OG (esports)

OG is a professional esports organization based in Europe. Formed in 2015, they are best known for their Dota 2 roster winning The International 2018 and 2019 tournaments. In addition to Dota 2, they also have teams representing other games, such as Super Smash Bros. and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Not to be confused with OpTic Gaming or Origen (esports).

OG
Sport
FoundedAugust 2015 (August 2015)
LocationEurope
Head coach
  • Titouan "Sockshka" Merloz (Dota 2)
  • Casper "ruggah" Due (CS:GO)
Championships
PartnersRed Bull GmbH
Websiteogs.gg

History

It was founded as (monkey)Business by players Tal "Fly" Aizik and Johan "N0tail" Sundstein, who were former Team Secret players, along with David "MoonMeander" Tan, Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi, and Andreas "Cr1t-" Nielsen in August 2015. Soon after a dominating run through the European qualifiers for the Frankfurt Major, they adopted the moniker OG. They went on to win the inaugural Dota 2 Major Championship in Frankfurt in November 2015, earning US$1 million in prize money.[1] Despite placing in the bottom half of the next Major in Shanghai in March 2016, the team would rebound and take first place at the Manila Major in June 2016, becoming the first team to repeat as champions of a Valve sponsored Dota 2 tournament.[2]

OG entered The International 2016 as one of the favorites after earning a direct invite, but ended up finishing 9-12th out of 16 teams. In August 2016, MoonMeander, Miracle-, and Cr1t- left the team, with Gustav "s4" Magnusson, Anathan "ana" Pham, and Jesse "JerAx" Vainikka replacing them.[3][4] Despite the new roster, OG won the Boston Major in December 2016, giving them their third Dota 2 Major championship.[5] For the first premier tournament following Boston, OG advanced to the grand finals of the Dota 2 Asia Championships in Shanghai, where they were swept in a best-of-five series against Invictus Gaming.[6] Following that, OG won the Kiev Major in a best of five series against Virtus.pro.[7] At the Kiev event, the team made an appearance on Valve's True Sight documentary series.[8] In May 2018, the organization signed James "Swedish Delight" Liu to represent the professional Super Smash Bros. fighting game scene.[9][10]

Former team coach Cristian "ppasarel" Banaseanu (front) with the rest of OG inside the playing booth before one of their games at The International 2018

That same month, Fly and s4 left the team to join Evil Geniuses, with Roman "Resolut1on" Fominok joining VGJ.Storm. Due to post-deadline roster changes, OG would no longer be eligible to be directly invited to The International 2018 nor for the Regional Qualifiers and were required to play through the Open Qualifiers.[11][12] Needing three new members just a few weeks before the qualifiers began, OG quickly signed Topias "Topson" Taavitsainen, a newcomer to the scene who had never performed at a major LAN event prior to the event, Sébastien "Ceb" Debs, who had previously served as the team's coach, and ana, returning to the team from a year-long break after their previous elimination at The International 2017.[11][12][13][14] Finishing outside of the top eight in the Dota Pro Circuit final standings, which granted a direct invite to The International 2018, OG earned theirs by playing through and winning the European-region open qualifiers.

Following that, OG were then placed into group A of The International's group stage, finishing fourth with a record of 9-7, which seeded them into the upper bracket. There, OG won every series to advance to the grand finals.[15][16][17] Facing the lower bracket winner PSG.LGD in it, whom OG had just defeated in the upper bracket finals, OG won the game one, but lost the next two games.[16] Needing another win to avoid losing the series, OG forced a late-game comeback in game four, and subsequently won game five in a similar fashion, making them International champions and winning them over $11 million in prize money.[11][16][17] Their victory was considered a Cinderella and underdog success story, as they had come from the open qualifiers and had beaten some of the more favored and accomplished teams along the way.[16][17] Their win also broke the historical trend of Chinese teams winning the International in even-numbered years.[12]

In November 2018, ana left the team after deciding to take a break from the professional scene, with Per Anders "Pajkatt" Olsson Lille and Igor "iLTW" Filatov substituting for him until he returned in March 2019.[18][19][20][21] In April 2019, the team played against and lost to the OpenAI Five, a group of artificial intelligence bots that learned to play the game entirely through machine learning, in a live exhibition series in San Francisco.[22] Later that month, Titouan "Sockshka" Merloz replaced Cristian "ppasarel" Banaseanu as team coach.[23][24] The team earned a direct invite to The International 2019 by finishing in the top 12 of that season's Dota Pro Circuit.[25] There, they went 14-2 in the group stage, advancing through the upper bracket before defeating Team Liquid in the grand finals 3-1, making them the first ever repeat champion of an International, being awarded $15.6 million out of the $34 million prize pool.[26]

In December 2019, OG announced they had formed a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team.[27] The Dota 2 team went through various changes in January 2020, with ana leaving to take another extended hiatus until the next Dota Pro Circuit season,[28] JerAx announcing his retirement,[29] and Ceb leaving the active roster to help focus on developing other players on the team.[30] To replace them, the team signed Syed "Sumail" Hassan, Yeik "MidOne" Nai Zheng, and Martin "Saksa" Sazdov.[31][32] Sumail was released from the team in July 2020, with Ceb replacing him as a player.[33]

