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One of the most exciting matches at The International 10 was the Quincy Crew vs OG series. It wasn’t just a battle of two-time TI champions against a tough North American team. It was a battle between two brothers, Sumail at OG and Yawar at Quincy Crew.
Sumail and Yawar aren’t the only brothers playing Dota professionally. We’ll tell you about all well-known the Dota brothers in today’s story.
Hassan brothers
The Hassan brothers met face-to-face for the first time at The International 10, so this match had special meaning for viewers.
Of course, the history and fate of Sumail and his family is very impressive for many people. A young boy from Pakistan moves to the United States at the age of 15. He has a big family, brothers and sisters. At first Sumail and his family of 8 people lived in a small apartment, the young player had to share a room with three family members. Sumail’s father worked very hard to move his family to the United States. By the way, his brother Yawar is not the only one in his family who likes to play Dota. His cousin Daniyal Zaidi in one of his interviews told the story of how they played Dota in Pakistan. Sumail had to sell his bicycle to ride to the gaming area with his cousin. The four of them rode on the small pit bike a long distance to play Dota.
When Sumail was 15 years old, Evil Geniuses manager Charlie Yang and carry of the team Clinton “Fear” Loomis already noticed him. The young player was invited to the best North American team. Then Sumail won the biggest prize pool tournament besides The International, the Dota 2 Asian Championship. Later Sumail would win his most important tournament, The International 2015.
EG winning The International 2015 and Sumail rising Aegis of Chamions. Players from the left to right (Aui_2000, Universe, ppd, Fear, Sumail)
Yawar is two years older than his brother. He first appeared on the professional Dota scene in 2014. It was a North American team with little-known players from the solo matchmaking. His brother Sumail also played in this team. Their team was called ROOT Gaming and they played on StarLadder StarSeries Season 11: Americas. Since then the brothers went their separate ways, but Yawar tried his hand at various North American mixes while Sumail already won the title of best mid player on the planet. The older Hassan brother became widely known when he joined the Digital Chaos team in 2015. Then Yawar played in a quite successful team from North America VGJ.Storm. Its foundation was made up of DC players. Yawar met Jack Chen in team DC, one of the most famous North American esports managers. Now the team Quincy Crew also exists with Jack Chen on its roster.
Yawar is playing for the Forward Gaming
Sumail was a member of the OG at TI10 while his brother played in the Quincy Crew. Notably, they both played at the carry position. Sumail used to play mid and made a name for himself as one of the best middle players on the planet.
OG and Quincy Crew met in the lower bracket in the elimination series. The loser had to leave the tournament. The game was very exciting, at the end OG was able to pull out the victory. In the second game OG actively putted the pressure on their opponent. Quincy Crew fought to the last, but OG was stronger. When QC accepted defeat and GG was called by other players of QC, Yawar wrote the phrase:
“gg, gl lil bro”
This phrase was the most heartwarming moment of The International. This message made its way into various memes featuring Sumail and Yawar. The story of the brothers does not end there, because there is a new season ahead, and who knows, maybe fate will unite them again in one team.
Blomdin brothers
The Blomdin brothers also shared a passion for computer games since childhood. They grew up in Stockholm, Sweden, and didn’t come to Dota 2 right away. At first, the players tried their hand at the professional Heroes of Newerth. It is a MOBA game, similar to Dota, but there are some minor differences, such as a few mechanics that are missing in Dota. This game was very popular from 2008 to 2012. That was the time when the professional HoN scene was blossoming. Linus “Limmp” Blomdin and Rasmus “Chessie” Blomdin pioneered the professional HoN scene and they was very successful in it.
Limmp (the second) at the HoN tournament
The brothers played their first professional Dota 2 matches in 2014. The Swedish team Alliance, which became champions of The International 2013, was going through a crisis. Some players of the champion team decided to take a break. Then team captain Jonatan “Loda” Berg decided to take Chessie to the mid position.
Limmp played his first career professional game also in 2014, but he played for the American team. By the way, other legendary brothers played on it, which we’ll talk about later.
The first serious team for the brothers was the North American team Complexity Gaming. Yes, Chessie had already played several games for Alliance, but the Complexity story dragged on for years.
Alliance with fan (Loda, the fan, AdmiralBulldog, Akke, Chessie, MISERY)
Linus stood out very much among other players on the middle lane, he often made unorthodox decisions and had a great hero pool. He was often called the most stable mid laner. In every team Limmp showed a consistently high level of play. First in Complexity, then in Ninjas in Pyjamas, and then in Alliance. Chessie’s success didn’t seem to be the same as his brother’s. Rasmus was taking breaks in his career. After the break, he returned and started playing on the Swedish team The Final Tribe, where they tried to qualify for The International 2019. After that, the older brother only played in short-lived mixes and stacks. Chessie has not been able to find a serious team until now. Given Alliance’s frankly disappointing performance at The International 10, there is clear that the roster will change. At this point, Chessie is actively training to play in the third position, as the professional Dota scene is not rich with good offlaners.
