34 Facts About Loda

He's been in the game for 17 years, half of his age. If you ask anyone in Dota and even the widespread esports community who's Loda, they'll answer immediately: Legend.

Celebrating Jonathan "Loda" Berg's birthday, we've compiled 34 facts about him, his career, personal life, organization, and more. And it's not just a bunch of simple "he's the co-owner of Alliance", "he's married to Kelly", "he won TI" compilation. We've dug up some good old stuff. Dive in!"Loda" originated from "Lord Of Dol Amroth" from Lord of the Rings.

• "Loda" originated from "Lord Of Dol Amroth" from Lord of the Rings.
• Loda is a member of a band called My Yellow Umbrella. Their song Another Day, Another Place is commonly known as the "Loda song."
• Loda has met IceFrog in real life.
• One of his favorite books is Stormlight Archive, a series of epic fantasy novels written by American author Brandon Sanderson.
• The other book he's fond of is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
• He has a 12-year-old daughter, and they even played Dota and Apex Legends together.
• This is just "a normie" dude doing normie stuff during The International 1.
• Loda's first-ever team was... Team_Team, a DotA AllStars mix, where he joined forces with his future TI-winning partner Joakim “Akke” Akterhall
• His first Dota 2 team was eXperience Gaming, with Mirakel, Akke, Pajkatt, Pinoy.
• His first TI was in 2012, which he attended together with Team Zenith.

Quote from a 2008 DotA forum:

SK.Akke: As in many other E-sports like Counter-Strike, you need an in-game-leader, and Loda is Perfect (with a very big P) for that role. It has been his playstyle since we started to play four years back, keeping good control of the map and giving tips to people what they should do and such. In real life, he is often very cheerful, likes to laugh, and have the same wonderful sarcastic humour as I do :D. He has a very good general knowledge (the opposite of me lol >_>), And in his spare time, he often likes to ride polar bears throwing axes at people!

• Team Zenith was a little extraordinary for Loda, as it consisted of a Swede and four Singaporeans.
• The Chinese DotA AllStars community named him as L-God
• In the years of DotA AllStars, Loda invented a lot of new builds and ideas. People praised his creativity. He was the first to popularize Spectre with Diffusal Blade (even picking her for the mid-lane).
• He also created the most famous Shadow Fiend build: Bottle, Dagger, BKB.
• Total Prize Money Earned: $704,857.44 From 100 Tournaments (according to Esports Earnings)
• Loda's DotA career started with 2v2 tournaments, where he played together with his classmate, Akke.

• He played at a Riot Games-sponsored GamesCom Dota Invitational. Yes, there was such a tournament.
• He started playing DotA competitively in 2005, which means he's been in esports for 17 years.
• Tried his hand in HoN between 2010 and 2011. Successfully
• Loda on TI: "When the tournament was announced, I thought it was a joke, and I stuck with HoN. After it was played, I regretted everything and swapped to Dota 2."

“HoN wasn’t a game I ever dedicated myself to fully; I think the game was very poorly designed and played it mostly because I felt like my time in the original Dota had come to an end, and I found that I could compete at a high level in HoN without putting in much effort. […] HoN was a past-time, more than anything to me.”

Loda, 2014

• He has an NFT named after himself: Legendary Loda Momo (actually, there are three). One was sold for $99,000.

Best zombie movie ever, according to Loda? Day of the dead or 28 days later.In 2013, a sponsor approached him and offered to create an org, which he did: NoTidehunter became Alliance, with Loda, Akke, AdmiralBulldog, S4 and... EternaL_EnVy, who was a little later replaced with EGM Has taught a 67-year-old man to play Dota

He likes Heroes of Might and Magic III and Civilization series. A man of culture. Loda's top soundtracks are: Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, Battlefield 1942This pic says it all:

• Has this item on his inventory

• In total, his Dota 2 2500+ items cost $5,239.76. And there are super–rare legendary items not for sale which cannot be valued.
• Loda's main rival during his playing career was Danish player Jacob "Maelk" Toft-Andersen, who's now a VP of Esports for 100Thieves even though they played together for quite some time.
• Invented the legendary Bait Tactics:

• Loda is a caps enjoyer. Ever since the 00s, he's been wearing various caps and continues to wear them now.
• Berg has played different positions during his professional career: mainly as har carry and mid-laner. He also has experience as support.
• To the good old days!

Happy Birthday, Loda!