PSG.LGD.y`: “We will be going into the next season with more passion and effort.” [Translation]

Following PSG.LGD's defeat in the Grand Finals, team captain Zhang "Y'" Yiping posted a length blog on Weibo. We have taken the time to translate his entire post into English. Below you can read the full translation where Y' dives into what happened in the Grand Finals of the PSG.LGD TI10 run.

Start of Esports.gg's translation of Y's blog post

"When Game 3 between Team Spirit and Team Secret finished, we gathered around an empty corner with True Sight videographers around us. We started discussing about our drafts. First of all, our three most successful strategies so far are: Monkey King > Tiny > IO.

Monkey King. Team Spirit wouldn't first pick Monkey King. Moreover, Collapse's heroes (Mars, Magnus, Tide Hunter etc) are all afraid of Monkey King, so this hero basically wouldn't be available.

Tiny. Ever since Team Spirit started their Lower Bracket run, aside from the series against OG where they let Tiny through, they've always banned Tiny when they had second pick. (They even banned Ogre Magi which is good with Tiny in Game 3 against Team Secret). So, Tiny would definitely be a highly-contested hero.

IO. About IO, we would lower his priority when we played against teams that didn't emphasize him. For example, T1, when we played against them, Elder Titan and Magnus were the prioritized heroes.

Since Team Spirit emphasized IO, we started discussing about our drafts around him. First of all, if we have First Pick, we decided to ban out Mars accordingly to stats and it was also what many other teams had been doing. Then we were discussing for another ban slot.

It was very likely that Team Spirit would ban out Monkey King and Tiny, so accordingly to their drafting patterns, when they were facing IO, they would very likely pick Elder Titan/Winter Wyvern/Bane plus one.

Our conclusion was, either IO plus Ember or Leshrac would be very nice against their potential answers. Picking Ember or Leshrac would depend on which was better against their plus one. Finally, if we had first pick priority, we would ban Mars and Winter Wyvern into first picking IO, and then follow up with Ember or Leshrac.

On the other hand, if we were Second Pick, we would have enough bans to take out Tiny and IO. However, we wouldn't have enough information to tell what would Team Spirit be picking when they had first pick. (Bane, Winter Wyvern, IO, Elder Titan, Magnus). So, since there was too much asymmetric information, First Pick would be our best option to anticipate Team Spirit's drafts. That was all for our discussion for drafts. We cheered for each other after that, and set our mind straight to go up against our opponents with respect.

First 7 bans and picks were exactly like we predicted. However, when we were facing Elder Titan + Tide Hunter, we thought that Ursa would be a better pick than either Ember Spirit or Leshrac, so we made the adjustment in advance.

After the loss in Game 1, we concluded that the problem was because we did not execute our game plan as discussed. However, we did not realize how much we underperformed that game and how immature our understanding on the IO strategy was.

2 losses later, micro-wise , our coach xiao8 suggested us to give up on the IO strategy. On macro-wise, he concluded that we have to emphasize a lot more on our laning phase and the ability to take team fight against Team Spirit, he also suggested that Undying would fit our big picture a lot.

After confirming our plan, xiao8 gathered us together and encouraged us to forget about the games before and let's YOLO this. In Game 4, when we were discussing what hero to pick if we had the First Pick, xiao8 suggested us to snatch the Magnus.

That's because Collapse would only play Doom or Tide Hunter (given Mars would be banned in first phase), it would be difficult for Team Spirit to pick Doom + any support on the 6th and 7th pick. So, it would be very likely for them to go for Tide Hunter + a support. Then we would pick Luna, so Team Spirit would be tough to match our intensity in team fight and laning.

In term of banning, we banned Dark Willow instead of Winter Wyvern because in Game 2, Team Spirit 15th picked Dark Willow, we didn't want to give them the Morphling + Dark Willow combination so we snatched the Morphling and it resulted in our draft being uncovered in many aspects, so we decided to ban it out earlier.

After winning Game 4, we raised the priority level of Magnus to the 3rd spot. In the last game, they gave us the Tiny unexpectedly because it should be the number 1 priority hero for both of our team in this series. We took it without a doubt, and we got our desired Lycan + Tiny combination, while they successfully got the Magnus that they wanted.

We went back to the hotel after our games, we gathered, and we the players kept our emotion to ourselves. However, it was tough for our manager. He felt bad not because we got the 2nd place, but the fact that we looked like we couldn't move on together anymore.

XIao8 spoke to us with tears in his eyes. He told us how he gave up streaming to join EHOME, and the reason he stayed with us was because he saw our determination and passion for this game, and believed we should achieve after going through so much with us. Be it temporary successes or tough periods of time with no results.

I said, I'm not reconciled. If we still had the believe in each other, if we still had faith in the team, we would be able to move forward together. In all of the tournaments this year, we have gotten First, Second and Third. However, this is The International, that's why we were so heartbroken. We hesitated, and because this was TI, it would be memorable for the rest of our life.

After a long silence, Faith_Bian said: "Even though our path will be even tougher next year, I'll still be looking forward to every single scrim together with my brothers, and I'm ready to fight for next year."

AME hesitated, but still agree to fight for another year. When NothingToSay was asked whether he still had the motivation inside him, he said YES with ease. XinQ rubbed his eyes while saying YES, he made me rubbed my eyes too.

We still have to face the pandemic after this, there will be a lot of uncertainty next year, but the one thing that I can confirm is, we will be going into the next season with more passion and effort. "

End of translation

General Manager of PSG.LGD, Pan Fei, has confirmed earlier that the team will stick together for another season on his Weibo. The news was one of many roster reshuffle news since TI10.

With this being said, this will definitely be a calming news for all the PSG.LGD fans out there. PSG.LGD finished 2nd place for The International 10, walking home with a total of $5,202,400.

Aside from TI10, they have also finished 3rd in ONE Esports Singapore Major, 2nd in ESL One Fall 2021, 1st place in WePlay AniMajor and OGA Dota Pit Invitational. All things considered, it's been a fruitful year for PSG.LGD. We wish them nothing but the best in the next year, and of course, stay safe!