Freedman Brothers
The fates of the Freedman brothers and the Blomdin brothers are closely linked in the world of professional Dota and HoN. Like the Swedes, the Americans Kyle and Zakari played Heroes of Newerth professionally. His brother Kyle brought him into the discipline in 2011, when he was already playing at a good level. Zakari became the HoN tournament champion and even surpassed his brother, who was playing on the same team as Chessie at the time.
Freedman brothers (Zakari and Kyle)
The history of swindlemelonz and zfreek (Kyle and Zak) in Dota started in 2014 with Complexity Gaming. The North American team gathered a lot of successful HoN players. At one point it was even two pairs of brothers Freedman and Blomdin. Together they all played in a team with Handskeen, who now plays for Alliance.
The Freedman brothers never stood out for their high ratings. For example, when the average MMR of a professional player was 8k, Kyle had a rating of less than 6k. But Complexity Gaming under Freedman’s captainship was notable for its unconventional style of play. Kyle and zfreek could easily swap roles on supports, depending on the heroes they were playing. Kyle could easily take his signature Sand King to the 5th position and run the entire game for 50 minutes without Blink Dagger.
Complexity reached most successful results with the Freedman Brothers and the Blomdin Brothers in 2016. They took 5-6 place at Shanghai Major 2016, then 4th place at EPICENTER 2016 and 3-4th place at StarLadder i-League Invitational Season 3 in Kyiv.
Complexity gaming from the left side to right (Kyle, Chessie, Handskeen, Limmp, zfreek)
Now Kyle Freedman is one of the most successful and in-demand talents in Dota 2. He broadcasted many tournaments, including TI and Majors. Recently Kyle has been residing in Kiev and has been granted a residence permit in Ukraine. His brother Zakari still plays in North American mixes. Zfreek’s most recent team was 4Zoomers, which placed 5th-6th at BTS Pro Series Season 8: Americas.
Vasylenko Brothers
Another example of brothers in Dota 2 is Bogdan and Yaroslav Vasylenko from Ukraine. The guys are twins and do not really get along with each other. Interestingly, they never switched positions, always remaining mid lane players. The Vasylenko brothers also never played on the same team. By the way, the sports were also present in the life of brothers. Since childhood, they were professionally engaged in boxing.
Since they were little, Iceberg has been in the epicenter of the esports life in Kyiv. He literally grew up though the LAN finals of tournaments at the Kyiv Cybersport Arena. Bogdan started to play local tournaments in computer clubs. The most famous of them was ASUS Cyberzone. Bogdan actively starts to participate in tournaments in 2014 as part of various mixes of CIS players. His career took a rapid spurt when he was noticed by one of the old timers of the Ukrainian Dota 2 scene, Artur “Goblak” Kostenko. Then he assembled a team of players from Russia and Ukraine, which called CIS Rejects. Later the guys were signed by a young organization with the headquarters in Moscow, Team Spirit. Throughout his career Iceberg played for almost all known tags in the CIS: Team Spirit, Gambit, Winstrike, Vega Squadron.
Iceberg is playing for Team Spirit in it’s old design jersey
In 2018 Bogdan together with Andrii “ALLWAYSWANNAFLY” Bondarenko gathered players in a stack. The CIS mix began to rapidly gain momentum and beat everyone in their region. They took first place in the The International 2018 qualifiers already under the flags of the Winstrike organization.
Bogdan’s brother Yaroslav did not have the same success. He hasn’t played in any tier-1 team since 2014 even in CIS or EEU Region. It’s very strange that such a good and skillful player wasn’t taken during the reshuffles.
After leaving Natus Vincere, Iceberg decided to change his lifestyle. He completely gave up bad habits and returned to training for boxing.
Pikachu still continues to play Dota in the hope of joining a good team and finding success.
Jankowski Brothers
Not the most obvious story about the brothers in Dota 2. Not many people know about it, but The International 10 bronze medalist Michał “Nisha” Jankowski also has a brother Przemysław, with whom he started playing professional Dota together. We all remember Nisha’s performance for the Polish team Alternate Attax. His brother used to play for that team under the nickname Supreme. He played in the carry position while Nisha was in the offlane position.
At that photo you can see Nisha (the first) and his brother Supreme (the fourth)
Of course, Supreme’s brother was much more successful after joining Team Secret. Nisha stood out from the other teammates from Alternate Attax and Michal was the youngest player on his team. It’s no wonder Puppey took an interest in him.
Supreme continues to play in Polish mixes with his former Alternate Attax teammates. He continues to participate in open qualifiers for various tournaments. Supreme played his last professional game in January 2021. Now the player has gone inactive.