Hello Bulba! Congratulations on the TI3 invite. How did you feel when you found out?
It was awesome to finally know whether we are going or not. The entire new year's hard work was to attend and do well in the tournament so a lot of stress was lifted.
Did anybody from Valve tell you guys about it beforehand?
There were a few hints that we would get one. I don't want to say who gave us the hints but you never feel comfortable till it's official.
I see. I heard LGD didn't know about it until yesterday. So what was the first thing you did when you received the news? Nobody is going to judge you!
I told my dad and responded to messages from friends congratulating me. We were talking about it also on our voice program. Unfortunately, our TI3 invite was met by two awful games versus VP but we were still happy about it.
Aw. How sweet? What did you dad say when you told him about it?
He was really happy. He watches a few games if I tell him it's important even though he barely understands what is going on.
Alright. In any case, as we all know, the Asian teams pretty much dominated the whole of TI2 last year. Have you been analysing some of their replays from G-1 League qualifiers?
Ya, I watch as many Asian games as I can. I want to see what they do, the movement they make, and how specific players do. YYF and Yao are my two favourite chinese players.
Is it because they are an off-laner like you? What do you like about them specifically? P
artly. I enjoyed YYF since WC3 DotA when he was in LGD. Yao on the other hand, was not as known in DotA. He had the nick XiaoD on team Dream and Nirvana.cn if I'm not mistaken. In Dota 2 however, his play has carried LGD.cn in several games and he speaks decent english. We hung out a lot during TI2.
I watch every Asian games if I can. I want to see what they do, the movement they make, how specific players do
Referring to the previous question, you mentioned that you always observe what the Asians play. What do you think is the biggest difference between the Asian playstyle and the western? Give us an example if possible.
Maybe a month ago I would say that the Asians were a lot more aggressive than the western teams but recently the western teams are playing more actively. Right now, the biggest difference is lack of mistakes probably. Sometimes, you see a lot of teams do really weird things and the lack of stability in style is also different. For example, in the western scene, teams were picking Gyro and just stacking camps for the hero a month or two ago. Now teams teams are picking more aggressive trilanes and pushing a lot earlier. Maybe this has to do with hero picks as well. Gyro was considered imbalanced a month ago in the western scene but now teams know how to play against him, kind of like Sven, and Gyro did not even get nerfed.
Who do you think is the team to beat in Asia apart from iG and why?
Right now I would say it is still LGD.cn. Orange is also strong but their recent games like the one they had versus VG yesterday and the game versus MUFC today really showed their weaknesses.
I recall reading an interview with Fluff and he stated that the current state of your team is not ready to take on the Asian teams right now. That was a few months ago. Do you think the team has improved drastically over the last few months?
I think we still need more practice to get to a stable level to take on the Asian teams. Right now, if we do well we play amazingly and if we play badly, we lose in an awful manner.
What is the team’s daily training regime?
The training regime is basically playing when Mike and I get back from class till we ran out of teams to play against.
Name one aspect of the team that you would like improved.
I'd say communication. Often enough we don't say what spells we are using.
All that aside, you guys are also currently in the top four of G-1 League Western qualifier. How has the journey in G-1 been so far?
G-1 started pretty badly for us. We had a really crappy set against EG where they played well and we played poorly. The Kaipi games were better due to better coordination and the Na`Vi games were really good because we made less mistakes and executed our strats perfectly.
Who do you think will qualify into the G-1 offline finals?
Alliance from the upper bracket and hopefully us from the lower bracket
Special shoutout to Azarkon. I confirm your f**king existenceThis will be the second time your team is facing EG in a span of a week. Are you confident in defeating them this time? Tell us what went wrong the last time?
The last time we played them, we had a really bad fight in the first game. As soon as you lose a teamfight against an Io and a Mag, it is really hard to regain the lead. In the second game, we had some good movements and ganks and ended up winning it. As for the third game, we lost after we gave up a Double Kill to the Gyro. When you lose a trilane to a dual lane like that, it's just impossible to come back.
EG’s performance seems to have dramatically improved since the first quarter of the year, do you think their role switch has much to do with this? Are there any other factors?
EG had been doing good mid-game plays and getting strong picks in their games. I also think that Fear's support has been giving them a lot of confidence and he performs a lot of clutch moves
SexyBamboe has been helping them stand-in for many matches in the past few days. Is he tricky to handle?
Bamboe is a pretty clutch player. He's also on or off at times meaning he has games where he carries hardcore while in other games, he's in your base dying to your fountain.
I guess this is a big debate now, which team do you think is more worthy of a TI3 invite? EG or Dignitas?
I'd have to say Dignitas. They have been consistent the entire year, showed a lot of hard work and arguable should have been included in the qualifiers last year. They would probably come close to winning it since they were the best team outside of TI2 during that time.
Is that confirmed by Bulba? Yes. *laughs*
Before I forget, who else do you think will be invited to The International 3?
For the West, it will be Na`Vi, Virtus Pro, EG and Dignitas. As for the east, it is LGD.Int, DK, Zenith, Orange and MUFC or MiTH or Vici Gaming.
Thanks for the interview Bulba. The floor is yours.
Shoutout to my team, its sponsors; Barracuda, Razer, Wwitch and shiny things. Shoutout to my boy Arteezy and Bumblebee as well for his hard work. Also special shoutout to Azarkon. I confirm your f**king existence.
