Dota 2: SumaiL, the Prodigy from Pakistan

Let’s take a look at the career of this awesome player.

Dota 2 has many legendary professional players that are just a joy to watch. Some of them are not as good as they used to be, whereas others are still among the best. Needless to say, Syed Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan is definitely from the second group of players.

How Sumail became what he is today

Similar to pretty much any other top-tier Dota 2 player, SumaiL began his career in high-ranked PUB games. In fact, he began playing Dota when he was just eight years old thanks to his brother Yawar “YawaR” Hassan.

However, the first big move for the young kid from Pakistan happened way back in 2012. This was the year when he and his family made the move from Pakistan to the US. As a result, the young Syed started playing in a local tournament called North American Elite League. Despite being very young, he quickly rose to the top there and proved himself as a very strong and capable player who is not afraid to take risks. Apart from the casual players, one of the best offlane players in the world at that time also noticed him. That was Saahil “Universe” Arora, who decided to reach out to EG so that the giant NA organization can recruit the young talent.

SumaiL at Evil Geniuses

After Universe’s decision to help SumaiL, the young mid laner joined EG in January 2015. The first big tournament for him was the Dota 2 League Season 5, which turned out to be nothing but disastrous for the NA powerhouse and for SumaiL in particular.

However, this didn’t stop the Pakistani player from rising from the ashes. Just one month later, EG had yet another challenge ahead of them, the DAC. Keep in mind that during that time there was still no Dota 2 Pro Circuit available.

Despite being the underdogs, the North American team ended up as the winners and grabbed a pretty massive prize pool. Everyone played really well but it was SumaiL and his innovative playstyle that definitely stood out. This was the tournament that pretty much “unleashed” SumaiL and gave him the title as one of the best mid laners to ever play Dota 2.

Thanks to his incredible Storm Spirit plays, SumaiL has also earned the title as the best SS player of all time. This hero was one of the main reasons why EG managed to overcome the utterly-strong Vici Gaming back then.

Following their success, EG became one of the best teams in the world during 2015 and end up winning the biggest tournament in Dota 2’s history back then – TI 5. Once again, it was SumaiL and his out-of-this-world plays that lead the team to success. Even though the casters and analyzers back then thought that Team Secret was going to be the champion, that clearly didn’t happen.

What happened after TI 5?

Unfortunately, after EG won so much money, things didn’t really go as planned. Instead of sticking with their champions roster, they decided to make a very strange roster change. As a result, Kurtis “Aui_2000” Ling was swapped out for Artour “Arteezy” Babaev, who used to play for Team Secret before that. Bear in mind that Artour went in and out of EG a couple of times before, which is why fans didn’t really understand why this change happened.

To make a long story short, EG didn’t really play as well as they used to. Despite having an all-star roster, they just couldn’t figure out their way to success. During the next couple of years, there were many more roster changes, but still, the NA team just couldn’t win anything big. However, they nearly always finished in top four, which is worth mentioning.

SumaiL in OG

After the end of the 2018-2019 DPC, SumaiL decided to take a break from Dota 2. This was expected because there were many tournaments during this DPC, so some players needed to rest. However, the thing that was not expected was what happened afterward.

Surprisingly, EG announced that SumaiL will leave their roster after spending over five years in it. This came as a shock, especially for EG’s fans, who loved the young and talented player.

The next couple of months were very silent until the True Sight movie for TI 9 came along. After witnessing the awesome clip, OG’s captain Johan “N0tail” Sundstein announced that SumaiL will join OG for the 2019-2020 DPC. However, instead of playing mid, the Pakistani player would take the role of a carry.

This didn’t come as a surprise, considering the team he was joining. After all, OG’s two-time TI winner Topias Miikka “Topson” Taavitsainen remained on the squad, so it was just natural for him to continue playing in the role that he’s used to. Having said that, people expected him to play as an offlaner because he used to do this briefly in EG.

What will the future hold?

We are yet to see what will happen with SumaiL in his newest team. On paper, OG definitely has what it takes to win their third TI but whether or not they will achieve it is still unknown.