Jonathan 'Loda' Berg made a statement this evening to tie-into the official announcement that AdmiralBulldog has returned to the team that he won TI3 with. Loda finally shed some light on the removal of Niclas 'Niqua' Westergård, a key player in Alliance's recent resurgence. "It’s very hard to remove your friend from a lineup he dedicated so much of his time to, but in the end I know it is the right choice."
Alliance during Starladder (Image: @KellyMilkies)Alliance were champions at TI3, but a lacklustre TI4 was followed by the unfortunate departure of two key players,
Gustav 's4' Magnusson and Jerry 'EGM' Lundkvist, who decided to spread their ways and try something different. EGM did make a brief return to Alliance a few months ago, "but we did not find the same synergy as had before, and removing him from the team again was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made". "It’s been a rough past year for us. As most of you know, we have had ups and downs, but a few months ago you could start to see a glimmer of hope after a long slump," said Loda in his statement. The glimmer of hope was heavily influenced by the performance of Niqua and Madshka. "It was a great time, and we had some minor achievements – perhaps not the biggest, but every single win we got together meant the world to us – and this could not have been achieved without Niqua."
The timing of the Niqua removal from the eyes of the general public is not ideal, the team were doing well with him in the team and a 2-0 victory over Team Secret at Starladder had restored faith that Alliance was really back on track. However, Niqua might not have made it to Starladder at all.
"I actually did consider the possibility of swapping out Niqua before StarLadder, because I knew there were problems within the team," admitted Loda. "But I had faith in Niqua, probably more so than the rest of the team did, and I wanted him to get the chance."
Loda admits he couldnt "stay blind to the lack of synergy" (Image: SLTV)Despite a 2-0 victory over Secret and a string of good results elsewhere, Loda made light that all was not as it seemed in the Alliance camp. "There were some clashes of play-style between Niqua and other members on the team, and it made the team experience much less smooth than you might think," said Loda. " Adapting, swapping lanes, and other elements which are fundamental to a Tier 1 team didn’t work out so well for us."
Communication was also an issue according to the Alliance captain stating he could not "stay blind to the lack of synergy we had as a team as soon as we were put on the spot". "It might sound easy to voice chat with your team and point out everything important: moves you make, wards you place, and at the same time keeping a good flow on voice chat without creating chaos," said Loda. "But it takes a lot of experience, and sometimes not even that is enough. (...) sometimes you just need to have personalities that fit with each other better."
Personality is something AdmiralBulldog has in abundance, an extremely popular community figure, the Swede had huge success on his twitch channel, but is also someone the team is familiar with. "Re-adding Bulldog is a step back to balance. It will fix some of the problems we have right now – not all, because we are still a work in progress," said Loda. "but with some time, we will be a force to be reckoned with, mark my words."
Want to point out that I'm immensely thankful to @NiquaDota for everything he did with us. Also Ty for still being the same after everything
— Jonathan Berg (@LodaBerg) May 2, 2015And what of Niqua? "I count him as one of my true friends, and I doubt we will stop playing together outside of professional Dota," said Loda. You can find the full statement here, and if you're interested to see new Alliance in action, AdmiralBulldog and Alliance will be in action tomorrow in the ASUS Play it Cool invitational.
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