Shopify Rebellion’s mid laner Abed “Abed” Yusop finally showed his worth with his exceptional performances in the grand finals of Dota 2 Dreamleague Season 21 against Team Spirit which concluded last night. The 23-year-old Filipino previously credited the balance for mid lane meta in the current 7.34 patch, which he felt has given him the opportunity to improvise in short time.
The Dreamleague S21 has turned out as a top entertainment for the Dota 2 community with a lot of surprises from this season’s underrperformers. Heavyweights like Team Liquid, Quest Esports, and Talon Esports couldn’t even break through their group phase, while this year’s contender Gaimin Gladiator and rejuvenated Tundra Esports went home too soon after their surprise defeats against the likes of Entity and OG in lower bracket rounds. However, Shopify Rebellion and Team Spirit stood out from the rest with their attractive gameplay.
Throughout this tournament, there was a lot of buzz around Rebellion following their good run against the sides of 9Pandas, Tundra, Talon, and BetBoom. With no losses in the group stage and an impressive consecutive victories, fans of Shopify Rebellion highly hoped to see the veteran Artour “Arteezy” Babaev to break his infamous ‘Arthreezy’ curse. However, it was clear that the North American favorites were unable to match the intensity of their European competitor in the best-of-five set of Dreamleague grand finals.
While there was no doubt that Arteezy put up a good fight, Rebellion almost won game 1 and game 2 against Spirit thanks to Abed’s laning play in the middle who often broke up his opponents’ play. And it’s likely that the balance in this patch was one of the reasons why he has grown so much since the last Major.
Speaking to GosuGamers, he mentioned that playing mid has been more fun in 7.34 especially during the early game phase. He also expressed his relief at not having to deal with meta universal-type heroes, which were considered overpowered before the new patch came out.
“I like the heroes for mid lane right now. They are all casters and they are all very active in the early game, so they are all very fun to play.” said Abed. “and I’m so glad that they (universal heroes) are gone. For instance, I’m so glad that the mid lane Snapfire is gone. I couldn’t find a way to beat that hero in lane.”
Abed and Rebellion’s remarkable second-place finish has proven to be a valuable endeavor. In addition to the $175,000 prize money, they have gained fresh insights and newfound motivation as they are heading to The International 12 competition in less than 3 weeks. Abed holds hope that Valve will introduce an incremental update to fine-tune hero balance prior to the commencement of the annual grand tournament, with particular attention given to the Phantom Assassin.
“I would like to see a balance patch with Phantom Assassin. This hero wins every single game in my pubs, so definitely something is broken. So, I would very much like to see this hero nerfed before TI.” said Abed.
