Tundra Esports Saksa on his TI 13 run: "We were very close to the final"

At The International 2024, Tundra Esports had a fantastic run. Despite playing with a stand-in, they secured a top-three finish. Their stand-in was Martin "Saksa" Sazdov, one of the International 2022 champions and the former support player for Tundra Esports.

After TI13, Tundra revamped their roster. This new iteration of Tundra consisted of two of their former players, Neta "33" Shapira and Saksa. This officially marks Saksa’s return to the professional Dota 2 scene after a break. Recently, in his PGL Wallachia Season 2 interview, Saksa reflected on his incredible TI run.

Saksa on Tundra's TI13 run

After his run at TI13, Saksa currently holds the record for the highest placement a stand-in has achieved at The International. However, his dreams of reaching the TI grand finals were crushed by Gaimin Gladiators as the series went to the deciding game. He admitted that the team could have made it to the grand finals, but he expressed contentment with the results.

" It went pretty much as good as you can expect out of that situation, considering we had one day of practice, and there was like no prep or anything, and we just ended up in the third place. Sad part is we could have actually gone further – like we were very close to the final. At least, I think we had the best games at that TI, like the most entertaining for the crowd so I'm happy with that. "

Saksa at The International 2024. (Credits: Valve)

In his interview, Saksa also reflected on his journey and revealed how he approached the tournament. He admitted that he did not expect much at The International 2024, and the results surprised him.

"The whole tournament was very low effort and kind of like no cares. So, I don't know – it's just things kind of worked out. I had like a very chill mindset and the team was very nice to play with – they were super fun guys and everything was just very smooth. I didn't really have any expectations – maybe top eight if we were lucky. So, getting top three was a big result and happy with it."

Saksa on reuniting with 33

In the new Tundra Esports roster, Saksa is reunited with his laning partner, 33. The duo is known for their ferocious laning stage, which yielded favorable results in their TI11 run.

33 at PGL Wallachia Season 2. (Credits: PGL)

Now that this duo is back, Saksa shared some of his thoughts on his laning partner.

" He is like one of my top favourite teammates of all time. So, playing with him is very easy. He makes the game super easy. As people, we kind of like combine well. It's fun to do new stuff in Dota, especially in lanes and stuff and I feel like the game has been getting a bit stale like people are not experimenting so much so I'm hoping to bring that back a bit."

Saksa talks about his new teammates at Tundra

While Saksa had played with 33 before, there was one player who particularly impressed the TI champion in this revamped version of Tundra – Matthew "Whitemon" Filemon. Saksa shared that before standing in for Tundra, he already thought Whitemon had impressive performances.

Whitemon at PGL Wallachia Season 2. (Credits: PGL)

However, after standing in for Tundra, Whitemon left a lasting impression on Saksa.

"With Whitemon, before I stood in for them for TI, I always thought he was kinda good player, but when I think out of the team that I stood in for he gave me the best impression as a person and as a player. He's like a sponge, he just picks up everything you tell him; he's very cheerful as a person and he's the best teammate you could ask for like you talk about someone, what you want from a guy – he kind of fits all things."

33 is not the only player that Saksa had the pleasure of reuniting at Tundra Esports. The team's coach David "MoonMeander" Tan is also Saksa's former teammate back in 2017 during their time at Digital Chaos.

"We played together like 2017, back in DC. So we kinda know each other from back in the day. We kinda share some things but I think he's a good coach. He's always been like a good Dota mind and he still has this a lot of passion for the game. Even at TI, the guy getting very hyped up so I think he brings good things to the team and I'm happy to work with him."

Saksa on his hopes for PGL Wallachia Season 2

Tundra Esports currently has a stacked roster, which makes them one of the favourites to win PGL Wallachia Season 2. Despite playing with two stand-ins, the team has a two-time TI champion and a TI champion. In his interview, Saksa shared his thoughts on this.

"We are playing with two stand-ins so I definitely don't think we're top dogs for this tournament. It's a new team even though we played together, we still need to re-learn some things that we are supposed to do so I think definitely for me no expectations. If people expect us to win, that's their thing. For now, we're just going to work on our game, try to improve as much as we can and learn. For me this is like a learning tournament."   

Although Tundra Esports has five players on their roster, two of them are stand-ins. Hopefully, their performance at PGL Wallachia Season 2 will determine the fate of those stand-ins.

Featured Image Source: Valve

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