Moonmeander:

In the private press conference following the end of the Grand Finals, the whole of OG were available for questions. Despite OG disposing of both the TI5 champions Evil Geniuses and MLG World Finals title holders Team Secret, David 'Moonmeander' Tan said the team's biggest struggle was in fact against the Russian teams, in particular Virtus Pro. Our editor Ziminaite was on site to document their comments.

Moonmeander post-EG victory

Moon admitted he can't predict Vega's 9pashaebashu

On how Dota 2 could be compared to Chess.. and why Moonmeander can predict his opponents...

Moonmeander: Well I used to play chess, nationally when I was young. It is very similar to Dota, because I always put myself in my opponent’s mind. What are they going to do? What are they thinking? What heroes are they going pick?

Before they tp in lane to help one of their heroes, I already know he’s going to do it.

People say I’m a very aggressive player but I know they are going to gank someone in lane, I have no vision, but I’m 90% sure and it’s similar to chess when I put myself in their shoes.

I put myself in my enemy team’s killers shoes and I ask myself: ‘What would I do if I were him?’ So I’ll always make calls and those calls have helped my team-mates several times.

On why the team lost twice to Vega Squadron...
Moonmeander: I feel that Russians are really aggressive. I try to put myself in their shoes and it’s wrong, I’m horribly wrong. 9pashaebashu is key, I don’t even know what he’s thinking, I think he’s playing on instincts I don’t know. So I can’t think like everybody that’s why sometimes Pasha keeps killing me like 5,6,7 or 8 times and I lost the game for my team.

According to Moonmeander, Virtus Pro were OG's toughest opponents

Fly: First of all, Vega is a good team. I think they should have been top 8. Their road was pretty much the hardest. I think we were a bit disconnected during the group stage, we lost twice and on the next day we said that we have to be on the same page from now on.

We spoke for hours, we discussed how we want to play the game, which heroes we value the most and how we want to act. After that we knew which heroes we believe in. If one person doesn’t believe in hero, say, Storm Spirit, and we pick it, we probably going to lose it because he just does not feel comfortable on it.

On which match was the most challenging for OG...
Moonmeander: The biggest challenge was Virtus.pro. We struggle against Russians because their playstyle is unorthodox. And even though we might be a better team, playing against Russians is like gambling. For them only one of the three plays will work and two won’t.

But that one which will, it will work very very well. In the games with Virtus.pro, Vega Squadron and Empire, I was never sure how we do. I was really scared to face Russians, even though I favour us 65 to 35%, it was still very hard.