Virtus.pro crashed out of ESL One Birmingham in the group stage, but between the play of Tal “Fly” Aizik, Jonáš, “SabeRLight-” Volek, and the rest of the squad, there was some positive moments.
We talked to SabeRLight- following the team’s exit from the tournament to reflect on their performance, analyse the patch, and discover what the hardest part about the current Dota 2 competitive schedule is.
Last time you were at ESL One Birmingham, you were with Shopify Rebellion, holding the banner for North American Dota. Now you’re here with Virtus.pro. Is there a very different atmosphere between the two teams or is it similar because there’s like, you know, a similar kind of vibe with Bulba, Fly, etc.?
Jonáš “SabeRLight-” Volek: “Yeah, I say it’s quite similar. I mean, like the core of the team is basically the same for both these teams. I guess we don’t have Arteezy this time. But I would say a very similar vibe overall.”
You joined Virtus.pro late last year and this is the first major event you guys have appeared since then. Do you feel the roster is working and the progress is building? Where do you feel like you can go from here?
SabeRLight-: “I would say we’ve improved over the time I joined. I think we had a really nice first tournament with DreamLeague. But our success… It’s in waves, we go up and down. Some of these qualifiers we didn’t do so good. I mean this tournament I would say also I think we shouldn’t have gone out of groups and that’s kind of what we all wanted so we’re not happy with this result but at the same time it’s not the end of the world.
We were close. But yeah, I would say there’s for sure some development and things that we know that we need to work on.”
So besides the patch which we’ll talk about in a moment, do you think there’s anything that could have helped you guys get over that final hump, that final push and jump into the playoffs?
SabeRLight-: “I think the difference between us and the three teams that we lost to at the end, Spirit, Aurora and Falcons, was that they have been together for much longer and they operate better as a team, they’re more experienced. So I think in all three of the series we kind of lost to them because we didn’t necessarily like to group up and we didn’t play properly as a team. We didn’t get on the same page and that kind of cost us in most of the games.
Image Credit: Virtus.pro
Just from my kind of limited perspective with the new patch, it feels to be like a very offlane focused patch. A lot of the offlane heroes got buffs, the wave speed changes, other small little things to kind of help that. Do you agree with that? And how do think you can take advantage of that as the patch goes forward?
SabeRLight-: “I would say it’s a little bit better for offlane now. For sure there are some really nice offlane heroes. But at the same time somehow there’s like a bunch of still super OP safe lane heroes. So I feel like the offlane is still gonna suffer there while there’s Kez and Jakiro and stuff. It’s gonna be rough.
Because I feel like it’s also the meta has been for so long that basically the Pos 5 is gonna pick like the most annoying toxic hero in lane and then the Pos 4 is just gonna pick like a guy that’s just gonna leave lane as soon as he can. So as long as that is the meta then the offlane will never really win.
So we’ll see, because it just kind of depends on the heroes. If the 4 Pos and 5 Pos change, then I think the dynamic of the offlane will also change.”
Do you mind these kinds of mid-tournament patches? Obviously, it kind of almost directly affected your team. Would you prefer they just didn’t drop them in tournaments at all?
SabeRLight-: “Depends, I would say. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don’t like it. I would say it’s just kinda how confident we were feeling on the previous patch versus how confident we are on the new patch. I mean, it’s always fun to get the new patch and then you win on the new patch. But then when you lose on the new patch, then you feel like, oh damn, this is unlucky.
But I mean, don’t think our loss to Falcons was necessarily because of the patch. Yeah, but I think it’s fun. I think it’s cool to get a patch and like everybody has the same amount of time to figure it out before we play them.”
Is there any facet that’s gone that you’re gonna miss or you’re kind of happy they’re all gone or is it just one specific thing that you feel it should still be in the game in some way?
SabeRLight-: “Maybe the Mars one, the one that you like blind everybody outside the arena. Because I think it’s also quite the nerf for Mars. He didn’t get a facet, you can’t just buy the facet for 4000 gold, so probably that one.”
That’s a shame for sure. Finally, like, it’s been a really hectic season, constant tournaments. April’s gonna be no different. Do you think the schedule was too punishing and would you prefer a bit more breaks or are you happy with the constant events?
SabeRLight-: “Well, it’s weird because for us right now I wouldn’t say it’s punishing much because we didn’t qualify to a bunch of tournaments. So then it’s like we spent like two weeks or three weeks before this tournament everybody at home and then one week bootcamp.
So I would want more than that. Because right now I’m not sure if we’re playing Wallachia either. So basically that would mean there’s only Blast and DreamLeague. Or like the TI and EWC, which isn’t much, you know.
But at the same time, I would want to play more than we are currently right now, but at the same time, it’s also kind of rough for these 1.5 tier teams because of the qualifiers.
On Liquid, we would just get invited to everything. That was a lot, but it was fine because it was just fun because you would go to a bunch of different places and it felt impactful every time you would play. Whereas now, it’s like we go to bootcamp, we play the qualifiers, we lost the qualifier, that was basically a waste of time. We didn’t receive any money for it, we didn’t qualify for the tournament.
But we kind of have to do it again because since we suck, and we need to keep playing the qualifiers to get better and then when we do qualify to a tournament then it gets a little bit hectic because not only we play the qualifiers but you also play the tournaments and we also like bootcamp somewhere in the middle of all of that. So it can be hectic.”
Stick with Jaxon.gg for more Dota 2 news and guides and continuing coverage of ESL One Birmingham 2026.
Featured Image Credit: Virtus.pro
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