Gaming
Catching up with one of the surprise qualifiers for the next Dota 2 Major.
It seems like an age since OG halted the seemingly unstoppable Ad Finem hype-train back in Boston. Valve’s decision to reduce the number of Majors from three to two has made this season of Dota 2 seem somewhat less frenetic with events more evenly spaced. Whilst the process of direct invites and qualification spots remains a mystery to anyone outside the opaque Seattle publisher’s bubble, those that had to battle through qualification knew they faced a tough task. The North American teams competing were offered just one qualification spot, and with Boston attendees Team NP and compLexity both battling it out it was hard for the community to look past the two established teams for the chance to compete on the main stage in Kiev.
Emerge, Team Onyx. A team that, on paper, are no strangers to anyone who has been following the competitive Dota 2 scene. Mason ‘mason’ Venne will be hoping to rediscover the success he had when finishing third in The International 4 as a stand-in for Evil Geniuses. There’s not a man in Dota 2 who hasn’t heard of Jimmy ‘DeMoN’ Ho, whose career had a resurgence when he guided underdogs TnC to just over $500,000 at TI6 in the summer. Throw in Kim ‘DuBu’ Doo-young, a player who made his name in the unpredictable yet often unstoppable MVP Phoenix team of recent years, and you’ve already got an eclectic mix of talent and personalities.
The midlaner is another intriguing player. Young Filipino Abed Azel ‘Abed’ Yusop now sits amongst the 9,000 MMR elites and is world famous for his exceptional Meepo. Hark back to the days of The International 6 where his Meepo went 18-0 against compLexity in the wildcard matches and sent the American organisation packing. It almost seemed written in the stars that in the deciding game for a place in Kiev, Onyx would draft Meepo and he would again be the thorn in CoL’s side; going 17-2 and securing a place for his team in Ukraine.
Rounding off the roster however is a man who is considered one of the greatest minds in Dota 2. Sam ‘BuLba’ Sosale has played for teams such as Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, mousesports and Team Secret but to name a few. He’s a name very much known in these parts – and we had the chance to catch up with Sam to discuss his latest competitive venture ahead of Kiev next month.
When you saw you would have to play Freedom, CoL and NP in the lower bracket to qualify for the Major did you ever believe you would actually do it?It was definitely a tough task. We had been losing to NP in a lot of official games and it was pretty stressful. We went into the final day knowing that we had to win three best of three series and two against the two best teams in the qualifiers or else we wouldn’t qualify. It was nerve-wracking but we kind of thought up a new idea for our play in the morning and we just felt confident in it throughout the day which was great. Honestly, Dota is all about just having ideas and believing in them. We had a good idea, we believed in it and we went through.
Given the history that compLexity have with Abed’s Meepo, were you surprised to see it slip through the draft in game three?We weren’t really picking it too much before this tournament so I can see how they might have just forgotten about it. There are some counters but at the end of the day it’s Abed. I mean, it’s kind of their mistake but I sympathise and can completely see how they forgot about it. When you’re drafting and under pressure it’s easy to forget to ban the hero – especially in the second phase.
Talking about drafting, you have some great experience on Onyx – who takes the reins?It’s actually DuBu who does the drafting, although I do tend to contribute as well. I talk to him a lot about it, but at the end of the day it’s his draft and his ideas. I personally think it’s always better that a support player takes control of the draft.
It’s safe to say that Mason probably didn’t make himself a fan-favourite during his time at EG. Many were quick to write him off and say he’s never going to make it. What’s he like to play with?I actually think Mason has always had the motivation to succeed, it’s just genuinely really difficult in the North American scene. There’s really not that many options if you stay within the NA Dota scene. The problem with the space is that there’s very few really good support players – and specifically a lack of top captains. There’s a reason that we have DuBu on our team! I can see in general why it’s been difficult for talented core players to consistently be on a top team and competing with the best. There was Peter ‘PPD’ Dager for the last few years and that was about it. I mean, even now, Evil Geniuses have Andreas ‘Cr1t-’ Nielsen so they’ve moved away from an NA leader. There’s a lot of egos flying around the scene and it genuinely makes it tough.
