Talon Esports’ Coach Forev Has His Eyes On TI11, Despite Challenges Ahead

Dota 2 was released back in 2013 and has been called as one of the greatest video games of all time.

Not bad for a game which got its start as a Warcraft mod. 

Dota 2 is a sequel to the Defense of the Ancients – a 2003 Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) mod for the Blizzard game Warcraft III and its expansion, The Frozen Throne. 

Game developer Valve eventually acquired IP rights to DotA in 2009 and Dota 2 was launched in 2013. 

Statista estimated that Dota 2 had some 7 million monthly active global users in February 2021 – the game peaked in June 2016, when an average of over 13 million monthly active global users played the game. 

Mom and Dad watching their boys train for DPC Tour 3. 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦❤️ #SOARWITHTALON pic.twitter.com/P3F93h2EdF

— TALON (@Talon_esports) May 23, 2022

And amid this backdrop, Talon Esports’ coach Lee “Forev” Sang-don, has been around Dota 2 for almost as long as the game has existed. 

Born in 1991, the South Korean got his start in 2013 with the South Korean Dota 2 team MVP Phoenix – the team would emerge as 2014 champions in Korea Dota League Season 3.

In 2015, Forev would be part of the first South Korean team to make it to the main stage of The International 5, as part of MVP Hot6. 

A year later, Forev would rejoin with his old team MVP Phoenix and be placed in the top six teams at TI6.

Under his tutelage, Talon Esports’ has had a fantastic run at the ongoing Dota Pro-Circuit SEA Tour 3 – the team topped the standings for Div 2, and are tied with Team RSG. 

2-1 2-1 2series win 6 points Good start so far 😶

Hopefully we make major this season

— Forev (@DotaFoREv) June 15, 2022

When asked how he assessed the team’s performance so far, Forev told TechStorm that “we are still lucky so far. There are a lot of walls (obstacles) to still go through.”

Talon Esports’ is a diverse team – made up of Thais, Indonesians and Australians – but Forev says there are no linguistic issues: “We just use English. Q (Worawit Mekchai) struggles a little bit because he just started using English recently, but we have the perfect interpreter in Mr Savage (Nuengnara “23Savage” Teeramahanon).”

So what are his hopes for the current squad? 

“Since I joined this team,” Forev wrote in an email reply. “We’ve had decent results (…) I’m expecting us to go (to) the Arlington Major (in August) and get enough DPC points there to get a direct invitation for TI11. HAHA. I am just hopeful, but I want to make it real, so I’m doing my best.”

(This post is done in affiliation with Talon Esports.)

*Featured image from Talon Esports PH

By Samantha Chan \ 10:00, 7 July 2022