The New Blood Championships is exclusively targeted at amateur players from all Southeast Asia, and it comes with a generous $40,000 prize pool. For a newcomer team like 818 Reverse Heaven, this can easily be their professional career starting point, and as all the five players are extremely young, with little to no competitive experience, we have the pleasure to introduce them to you.
818 Reverse Heaven roster:
Tan 'jjz' Jia Jun
Cheng 'NothingToSay' Jin Xiang
Tan 'TrazaM' Kai Soon
Cheong 'czy' Zhi Ying
Wang 'Gy/Guoyuan' Kok Guan
Mister Ian Tan, General Manager of Fallout Gaming, one of the New Blood Championships organizers, personally spoke to the 818 Reverse Heaven players and shared with GosuGamers the interview transcript.
The interview was slightly edited for better reading.
What’s the history behind establishing 818 Reverse Heaven? How did you meet? How long has each member been with the team?
JJZ: I created 818 Reverse Heaven in 2012 since Dota1. In the beginning, we only focused on smaller online tournaments for fun. In December 2016, we officially banded together as a group of 5. Trazam is my schoolmate. I met NothingToSay at a LAN tournament. We became friends after that and tried out for Mountaindew 2016 together. Then we met Gy and Czy later at a cybercafé. The original roster created in December 2016 included NothingToSay and Trazam, Gy and Czy came later.
Since the average age for your team is so young, at just 20 years old, what are your future plans? Do any of you still want to pursue a formal education or will you focus on being a professional esports career?
JJZ: It’s our dream to become a professional esports team. Our current future plans are just to play in as many tournaments as we can to gain experience, try our best, and chase our dream. Gy is in college but NothingToSay, Trazam, and I are all still in high school. We would love to have a chance to pursue a future career as professional esports players!
Your team mid player 'NothingToSay' performed impressively, especially during the Finals against Genesis! Was that an extraordinarily good play, or was that the level of performance expected from the team?
JJZ: It was expected from him. NothingToSay has a very aggressive and confident playstyle. He is the main core of our team and always manages to pull off great plays like that.
You were neck-in-neck with Genesis for most of the match. Did the team feel pressured, or were you confident you could win?
JJZ: Personally, I felt quite stressed because we lost the first game. After that, the team discussed our problems and came up with a better strategy. Even though they were close games and Genesis did really well too, we tried our best and won the other games.
We’ve noticed that czy and Trazam will switch between carry and support roles during the series, under what circumstance will your team will make that decision?
JJZ: Czy and Trazam can play any role. There are some carry heroes that Trazam feels more confident in compared to Czy so then Trazam will play the carry while Czy plays support, and vice versa.
How do you guys feel about representing Malaysia to compete with other top amateur teams from Southeast Asia?
JJZ: We’re pretty nervous but also really excited! It’s our first overseas tournament. We just hope we can do well in Jakarta and keep the championship title in Malaysia.
Has the team participated in any LAN tournament outside of Malaysia before?
JJZ: No, this is a brand new experience for us.
What’s your team expectation for New Blood Championships playoffs finals in Jakarta?
JJZ: (laughs) We’ll try our best! We definitely want to be within the Top 3!
Who do you look up to in the professional esports scene?
JJZ: sonneiko and fly
CZY: sumail
NothingToSay: miracle
TrazaM: midone
Gy: old eleven
If 818 could choose a coach tomorrow from any Malaysian team, who would that be and why?
JJZ: I think 343 from FDG would be a good choice for our team. He’s pretty experienced and he could help guide our team or give us advice.
With so many minors and majors on the horizon, should we expect to see more of 818 RH in the qualifiers after NBC?
JJZ: Yes! We will give it our all in any tournament we join, as long as we can qualify. We definitely wish to play in any minor or major.
The New Blood Championships
Fallout Gaming, the leading SEA marketing esports specialist, alongside Purpose Win Entertainment Limited, a Hong Kong based esport organization, partnered up once again to bring this fantastic event to the SEA region and look to highlight the spectacular talent in the region. After joining forces for Galaxy Battles, the two organizations look to develop esports throughout SEA and see the massive potential in the region.
In mid-August, we announced the beginnings of the New Blood Championships, a Southeast Asia based Dota 2 event. The tournament boasts a $40,000 USD prize pool along with a spot for the top 2 teams at season 2 of Galaxy Battles – giving the SEA teams a huge incentive to join in and showcase their talents. The event is tailor-made to give the up-and-coming stars of the SEA region a platform to reach the top as competitive gamers. The tournament’s main event will feature one team from each country; Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines along with one team from the rest of SEA joining up with two invited teams in Jakarta, Indonesia where they will battle for those precious spots at Season 2 of Galaxy Battles – set to take place from January 17th-21st 2018 in Manila, Philippines.
