give a little bit of room for opponents to come back,” Ohaiyo said.

Fnatic prepped for Shanghai by practicing against EHOME and Vici Gaming. The team would end up placing higher than both.

It was losing to the Western teams and their SEA rivals in MVP that made Fnatic reflect. And it was the subsequent personal lessons they arrived at together as a team that they took to heart.

“When you fight against Secret or EG, when you lose a match, then you can’t come back easily. They will close the game and you will know why you lost,” he said.

From that point forward, Fnatic focused on fixing team issues and improving their play. They started by fixing their drafting phase and their hero pools.

“We learned a lot from the other teams at Shanghai, so we practiced them in SEA,” he said. “First we tried to practice our drafts. We learned a lot about playing offlaners after Shanghai.”

“Now we find that we have a lot of good heroes in the offlane. The new camp design gives us a lot of things to do. It lets me do a lot of things from the offlane and Dj can farm while ganking,” Ohaiyo added.

The practice paid off. By the end of Shanghai, Fnatic totally embraced the offlane/jungler metagame and practiced it to near perfection. The result? A dominating SEA performance, featuring a 24-match win streak in March and a yet unbroken 8-match streak in April.

While Mushi traditionally called most of the key decision points in Fnatic’s game, including the draft, his absence has forced the team to adapt. Ohaiyo says that their recent successes have allowed them to trust each other more and capitalize on each other’s strengths.

READ: Finding Mushi: How Fnatic Found Themselves in the Wake of Mushi’s Absence

“Adam, 343, is the one who does the drafts. We just tell him sometimes what we think. He also drafted a little before Mushi took a break. In the game, Dj and I call out most of the plays.” he said.

So far, the arrangement has worked wonderfully for Fnatic. “Dj call a lot in the early game. He makes the momentum for the early game. In the late game, I’m usually one to call, sometimes MidOne,” he added.

A LAN title in waiting

Along with Fnatic, other teams are hungry to win ESL ONE Manila. A win here would almost guarantee a direct invite to the last Major of the year, the Manila Major in June.

Complexity, for example, will look to seal the deal as the top-tier team in North America by taking down the event this weekend. For Ohaiyo, it’s a matter of steeling their resolve in order to best the competition.

“Although we won a lot online, it doesn’t mean we can win in LAN. Some teams win more in offline events,” Ohaiyo said. “MVP is a very strong LAN team. They can learn a lot in a LAN. They have good mentality when they plan in a LAN. They are very confident. We need to be confident.”

Ohaiyo recalls their loss at Shanghai with a certain bitterness, but with a determination to learn from the past.

“It was very sad when we lost at Shanghai. It felt like we didn’t prepare that much for MVP. We played until 3AM, slept 6AM and didn’t have enough rest. We didn’t discuss strategies or what we learned,” recalled Ohaiyo.

This weekend, Fnatic is determined to learn from past lessons. This time, they are marching into the MOA Arena with a drive to take it down.

“I’m also super excited because I love a lot of the food in the Philippines. I hope Dj will bring me around to taste all of the tasty meals,” Ohaiyo mused.

“Most of all, I’m excited for Manila and ESL because it’s going to be the biggest in SEA. I’m excited because whether we win or we lose, we’re going to learn so much. But of course we want to win.”

Banner photo by Dota 2.

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