Saksa: “As a Position 4 you have to be creative, and you have to find new ways to play”

Tundra Esports may have ended the Berlin Major with a fifth-sixth place finish, but if there’s one thing we’ll remember about their performance, it’ll be Martin "Saksa" Sazdov and that Bounty Hunter game.

Following their unfortunate elimination, we were able to sit down with Saksa for a brief interview on May 6, focusing on Four Position hero picks. At the Berlin Major, Position Four has had some of the biggest variety in hero selection. Erik "tOfu" Engel picked Spirit Breaker, Skywrath Mage, and even Grimstroke, and Samuel "Boxi" Svahn played Io, Pudge, Clockwerk, Pugna, and Doom. 

But some of the most surprising picks came from Saksa, who mixed old favorites with picks like the Windranger, Slark, Batrider, and Venomancer, to varying degrees of success. And, of course, his incredible Bounty Hunter game versus 9 Pandas that saw him go 12/4/6 and completely take over the game. So what’s it like playing position four on this patch, and why did that Bounty Hunter game get so out of control?

It feels like right now, Four Position potentially has the widest hero pool of any of the roles. Do you agree with that? And are you enjoying the variety of pics?

Saksa: “Yeah, I'm definitely enjoying the variety. It does feel like there's like a lot of new heroes you can play. And it's just a new patch. It's like there's a lot of new things to discover even now, like even after it's been a week or two. So I feel like there's still a lot more to discover and unveil. But I'm enjoying these heroes that just… As a Position Four you have to be creative, and you have to find new ways to play. And that's why you have to look for these new heroes and find purpose for them. That's kind of what I try them and I've been enjoying it quite a lot and keep trying to do more.”

Apart from the Bounty Hunter, which we’ll get to in a minute, have you got any favorite heroes on the patch so far?

Saksa: “The KotL is one of my favorites, and the hero is kinda busted right now. Even though he just lost the last game today [Team Aster vs. Team Liquid]. I like the Slark. It’s kinda like… I guess I’m the only one playing it, but I feel like the hero is really good right now, especially when you look at de-warding and everything.”

“I don’t know, I feel like I tried hard to make the Batrider work, but it didn’t work in our games, but we’ll see. Maybe there’s a purpose for it. And yeah, there’s some ones that haven’t yet been played yet… maybe some Clinkz. Maybe Medusa, it’s OP on every role. So yeah, we’ll see!”

So, finally, the Bounty Hunter game against 9 Pandas was one of the most dominant individual performances of any player, all tournament — Why do you think the pick was so good for that game?

Saksa: “So the Slark pick [from 9 Pandas] ended up being pretty bad, especially against the Dusa/Bounty lane, and that gave them a very rough start. And they had Nyx/Sky supports, and those two, they’re very susceptible to getting kinda screwed over by the Bounty. So once you get this early lead and you start snowballing it can be very bad for the enemy. 

“Once you get the Track kills going, and the Slark needs so much time to recover, but I didn’t give him any space, and just kept going and going on him. So that’s one of the reasons. And I think we had a very good combo with the offlane Dusa.”

Saksa and the rest of Tundra are back in action for the first time since the end of the Berlin Major at Tour 3 of the WEU DPC. For more Dota 2 coverage, keep your eyes glued to esports.gg