Virtus.pro support player Artem "Fng" Barshak reflected on his team’s loss to 9Pandas in the qualifiers for The International 2024 in Dota 2. He also shared his thoughts on Virtus.pro’s preparation and the potential threat posed by One Move in the qualifiers.
"The second map was terrible for us. There’s not much joy to take from it, to put it mildly," said Artem "Fng" Barshak. "One Move definitely had chances to win that game. They just lacked some critical knowledge to close out those kinds of matches."
"We prepared as usual, with a lot of games and scrims. We sit, play, and discuss. To be frank, in the match against 9Pandas, we were outplayed in both gameplay and drafts. Our opponents performed very well against us; they deserved their victory. After the loss, we started re-evaluating a lot of things. There are reasons why certain aspects didn’t work for us. For instance, things changed today and will continue to vary from team to team. It’s always unpleasant to lose — that's a fact. But what difference does it make if we still have a chance to reach the finals and qualify for TI13? We don’t have time to dwell on it; we just sit and play."
Virtus.pro defeated One Move with a score of 2-0. Next, they will face the winner of the match between SIBE Team and L1GA Team.
The closed qualifiers for The International 2024 for Eastern Europe are being held from June 14 to 18. Teams like NAVI, Nemiga Gaming, and other participants are competing for a slot at the world championship.