Saksa on facet removal: “They put so much work into this when they introduced it, and then they just instantly removed it. Typical Valve.”

Martin “Saksa” Sazdov is the one you call when you’re looking to field a professional Dota 2 team, where the goal is to develop young talent into true tier 1 threats. This is the current Team Yandex roster to a tee, and Saksa’s presence has plenty to do with their recent success.

Our editor-in-chief Sophie McCarthy caught up with him at ESL One Birmingham 2026, to talk about his time so far with Yandex, and how his new environment suits him better as a mentor and shotcaller.

How are you doing today, Saksa?

Saksa: I’m doing great. Just watching some games all relaxed, and it’s nice to get a day off before the playoffs.

Sophie: Yeah, I mean, you guys had a very successful day yesterday. How does it feel to be going through?

Saksa: It feels great. Getting top three and playing the upper bracket, it’s nice to have a comfy cushion. You can always go to the lower bracket if you mess up, especially on a new patch. So for now, we’re just chilling.

Sophie: Well, that’s really good to hear! I wanted to start off by asking you guys: you’ve had kind of a really good rise since you joined Team Yandex back in October. You’ve had a top three finish, I think, at almost every single tournament you’ve played so far.

You are kind of getting a reputation for taking teams straight into tier 1 Dota. What do you attribute that success to?

Saksa: I think I bring a lot of good concepts and ideas to the teams that I play with. I think when it comes to this team, these guys are all very talented. You can tell that they’re highly skilled players, but maybe they don’t know exactly how to consistently win games and what they need to do to get there. I think I bring that experience and confidence with me to this team — and they become more relaxed, they play better, and I just do my thing too, so it works out that way.

Sophie: Do you find yourself in more of a mentor role, especially for these younger players like Noticed and CHIRA_JUNIOR?

Saksa: A little bit, yes. I have a lot of experience, and I like to think of myself as someone that has good habits and good discipline in the game and outside the game. And I try to tell my teammates that that is very important and that it will help them improve.

Sophie: Yeah, for sure.

I guess I see with a lot of players they have quite an emotional response to esports. Do you feel like they’re learning to deal with that?

Saksa: Yeah, I mean, I try to tell them that you don’t need to bring your emotions [into games]. Emotions can kind of just hinder you. Try to be stoic, and you know, not too hyped or too depressed or something. So, you need to bring in like, a good “neutral” level when you play the game. Outside the game, you can do whatever you want.

I wanted to ask you about what motivated you to join Yandex in particular, as opposed to a more established roster.

Saksa: At first, I was going to take a break [after TI14], but then this opportunity came up with Yandex. I talked to watson first, and I was thinking that I wanted to have at least one good player that I knew. Someone that had, I don’t know, good value in terms of the game and stuff. So I talked to watson, and he told me he was potentially joining this team. That’s kind of how it all started. Then, we tried some scrims at first, and it went well. And then we had a tryout for FISSURE Universe Episode 8, where we got top 3. After that, we decided that we wanted to keep playing together for longer.

Sophie: So recently — I think it was at the end of last year, you did an interview with Offstage where you said that you’re feeling much “louder” in this roster, and that you feel like you have the freedom to do that as well.

How is that impacting the team now that you’re able to be more vocal?

Saksa: It’s more comfortable for me, I guess. I think I like this role. Before, on my previous team, I wasn’t really able to have that much of a voice. I felt like I had a lot of good things to say, and it was maybe a bit annoying [that I couldn’t]. But in this team, I have full freedom to do what I want. It’s nice that I’m playing with younger players, and they’re fully ready to listen and ready to get better. For me, that’s very easy to do. I really like this atmosphere that we have going on right now, and I think that’s why we’ve also had a lot of success.

Sophie: Excellent. So the very last thing I wanted to ask you about was the new patch. Obviously, we’ve got to talk about it and how it dropped right in the middle of the tournament.

I wanted to ask about how 7.41 is impacting your hero pool.

Sophie: Because we’ve got the new Shadow Shaman Aghanim’s Shard called Urnaconda, and we’ve got the Bodyguard rework on Marci as well. There’s quite a lot of effect on your heroes, I think.

Saksa: Well, Tiny got kind of obliterated, so he’s unplayable, and he’s one of my favorite heroes. I think most of them got nerfed, maybe a bit. They’re still playable, but I’ve had to find new heroes that I want to try that I haven’t played yet. I think it’s a good kind of interesting, because it’s nice to adapt in the middle of a tournament and start playing new stuff. It’s a bit chaotic, but overall, I like it.

Sophie: Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of people are saying that the removal of facets is the most surprising part. Would you agree with that?

Saksa: Yeah, I mean, they put so much work into this when they introduced it, and then they just instantly removed it. Typical Valve.