THE INTERNATIONAL 2026 | OG'S FIRST 6 GAMES

I am a Pinoy DOTA 2 fan. And let me just say, I'm a bit pissed at what I have been seeing from OG. This team defeated some of the best teams at the start of the year, and all of a sudden, it feels like I am just witnessing a typical SEA squad getting murdered on the international stage.

And what's worse is that they aren't really fighting. Yes, they win team fights, but there is a difference between doing your best to win and simply doing whatever you can to survive.

Their match against Team Resilience, meanwhile, was not for the faint of heart, unless you are an OG hater or a Chinese DOTA fan. One player tried to take the mid tower all by himself and got swarmed by the entire TR squad. Another went back to the base just as a team fight was about to happen, and then we saw a player standing motionless as the opposing team moved toward him.

It felt as if the player controlling the character simply stood up and went for a bathroom break.

I know this is the first all-Filipino OG squad, but with just two group-stage games remaining, I am led to believe that this is also the worst OG squad to ever qualify for The International.

And if they have problems with their midlaner, why can't they just get Topson? When LGD lost Tailung due to integrity issues, he stepped in for them, and they currently have a 1-2 record as of this writing, winning three of their eight matches. And what about N0tail, Ceb, or any player from their developmental team back in the day?

Anyway, I asked ChatGPT if it could use the stats to assess each player's gameplay. Here's what it came up with.

OG'S FIRST SIX GAMES | ACCDG TO CHATGPT

So I asked ChatGPT to create a way to find out which OG players had the biggest impact on the game. If you are familiar with basketball stats, this is similar to the +/- stat. And since I can't compare the OG players directly because they have different roles, I instead asked ChatGPT to compare their numbers with those of their opponents.

Their most successful match was against OG's archenemies, Nigma Galaxy. In their second game, Natsumi- and TIMS outplayed former OG player and legend SumaiL and OmaR. That said, this still means that two of OG's players had a 1-for-6 success rate, while the other three went 0-for-6.

Going 2-for-30 as a team is not good in any way.

GAME IMPACT (6 GAMES)

RANK	PLAYER	K-D-A	KDA RATIO	KDA NET	AVG IMPACT	AVG RELATIVE IMPACT
1	Natsumi-	28-30-37	2.17	+35	13.58	+5.37
2	Yopaj	31-30-45	2.53	+46	11.98	+3.77
3	Raven	24-41-53	1.88	+36	7.79	-0.42
4	TIMS	12-42-72	2.00	+42	4.59	-3.62
5	skem	16-50-59	1.50	+25	3.11	-5.10

THE BIG PICTURE

POS	PLAYER	OPPONENT'S AVRG IMPACT	OG'S AVRG IMPACT	DIFF	OG WON MATCHUP
POS 1	Natsumi-	23.79	13.36	-10.43	1/6
POS 2	Yopaj	25.59	11.98	-13.62	0/6
POS 3	Raven	16.72	7.79	-8.93	0/6
POS 4	TIMS	11.87	4.59	-7.28	1/6
POS 5	skem	13.11	3.11	-10.00	0/6

AVERAGE IMPACT IN 6 GAMES

RANK	PLAYER	OG VS OPPS
1	TIMS	~39%
2	Natsumi-	~56%
3	Yopaj	~51%
4	Raven	~40%
5	skem	~17%

CHATGPT'S ASSESSMENT

NATSUMI- | POS 1 / CARRY

Verdict: Outplayed overall, but competitive enough to show promise

Natsumi- was generally behind the opposing carries across the six games, but I wouldn't describe his performance as a complete failure. His strong farming numbers, damage output, and economic production showed that he was still able to accumulate the resources expected from a position 1 player, and he even had games where he clearly outperformed his direct opponent. The bigger issue was that he wasn't consistently turning that individual production into enough team-fight or winning impact, which is especially problematic when your carry is receiving a large share of the team's resources. He was outplayed, but he wasn't one of OG's biggest problems.

YOPAJ | POS 2 / MIDLANER

Verdict: Significantly outplayed

Yopaj's six-game numbers were actually respectable when viewed in isolation, particularly his kills, assists, and KDA, but the positional comparison makes his performance much more concerning. He failed to beat his opposing mid in any of the six games, and several of those losses came with substantial Impact Score gaps. This is particularly damaging because the midlaner often has a major influence on the pace of a DOTA game, so consistently losing the individual battle can make it much harder for the rest of the team to recover. Among OG's three core players, Yopaj had the biggest positional disadvantage.

RAVEN | POS 3 / OFFLANER

Verdict: Outplayed, but not severely

Raven lost all six of his positional comparisons, so the numbers clearly show that he was behind the opposing offlaners throughout this stretch. However, his situation is more nuanced than the 0-6 record suggests because several of those individual matchups were relatively close, particularly in Games 3 and 4. His assist numbers also indicate that he was still participating in fights and contributing to OG's engagements, but his relatively high death count limited how efficiently he converted that activity into impact. Raven was consistently outplayed, but he wasn't getting completely overwhelmed in the same way some of the other OG players were.

TIMS | POS 4 / HARD SUPPORT

Verdict: Outplayed overall, but OG's most competitive positional player

TIMS actually has one of the more interesting profiles because his raw Impact Score wasn't particularly impressive, yet his positional comparison was the least damaging among OG's five players. He even managed to outperform his opposing position 4 in one of the six games, and his assist numbers show that he was frequently involved in OG's kills despite playing a support role. His biggest problem was his death rate, which prevented those playmaking contributions from translating into a stronger overall rating. Of the five OG players, TIMS was the closest to holding his own against his direct opponents.

SKEM | POS 5 / SOFT SUPPORT

Verdict: Severely outplayed

This is probably the most troubling individual matchup in the entire six-game sample. skem lost all six positional comparisons, and unlike Raven's relatively competitive losses, several of skem's deficits against opposing position 5s were extremely large. His 8.33 deaths per game and relatively low KDA ratio were especially damaging, because a position 5 needs to provide consistent utility and map presence without repeatedly giving the opposition easy kills. Based on this six-game sample, skem was the OG player who was most consistently and severely outplayed by his positional counterpart.

If OG finishes TI with a woeful record, it's easy to see this team's fate. Yes, the SEA region is probably the best place for OG to go if they want to qualify for big tournaments, but maybe this team has reached its ceiling.