Sneyking talks about the Falcons-Tundra rivalry
Team Falcons and Tundra Esports have been running into each other a lot recently. The two teams had an incredible grand final in BetBoom Dacha Belgrade followed by an opening match in less than a day after.
After breaking even in their series, Jingjun "Sneyking" Wu, discussed how it feels to play an opponent so often, how to beat specific heroes, and his feelings on facing former teammates.
Sneyking had to play Tundra twice in less than 24 hours
Since the abolishment of the DPC, there have been more Dota 2 tournaments than ever. Some major competitions would end a day before another or even overlap.
This was on display for both teams, as they played the finals of BetBoom Dacha Belgrade on October 26th, and then started DreamLeague the day after.
Sneyking pointed out the toll that took on him, "I personally had six hours of sleep. We had to move hotels from the betboom hotels to our bootcamp, so didn't get much rest. It was a lot of travelling and packing."
The non-stop action affects more than just the players. Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling has been critical to the team's success. Sneyking shared that their coach was currently not with the team, taking some much needed time off.
"We did not communicate with Aui, he is on vacation right now, so he's on his flight to Japan. I think it's a 20-hour flight from Belgrade. He is communicating to us on Discord sometimes, but we're not going to be having him for majority of this DreamLeague."
It's rare for a team to play two series against each other in such a short span of time. Especially with one of them being a a best-of-five that concluded with a 72-minute slugfest.
Sneyking said that made it very important to understand the enemy team when you will play them that often.
"There is definitely some residual grand final energy from yesterday. We literally were playing each other five games yesterday but I think it's about understanding each other better and understanding what we want to be giving them and trying against them. I think the most important thing is understanding what the strengths and weaknesses of each other are."
During their finals in Belgrade, Team Falcons banned Visage every game. He is one of Neta "33" Shapira's best heroes and always a problem to beat.
Falcons allowed Visage through in the final game, although Tundra did not pick it. Sneyking revealed that they wanted to get experience playing against Visage in lower-stake games.
"It's definitely better to do these things in group stage because the games are less meaningful. Especially in elimination or grand finals, you don't want to be experimenting things that you haven't really done before."
Wu won an International with 33 and Martin "Saksa" Sazdov in 2022. Sneking's former teammates are now members of Tundra Esports and Sneyking shared what he felt going against them multiple times in a row.
"Obviously with Saksa and 33, we have a great history, good friends, and exciting to play them in the finals. So there's a lot of mental warfare and mind games going on."
Both teams are in group B of DreamLeague Season 24. Catch all the action live on Twitch to see who makes it to the playoffs.
READ MORE: DreamLeague Season 24: Teams, Format, Schedule and More
Featured Image Source: PGL