Team Liquid made another run up to the grand finals this past Sunday at the ESL One Berlin major. This marked their third grand finals appearance in a row for the past two months.
Unfortunately for them, much like in Lima or at the DreamLeague Season 19, Team Liquid still fell short of a championship victory, getting defeated by Gaimin Gladiators. Liquid and GG are the two teams with the most official games on the New Frontiers patch, so when we had the chance to talk to Michael "miCKe" Vu at the Berlin Major, we were curious to find out what he thinks of all the new changes.
What is your overall thought on the new patch?
Overall, it's a good patch, it's just the release timing that was weird. We were playing a tournament and the patch dropped in the middle of it. Then, we had the balance patch a day before the Major. So, everything felt a little bit overwhelming.
But I think it's kind of cool. The previous patch was just very old and very boring, so it's good to have this now.
The side lanes became so busy with this patch. How do you like it and how do you adapt to the idea that the enemy can come at any point through those Twin Gates?
I kinda like it to be honest, because I used to be a mid lane player so, action is always nice to me and now I get to be a part of the action. It's a good patch for me, I guess.
But how about the mid lane which seems like a dead lane right now? Should Valve change something to make it worth ganking again?
I feel like instead of having all the objectives on the outskirts of the map, like Wisdom Runes, Tormentors, Rosh Pits, everything is there, maybe they could move some of them towards mid or around mid so you can have action there too. Right now the teams are just fighting on the outskirts, on the outside of the map and it feels kind of weird, nothing happens in mid. Maybe if they move one of the things there, it would open up the map more.
Would you say that dropping into the lower bracket here at the Major is because of the patch or is some fatigue also involved from these couple of months of back-to-back tournaments and two grand finals played in a row?
Yes, there is a little bit of fatigue as well, but we also didn't figure out the patch fast enough. It's only now that we get to talk about it more and figure out things. Right now I think we have a better grip on the patch than we had coming into the Major.
At the beginning of the tournament, we didn't know what's happening, we were just picking some heroes, trying something out, which obviously didn't work out.
We've seen in the OG vs EG series how easy it is actually to control where the Roshan spawns now. One suggestion was that they should change the respawn timers, do you agree with it?
They should definitely do something with the timers because right now if you kill it on the Radiant side, he will respawn on Radiant again one hundred percent. They have to do something to make this more random. In a way, I feel like it's a bit unbalanced how it is right now, but what do I know, it's a new patch. I didn't play that much on it really.
Alright miCKe, thanks a lot for coming to talk to us, and if you have any shout-outs to do please go ahead!
Shout-out to Monster Energy and to my friends and my family who are here watching me playing on the stage. It's nice to have them here!
Did you have them in Lima as well?
No, Lima was too far.
Is it any different for you when you have your family and friends in the audience and when you don't? Is having them present adding some pressure?
Not really. I'm here to have fun. It's nice winning in front of them, of course. It's just a nice experience to share winning moments with them.
I hope they will have many reasons to celebrate with you here in Berlin, thank you for your time, and best of luck throughout the rest of the DPC season!