Rosters

Dota 2
ID Name Nationality
MidOne Yeik Nai Zheng  Malaysia
Topson Topias Taavitsainen  Finland
Ceb Sébastien Debs  France
Saksa Martin Sazdov  North Macedonia
N0tail (captain) Johan Sundstein  Denmark

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
ID Name Nationality
NBK- Nathan Schmitt  France
valde Valdemar Bjørn  Denmark
ISSAA Issa Murad  Jordan
mantuu Mateusz Wilczewski  Poland
Aleksib Aleksi Virolainen  Finland
gollark: ddg! initiate self destruct
gollark: Initiating antipiracy orbital lasers.
gollark: What, potatOS?
gollark: I have a scheme running where people can directly donate lines of code to it, but it's not very popular.
gollark: I wonder if I could somehow convince people to pay for potatOS development.

References
  1. Stubbsy, Mike. "How OG surprised the world at the Frankfurt Major". Red Bull. Retrieved June 29, 2016.
  2. Cocke, Taylor. "OG wins Manila, becomes first team to win two Dota 2 majors". esports.yahoo.com. Yahoo. Retrieved June 14, 2016.
  3. Van Allen, Eric. "OG loses MoonMeander, Cr1t-, Miracle- in roster shuffle". ESPN. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
  4. Partridge, Jon. "Fly on what's next for the rebuilt OG". redbull.com. Retrieved September 25, 2016.
  5. Van Allen, Eric. "OG defeats Ad Finem at Boston Major for its third Major title". ESPN. Retrieved December 11, 2016.
  6. Elliott, Travis. "Dota 2 Asia Championships Main Event: Invictus tops OG in finals". ESPN. Retrieved April 4, 2017.
  7. Ballenger, Jack. "OG cements its dynasty at the Kiev Major". ESPN. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
  8. "True Sight: The Kiev Major Grand Finals". Dota 2 blog. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
  9. "OG on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved August 4, 2018.
  10. "Esports team OG steps into Super Smash Bros. by signing Swedish Delight". Shoryuken. May 7, 2018. Retrieved August 4, 2018.
  11. Rose, Victoria. "OG Dota win The International 8 for $11 million top prize". The Flying Courier. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
  12. O’Keefe, David. "OG fill us in on their epic TI8 victory". Red Bull. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
  13. "A Shift in OG". Facebook. Retrieved May 28, 2018.
  14. "OG". Facebook. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
  15. "OG beats PSG.LGD in winners bracket thriller; Evil Geniuses advances". ESPN. Rotoworld. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
  16. "OG wins five-game thriller to take The International 8 title and $11 million". ESPN. Rotowire.
  17. Strom, Steven. "Dota 2 championship ends in a pulse-pounding, curse-breaking Cinderella story". PC Gamer. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
  18. Miguel Garcia, Nikko. "'ana' of Dota 2 TI8 champs OG to take a break". FoxSportsAsia.com. Fox Sports Asia. Retrieved November 19, 2018.
  19. Bishop, Sam. "OG reveal that Pajkatt has joined their Dota 2 team". Game Reactor. Retrieved December 5, 2018.
  20. "Dota 2: OG releases Pajkatt after two months". ESPN. Retrieved January 7, 2019.
  21. Partridge, Jon. "Ana on returning to OG and pro Dota". Red Bull. Retrieved March 17, 2019.
  22. Statt, Nick. "OpenAI's Dota 2 AI steamrolls world champion e-sports team with back-to-back victories". The Verge. Retrieved April 15, 2019.
  23. @OGesports (April 30, 2019). "A stunning announcement. Please welcome @FollowSockshka on BOAR-d!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  24. Stubbs, Mike. "Ana is our MVP of The International 8". Red Bull. Retrieved September 19, 2018.
  25. Div. "OG and Keen Gaming secure their spots at The International 2019". VP Esports. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
  26. S. Good, Owen. "The International crowns its first two-time champion". Polygon. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
  27. Sillis, Ben; Partridge, Jon. "Meet your OG CS:GO dream team". Red Bull. Retrieved December 10, 2019.
  28. Michael, Cale (January 25, 2020). "OG's ana to extend break until 2020-21 Dota Pro Circuit". Shack News.
  29. "OG's 'JerAx' announces retirement". Reuters. Field Level Media. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  30. "OG's 'Ceb' steps down from active roster". Reuters. Field Level Media. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  31. "'SumaiL' latest addition to OG's Dota 2 roster". Reuters. Field Level Media. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  32. Esports, OG (January 29, 2020). "Our new roster". ogs.gg.
  33. Banerjee, Sonu (July 25, 2020). "Ceb is back to OG Dota 2 roster, Sumail removed". TalkEsport.
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Team Liquid		 The International winner
2018 and 2019		 Succeeded by
Incumbent
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