Gaimin Gladiators came back fresh after their impressive TI12 run and went all guns blazing at ESL One Kuala Lumpur, the first tournament of the 2023-24 competitive season.
This time around they made a speed run for the grand finals after successfully passing a 1v1 solo mid battle with Team Secret for upper bracket playoffs seed. We had the chance to sit down with Marcus "Ace" Christensen and find out how Gaimin Gladiators keep the motivation up after a year of complete domination and what is his and the team's highlight from 2023.
You are one of the few teams that stuck together after TI12, which is awesome to see. But, when did you decide there will be no roster changes, before or after TI?
To be honest we didn't really decide on anything until after TI was over. We didn't really have that talk before TI because I think everyone felt that it was not needed. The atmosphere was just really good, and we didn't have to think about that, we kind of assumed that we would continue together. After having such a good year it doesn't make that much sense to change anything.
We didn’t get to talk to you since TI, so I have to officially congratulate you for that amazing lower-bracket run. Is there anything you would say you learned from this year’s TI experience?
Our lower TI12 lower bracket run is kind of a trademark for our team. We lose a bit in the beginning and then we get stronger and stronger. I think that we learn fast when we lose. It happened at other tournaments to have a slow start and then we became really good, so I would say that for this year's TI we learned a lot of things about Dota.
What is the motivation for starting the new season after a lot of dominance in the last season?
To begin with, it's very important to get a break after having a really good result. And we had a pretty long break, more than a month, which was quite nice. In the previous year, you would just come from TI and had to play qualifiers pretty much right away for the new season and that is quite hard. The motivation would be pretty low because you go from playing with a lot of stuff on the line to playing scrims to prepare for qualifiers, and in the scrims people will always play at like 60% of what they can actually play, because everyone is used to high stakes. So that was always a problem for us. But having a month break, people come back fresh and they really want to play.
After the dust has settled on the post-TI12 shuffle, who do you see as your toughest competitors for the season?
Team Spirit is not at this tournament but I think they are definitely the strongest competitor that I see right now. But there are also new interesting teams like Falcons. I wasn't sure how good they were going to be when I saw the roster, but for sure they have a lot of potential. I also see the Chinese teams doing pretty well, both G2.iG and Azure look pretty strong.
So, you are now speed-running this ESL One Kuala Lumpur, but the last day in the groups was quite crazy, especially for Quinn. How did you end the day, what was the vibe after that 1v1 mid and after winning the semifinals vs G2.iG?
Oh yes, that was a crazy day because it started pretty rough, obviously. Quinn having to play a 1v1 was not too bad for us, because he is pretty good at 1v1s and he was pretty confident against MidOne. That was almost like a team victory.
We prepared him well for that matchup. I personally played 25 Shadow Fiend games against him before that matchup. We also had some strategies that we talked about. For example, how to deward MidOne, that was not really his idea, but somebody from the team. So, that was kind of nice. Then we ended up winning the first playoff series and we suddenly got top 3. That was a pretty hectic day, but a very nice day at the end.
How do you like this format of solving the tiebreakers with 1v1 matchups as opposed to an extra bo1 or bo3 series?
For me it is quite nice because Quinn is quite good at 1v1, so the format favours us. In that way, I like it. From a viewer's point of view, I can see how it's fun to watch something like this. From another perspective, the 1v1 is not really competitive Dota 2, so it's a bit of a random way to decide a tie. But I personally like it, it's entraining.
Back in the day when you were grinding towards a pro career and you were still playing in the carry role, did you have any role model?
Way back in the day, I liked BurNIng, I liked Meet Your Makers, I was also a fan of Kuroky when he was playing in the carry role, and also NAVI. I liked Loda back in the day, so yeah, all the old-school carry players you could say.
Now that we are towards the end of the year, what would be a personal highlight of yours from 2023?
I liked the Lima Major a lot. That was the first Major that we won. This was played on the old map, and we knew exactly how we wanted to play and we felt really confident and also everything in Lima was so nice. We always hung out in the pool, and we watched the other games from there. We felt really good at that tournament.
Alright, we will wrap up our interview with this nice memory. I hope you have a wonderful time here in Kuala Lumpur too. Happy Holidays and thank you for your time, Ace!
Thank you and Happy Holidays to all the Dota 2 players out there and all Gaimin Gladiators fans!
