Lakad Matataaag! Normalin, Normalin!

ESL One Katowice 2018: Fnatic vs. Team Secret

In February 2018, Fnatic faced Team Secret at the ESL One Katowice Major. The Filipino broadcast was handled by MineskiTV, with the duo of Marlon “Lon” Marcelo and Aldrin Paulo “Dunoo” Pangan. Their cast in Tagalog sprinkled with English gave the community a future meme. The key moment came in game three of the series.

A Hawk.live article written in Dunoo's memory places the moment at The International 2017 in a Team Secret vs. TNC match, but other sources, including Hawk.live's own meme roundup, point specifically to Katowice and the Fnatic vs. Secret series.

Lon and Dunoo called the match in Tagalog mixed with English words. That is why the phrase sounds unusual to foreign viewers the first time they hear it and needs a translation.

A Black King Bar fight and the casters' shout

As Filipino gaming media reported, in the final teamfight Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao of Fnatic popped Black King Bar (BKB) and charged in. Two Secret players answered with BKBs of their own. Lon shouted “Lakad matatag!” and Dunoo immediately picked it up: “Normalin, normalin!”

The logic of the second line is simple: if every hero in the fight is magic immune, all that's left is right-clicking. Other accounts focus on Fnatic's failed high-ground defense and a desperate Dark Rift on Underlord and don't say which caster said what, so the split of the lines rests on a single source.

What “lakad matataaag” means

“Lakad matatag” literally means “firm, steady step,” closer in spirit to “Forward, stand strong!” It echoes the marching command “lakad patakda.” “Normalin” is a colloquial verb made from the English “normal,” as in “hit them with normal attacks.” English retellings render the phrase as “Walk Sturdy! It's normal, it's normal.”

The correct spelling is “matatag,” but memes and the chat wheel adopted the stretched-out “Matataaag” that captures how it was shouted. Russian-speaking players often write it in Cyrillic: «Лакад мататааг! Нормалин, нормалин!»

The TI 2018 chat wheel and the OG connection

In 2018, Valve added the line to The International 2018 battle pass chat wheel; according to Hawk.live, it unlocked at level 1205. From then on, the casters' shout rang out in countless pub games and on the pro scene.

OG used the phrase especially often on their way to the TI8 title, so many viewers still associate it with that team and its surprise victory. The cry became a universal signal to attack: players fire it off before a deciding fight, during a comeback, or just to pump up their teammates.

On the chat wheel, the phrase plays in the casters' own voices, so even players who never saw the Fnatic vs. Secret match recognize it. The stretched-out “matataaag” became the standard spelling in memes.

Dunoo's portrait in the catalog

The catalog card shows not a frame from the match but a black-and-white portrait of caster Dunoo in a cap and shirt against a dark background. He is the one who answered the first line with “Normalin, normalin!”

The mass-BKB moment itself lives on in recordings of the ESL One Katowice 2018 broadcast, while the portrait serves as the face of the meme for people who only know the phrase from the chat wheel.

Captions with “normalin, normalin”

These examples are made up for illustration: “All five enemies just popped BKB. Lakad matataaag! Normalin, normalin!”, “Deadline's tomorrow and I just opened the project: lakad matataaag”, “Support with no wards heading to Roshan — normalin, normalin.”

The first half sounds like a battle cry, the second like a calm “no big deal.” Most jokes are built on that contrast: a bold step forward in a situation that's clearly going off the rails.