“Lakad Matatag” Dota 2 Shoutcaster Dunoo Dies from COVID-19

The ongoing pandemic has taken millions of lives worldwide. Today, the Dota 2 community is mourning the passing of Filipino shoutcaster Aldrin Paulo “Dunoo” Pangan due to COVID-19 complications.

While his death may have been a surprise to many, Dunoo did not hide his battle against the coronavirus and gave an update. On August 12, he posted “COVID day 5.” His last post though was August 17 where he wrote “Good night!” and included a video of him wearing an oxygen mask.

The Famous Line

Along with partner shoutcaster Marlon “Lon” Marcelo, the two were responsible for the iconic “Lakad Matataaaag! Normalin, Normalin.” This phrase was uttered as the two were casting for the Fnatic and Team Secret fight in ESL One Katowice back in February 2018 for fans in the Philippines.

You’re probably asking, so what? What does that have to do with anything? A clip of that match started to grab the attention of many fans in the Dota 2 community. It became quoted so often that eventually Valve included the phrase as a chat wheel item for the TI8 Battle Pass. Included with it are the phrases:

• Easiest money of my life!
• Echo Slamma Jamma!
• The next level play!
• Oyoy oy oy, oy, oy, oy, oy, oy!
• Sir Chief. Goodness Gracious Palpable.
• NAKUPUU
• You know what’s cooking? BOOM.

By the way, it wasn’t just your ordinary chat wheel since you needed to reach Level 1,205 to get it.

OG’s Favorite

During TI8, several teams were spamming the “Lakad Matatag” chat wheel. The most “notorious” of these was none other than OG. Doing this appeared to help them get on top of the tournament. According to many in the community, it seemed OG was spamming the chat wheel to tilt opponents and gain that needed psychological advantage. Though if you ask OG, they say they did it because they just wanted to have fun.

OG has honored Dunoo with this amazing tweet:

Dota 2 teams and personalities have also mourned his passing as you can see from some of the tweets below:

So from all of us here at Player.One, we are one with the Dota 2 community in shouting: Lakad Matatag!