There’s very few really good support players – and specifically a lack of top captains in NA.
You’ve now got a mixture of NA players plus DuBu from South Korea and Abed from the Philippines. Has it been tough to integrate as a team?
It actually wasn’t that hard. DuBu speaks pretty good English and I’ve known him for a fair while. I’ve met him at LANs but my team didn’t really know him too well. I also met Abed at TI and we talked a bit there. He’s very shy though but he does speak decent English. Dota is a game where you kind of understand each other in general so it hasn’t really been that hard. DuBu sometimes jokes that his English is poor but genuinely it’s fine.
You mentioned that DuBu drafts, does he also call the shots for the team?
When we first started playing we had the problem that there were too many people calling shots which generally doesn’t work for the team. Now it’s become mostly myself and DuBu. We just let Jimmy be Jimmy and Abed does his own thing. I would say that DuBu and I do about 90 percent of the shotcalling now, and the other 10 percent is the other three.
It’s safe to say that you’ll go into the Major as underdogs. What’s the plan from now until it gets underway?We’re actually going to go and boot camp in Kiev. We’re going to be there a few days early, hopefully get Abed’s visa ready and soon as we go to bootcamp we’re going to try and scrim as many of the teams there as possible. I think the other teams are also going to practice in Europe so the bulk of teams to practice against will be there. We’re going to try and go as early as possible and practice as much as we can. Right now, we’ve just taken four to five days break and we’re just getting back underway with practice.
Yourself and Jimmy have been around the scene for what seems like an eternity. How good do you feel personally about this team and your Dota at the moment? You’ve dipped in and out of coaching but is playing the real passion?
It definitely felt good qualifying but the goal is to do well in Kiev as well. As for myself, if I stay in the Dota scene I’m always going to try and play as it’s just more enjoyable. I only do coaching where I lose a qualifier and I’m not going to be at an event. If I’m not going to a big event then it’s likely a team will ask me to coach them and then I’ll gracefully accept. It’s usually because I have a lot of ideas myself, and I just go and share them with the team that I am coaching. That’s one of the reasons that I think I’m fairly good at coaching. I don’t really have much interest in full time coaching or anything like that, though.
You’re well known as one of the best minds in the Dota 2 scene. Do Onyx theorycraft together, or do you all do it individually?
It’s a mixture of both. Everyone in this team plays a lot of pub games so that gives everyone the opportunity to try different things out to see what’s good and what works. The simplified chain is try something out, if it gives us MMR it means it’s potentially good. Honestly that’s just how the pro scene seems to have gone lately. We have our own little Skype group where we discuss what we think works and what doesn't work as well.
We know it’s clichéd, but is TI the main aim for you this year?
Kiev’s format is very unforgiving. It’s single elimination so it’s very difficult to only look at that. I think that’s why after the Boston Major not many teams actually changed their rosters. It’s the same I think with Kiev: one best of three doesn’t really tell you how good you are as a team in my opinion. We’re going to try our best but the main goal is obviously TI. The format at TI goes to show who is actually the best team. It has a big group stage that actually matters as well as double elimination so I think that’s the main aim for sure.
What are your thoughts on 7.0.3? Do you think with the change to the tower armour mechanics we’re going to see the return of split push?Personally, I don’t think it’s changed that much at all. Split pushing is a weird term, because you always split push in Dota. What exactly is split push? Winning by split push is something entirely different. The way that Alliance won TI purely by split pushing and avoiding team fights completely is now basically impossible. I think it’s also because people have got better. People didn’t really understand how to stop it back then but now people are improving all the time. When people get better, there’s one kind of playstyle and that’s fighting. I think if anything the tweaks to gold values like passive gold change and the changes to experience will have a much larger impact on the game.
Talking about everyone having got better and better – why do you think we’ve seen such improvement?
People generally have got better. There’s more knowledge and people watch streams more. Players like Artour ‘Arteezy’ Babaev stream a lot and if you watch Artour you inevitably get better. I’m not saying it’s easy to get better but if you have the basics and then put a lot of time into watching professionals and studying replays it’s inevitable that you’ll get better. There’s also more motivation with the amount of tournaments around and the potential to go pro.
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