Rumors of Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf’s departure from OG surfaced yesterday. Various community members and streamers noticed that the position three player was practicing carry heroes in his ranked matches, and OG released an official statement today regarding ATF’s future in the organization.
ATF has been moved to OG’s inactive roster effective immediately, and he is available to explore his options for the upcoming DPC season.
The reformed version of OG performed above expectations as the roster had a successful DPC season and won a Major, which established them as one of the top teams in the Western European Dota 2 region.
Coming into The International 2022, OG were considered one of the favorites, and they tied for seventh place, still an impressive result for a young roster that has only been together for less than a year. Purely based on the results, it looked like everything was going well for OG, but things were more complex when their matches were closely observed.
Despite being one of the most mechanically-gifted players in the world, ATF’s limited hero pool in the offlane turned OG into one of the most predictable teams in TI11. Most of the opponents OG faced decided to ban the majority of ATF’s hero pool, which resulted in picking Huskar in their elimination match, a hero who hasn’t been up to the standards of the current meta.
ATF’s hero pool didn’t hold him back from taking over matches from time to time, but even his performance wasn’t enough to make up for the advantage that OG’s opponents would have with the best offlane heroes on their side. In past interviews, ATF mentioned he felt more comfortable playing as a position one. Given that OG gave ATF the green light to explore his options, the former offlaner could make his debut in the next DPC season as a carry player.
