This, is the story of Ana.
Anathan "ana" Pham was born in Melbourne, Australia and
started playing dota competitively from
a very young age
however the isolated Australian dota
community would not be enough to quench
his thirst. He decided to drop out of
high school and move to China to further
his career in esports, all at the age of
16 and he substituted for the Chinese
legend Ferrari_430 in Invictus Gaming.
His opportunities were few and limited as he did not get to play on
the main IG squad at most LAN events.
However, he did gain 8,000 matchmaking
points on the Chinese servers and topped
the leaderboards there. This enabled him
to play in the Chinese in-house leagues
like CDEC and further his career.
His big break came when he
joined the newly rebuilt OG after TI6.
There was massive amounts of pressure on
him as he, a relatively unknown player
had to step into the shoes of one of the
best players at the time. Miracle who had
just left OG to join Team Liquid.
Ana accepted the challenge and had no problem
assimilating to OG. At Boston
OG ran through relatively unscathed
a key element of the winning strategy
was the alchemist and DK played by Ana.
Four months later, at the Kiev Major, OG
faced VP in the grand finals. With
the series tied at two is to two, VP
got off to a strong start in game 5.
Accumulating a 10k gold net worth lead.
However, with Ana on the troll warlord and a little help from RNGesus, he
passed away at VP and they didn't
even know what hit them until it was too late.
With him as the mid laner, they won two
consecutive majors at Boston and Kiev.
However, at Seattle OG ran into a
similar situation as the previous year.
They could not convert their great pre TI
form into an Aegis win.
Consequently, Ana left the team and after a
four-month hiatus tried his luck with a
few SEA teams. In the run-up to TI 8
neither Ana nor OG looked like they
would be competing for the aegis.
However, fate had other plans. A massive
roster shuffle saw s4 and Fly depart OG to join Evil Geniuses
just a mere two months before The International 8.
But they would attempt to do what has
never been done in the history of Dota.
To win an international after starting
out in the open qualifiers.
Coming in as the underdogs Ana and OG
surpassed all expectations as they
qualified for the upper bracket. Once
there, they never looked back.
They beat OpTic Gaming to set up a
grudge match against Evil Geniuses.
No Tail and OG had their revenge as EG
was sent packing to the lower brackets
while OG went to the upper bracket
finals to face the Chinese powerhouse
PSG LGD. Ana would extend OG's
Cinderella run as he put in the
performance of a lifetime to secure a
2-1 victory and book his placed in the
grand finals of The International 8.
The Grand Finals. East
versus West. Powerhouse versus Underdog.
A match for the Aegis. While game one went
the way of OG, PSG LGD struck back and
took 2 back-to-back victories and were within 
clinching distance of the Aegis. Game 4
was an extremely tense affair with PSG
LGD in the driver's seat Ana played
on a knife's edge to keep OG in the
game when he got caught without buy back.
However, quick thinking saved the game
and enabled OG to claw their way back
into the game and force a game five.
He put in a performance worthy of the
Aegis securing the win and a whopping
11.2 million dollars for OG.
After scripting the unlikeliest of
underdog stories Ana shocked the
world once again as he announced that he
would be taking an extended break from
Dota and will not be competing with OG
for the foreseeable future. Until then
the Dota 2 world eagerly awaits the return of Ana.
