Keyd Stars are one of the only two South American teams that made it to the playoffs stage at The International 2023 and we’ve been able to catch up with the Brazilian veteran Danylo "KingRD" Nascimento.
TI12 group stage featured a lot of surprises. One of the rather unexpected results was the early elimination of two of the top SA teams, beastcoast and Thunder Awaken, while the regional qualifier winners Keyd Stars made it further.
Keyd Stars took the longer road to The International 2023. They made critical changes only after struggling in the Dota Pro Circuit for three tours straight. Nonetheless, a couple of roster adjustments and a two months bootcamp got them right back on track to claim the tickets to Seattle. However, everything took another wild turn once the most important tournament of the year was about to start. The rather impactful 7.34d patch changed the meta and for some of the teams that meant a lot.
GosuGamers had the chance to talk to KingRD about how the latest patch impacted his team, how he feels being one of the oldest players at TI12 and what kind of toll a life dedicated to competitive play has put on him.
KingRD Interview with GosuGamers at The International 2023
This is your first TI in Seattle, is it everything that you expected it to be?
No.
No?
I mean, I have a lot of friends who talked to me about Seattle and The Internationals held here and everyone told me how it's going to be crazy. But it's not what I expected. I don't know what happened this year with Dota, but I feel like this is not the best tournament I've travelled to.
How about the city, do you enjoy your stay here?
I don't know what's happening, but every time I'm coming to America, I'm getting sick. I've been sick for the past five or six days, something like that, so I don't know if it's because of the weather or because of the people in America, but I’ve been feeling sick for a lot of days now and it's not cool, man. Not cool at all. It's also cold all the time, really cold.
The weather is hard. You are from the northern part of Brazil, right?
Yes, Nord East, I live close to the beach, so it’s always hot there.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen you on the TI stage, and this is actually the first time when you are with a full Brazilian team at TI. Does this carry a special importance to you, to be able to fully represent Brazil at TI?
Not really that much because in 2018, at TI8 I have also been with a Brazilian organization [paiN Gaming] and it is kind of the same. I guess the main difference between then and now is that the Brazilian players have changed because after playing together for so many years, nobody wants to stay together anymore.
So, what we are seeing now is the new generation of players from Brazil. At Keyd Stars we have three young guys: fcr in the offlane, 4nalog in the mid lane and KJ in position 5 support and that's good. I would say that right now we have a really good line-up and although we won't have the DPC anymore next year, I do really think we will be able to go to the Majors, or whatever the next year's events are going to be called.
I'm the only one really old on this team. (laughing) I really didn't expect that I would be still playing at 31 years old.
" I keep saying to myself 'one more year' "
How are you getting along with the guys on your team?
The guys want to play every day and I'm like, “yo, I've been doing that for 20 years now, and I'm okay, I can still do it, but I also want to chill some days.” But oh my god, these young guys, all they want is to play Dota, to watch replays, to talk Dota and I say “OK, I can do this for one more year, I think”. I keep saying to myself “one more year”.
So they are the ones calling you to watch the replays?
Yes! (laughing) It's really boring sometimes. For instance, today: we scrimmed two hours ago, we will have another scrim like one hour from now and between these scrims they are like, "ok, let's talk about this hero, about the meta" and I say "dude, I want to chill for an hour and after that, we can gather and have a talk."
But at the same time, we are at TI. We need to keep talking, we need to keep thinking about Dota, and that's the thing if you love this game and if you want to do well at TI, you need to keep playing and keep talking about the game.
You mentioned the age. You are one of the oldest players at this TI. You and Solo are past 30s. Does age matter at all?
This is a really hard question, to be honest. Sometimes yes. I feel like my main problem right now is that I can't find the same passion to keep playing all day like I used to do 10 years ago. I like to play Dota, and I like to play competitive Dota, but I'm at a point in my life where I also want to go out some days, to have a beer, to chill a bit, and the way the competitive scene is right now, it doesn't really give you the space to have a life outside the game. But it's ok, I can do this for one more year.
Every year you will say the same, "one more year"
Yeah...
But that's ok, you are playing well, you are playing at a high level. Are you satisfied with your own gameplay?
Yes. On some heroes. Our biggest problem right now comes from the fact that Valve has changed the meta with a patch released one week before TI. This new meta is not good for some of us and especially for me. The patch changed a lot of the heroes in my role and has forced us to a new play style. With some heroes, I feel like I'm playing really well, but there are some that I don't really feel good about.
For example, before coming to TI, I liked playing Tusk a lot and it was going so well for us having strats with that hero.
I was starting to feel good about our chances, we built strategies on how the meta was a week before TI. But then the meta changes and you can't play fast-paced games, you need to think about the late game and Tusk is not the hero for that. I lost four games with Tusk in the group stage so, now we need to change a lot of things.
Is there another hero or more heroes besides Tusk that are not viable in your role after the patch?
Yes, but I cannot talk about that.
Fair enough.
I mentioned Tusk because I already lost 4 games with it.
I want to talk to you about your road here, to TI12. You guys didn't have the greatest DPC year and it was a very nice surprise to see you making it through the regional qualifiers. How do you value your whole season and was there a turning point where you said, ok we need to do this and you changed something perhaps?
The biggest turnaround came when we changed players. I really like Tavo and 4dr, so it wasn't a problem of not getting along together or anything like that. We just really needed a change in mindset and in the hero pool.
After we changed Tavo and Adriano, we went to a bootcamp in Fortaleza for about two months and we really started to improve to the point where we felt like the regional qualifiers were too easy. During that time, we also didn't scrim with any of the Peru teams, so that might have actually played a huge role, the fact that we didn't show them anything from what we were preparing.
Right now, we need to get back into that mentality that we had in the bootcamp, and sort things out, because a lot of what we came prepared with is not working anymore. The meta has just changed. The best thing that happened to us this year was going to Fortaleza and I think we should go back there after this TI and continue to practice with Brazilian and NA teams.
"I don't want to come to TI and have to change everything"
Do you feel like you have enough time to make the changes needed to see a different Keyd Stars in the playoffs?
I think so, yes. We do really want to change some of the things with our drafts and strategies, but we also want to integrate the new things in our playstyle, because you can't really change EVERYTHING and that's a bit sad because, dude, I don't want to come to TI and have to change everything.
Why did I do a bootcamp before TI, why did I practice something for the past two months if you are going to hit me with a patch like we just had a week before TI started? I feel that’s really stupid.
With that said, we feel like we understand the meta a bit more after we lost to LGD and because we have these six days before our next match, we are scrimming a lot and watching replays and probably, we will have a way better understanding by the time we play BetBoom Team.
Alright, we wish you the best of luck in the playoffs, and I hope all these days off in Seattle and all the practice will pay off for you here at TI12.
Thank you.
