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OG’s former star carry, Anathan ‘ana’ Pham, is back after a break, refreshed, recharged, and ready to help his team rise to the challenge of the rest of the Dota Pro Circuit season.
He’s back. That’s right, Anathan ‘ana’ Pham, the 19-year-old Australian carry, is returning to OG after a lengthy break, and he’s primed and ready to help take the team forward in the current Dota Pro Circuit season.
Last year, he helped OG make history as they had an incredible run at The International 2018 to lift the Aegis of Champions, rising through the European Open Qualifiers, stomping their way through the Main Qualifiers and pushing their way through an undefeated upper bracket run in the main event, before taking down PSG.LGD in a nail-biting grand final.
Now, as we’re halfway through the current DPC, and with four events left on the cards with points up for grabs, OG and ana have a lot of work to do. Ahead of his (second!) return, we caught up with the pro himself as he fills us in on what he’s been up to, and whether or not he’s feeling the pressure as reigning TI champions.
“Every time I come back to Dota, it's always exciting to see what has happened and what's happening now,” ana tells us. “I find it hard to play Dota competitively for a long period of time – year-long periods – it becomes very tiring and even sometimes boring. So I need to have breaks, but I always enjoy coming back!”
OG’s star carry has taken time away from the competitive stage, effectively hanging up his keyboard and mouse ever since he lifted the Aegis, and has only returned once since, rejoining his squad as a substitute during December’s AMD Dota 2 Pro Series on home soil in Australia. Now, after time away, he’s ready to join the fray again – after OG had stints with Per Anders ‘Pajkatt’ Olsson Lille and Igor ‘iLTW’ Filatov as their fifth man, ana returns to the TI8-winning squad with a positive mindset.
“It was a combination of relaxing, doing everyday stuff, and catching up with people that are close to me,” ana explains as we quizzed him on what he’s been up to, away from the competitive world of Dota. “I started sparking an interest in poker, so I was playing that a lot. I was still playing Dota here and there, but not really watching so closely.
When asked about the squad and how the team’s feeling, he tells us, “Team morale is great, they are always so nice and welcoming. And that’s something that I love about the team.”
While OG have struggled to match their TI-winning performance in recent months, the team has remained positive and jovial, and their recent performance at ESL One Katowice – while not a DPC event – sparked hints that OG still have plenty of fight in them, and that they won’t be going down easily. “I think it's hard to say that we were back in form, since it wasn't a DPC event and didn't have all the top teams there,” says ana on OG’s Katowice third-place finish. “But it was still not a bad performance. We'll keep improving.”
As the reigning TI champions, there are plenty of expectations on the squad, and you might think that there’s plenty of pressure on the team to perform – but ana’s not worried about that at all; in fact, he’s relishing it. “I don't really think it gives much more pressure than it did if we weren't defending the title,” he says. “Because it's already been done. I think that on the contrary, it gives you confidence that it can be achieved again.”
His return has already bolstered confidence in OG – and he has a gameplan in mind to get to Shanghai, the destination of this year’s The International, the first in TI history to be held in China. “Hopefully we can qualify for both Majors and place well in them,” he says. “If not, we'll just have to qualify for the Minors and hope we can qualify from winning them instead.”
Getting OG to Shanghai is the dream, and ana’s not ready to back down on that: “Making it to TI and being able to defend the title would be unforgettable.”
With OG back with their Aegis-winning squad, we’re itching to see what they’ve got in store as we enter the latter part of the Dota Pro Circuit – keep your eyes peeled.
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