So firstly, congratulations on qualifying to The International this year. Your team pulled off possibly the biggest upset of all the Regional Qualifiers, and then one of the biggest upsets of the Group Stage when you ended 4-2 (games taken off Falcons and Nouns, and a 2-0 over BetBoom).
Uh, it's a bit of a shame that we kind of imploded midway through The International. We didn’t have much experience, so I guess the chance of that happening is just higher for us compared to other teams. . Even though we did really well at the start, we fell off really hard at the end.
Other than a lack of experience, why do you feel you did badly? Do you think other teams worked out your style, or do you think you didn’t have enough preparation and tricks up your sleeve to use later? Was it just nerves?
It was a bit of all of those things. We showed almost everything in the first few games against Team Falcons and BetBoom Team, and then teams adjusted to us and started to be more aggressive in the early game. Instead of adapting to these changes and the meta we sort of just imploded.
Your team has players who are all under 1k pro games, but a wide spread of experience. Could you describe if that’s impacted how your team dynamic works?
Experience by itself is sort of irrelevant. There are plenty of players that play for years and I still don't think they know exactly what they’re doing. You need to make the most out of your time playing and learn from the chances you have.
Okay so you’ve now played competitive Dota in many regions: North America with Quincy Crew, Europe with Alliance, China with Zero Gaming, and SEA with many more. Can you give a fun anecdote or comment for each region?
I think it’s so dependent on the team you’re on really - especially in Europe there’s a very diverse set of cultures on the teams. In North America the pubs are terrible but I played with Quinn and he’s one of the best teammates I ever had.
In China everything is straightforward, very direct … they’re the first to mention everyone’s weakness and put it on loudspeaker. Nobody knows what they’re doing in terms of captaincy or in terms of leadership. I think that players just respect the wrong people. They see someone who is old and played for a long time so their ideas are good – just because someone is old doesn’t mean they know anything.
When chatting to Jabbz from Team Liquid he said that he believed that China was dying as a competitive region because many of the older players are not playing; and also that China had lost its identity because their top players only queue on SEA. Any comments on this opinion?
The game is just on the decline in China. There are no new players and a lot of the older very talented players like Maybe and Chalice have quit. We still have some left that are good, but nobody is taking up the mantle [to replace the older legends].
In my team (Team Zero) obviously we tried, but in terms of raw talent perhaps some are just not there at the top - you can’t match the best.
… Maybe & Chalice made a team for the Chinese Qualifiers and came 4th ….
You know, that was zero scrims. They (Team Turtle) went with no scrims and they were crushing. The fact they were beating other “pro” teams like that seems like a really bad indication of the state of China because, like, if a random team can just come together and be like two wins away from qualifying it’s crazy?
In some ways it feels like a culture issue. They cannot have a top-down culture like there is in the Western scene because there’s not been a Topson or an Ana in China. In the Western scene we are always looking to foster these new talented prodigy kids. The Chinese scene everyone respects the old guard, whatever the old guard say that’s the law. Even in my team, I see my teammates watching these older players streams and when they talk about the game my teammates will say like “oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense, that’s really good”. There’s still that sort of lingering old school hierarchy going on.
As we’re conducting this interview, Tundra vs Falcons is ongoing - so let’s just consider all the possible finals day permutations and which you think is the most likely?
I think Liquid will be fighting Tundra and it’ll be a tight five game series, with Liquid winning 3-2. I spoke with Blitz a bit and he explained a little about how they like to play Dota this patch from an internal perspective. So maybe I’m a bit swayed by that, but I really think Liquid has the most depth, and I really like how they draft.
… and if Gaimin Gladiators make the Grand Finals to rematch Liquid? …
I think it’s very unlikely that Gaimin will win. They have such a limited play style and are just sort of locked into the way they play, but Liquid have so many ideas. Even when we saw Dyracho’s Muerta earlier - to me that signalled that they were reaching very far into the tank and it wasn’t working. Liquid already has the answers for Gaimin’s tricks because they understood the matchup well and were one step ahead of Gaimin the entire time.
Alrighty, and the last question – what are your future plans and next steps after the International?
I’m definitely not staying in my team. I don’t have any major plans but I want to play pubs in Europe so I’m just trying to find a way to do that.
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