"(It's a) Loser mentality to say 'I didn't get last at TI, that's good enough"; Costabile at TI2

Keyd Stars is the only Brazilian team to make it to the playoffs at The International 2023 and GosuGamers had the chance to talk to Costabile about it.

This year for TI12, South America was given two slots for the regional qualifiers. Keyd Stars and Thunder Awaken secured their tickets to Seattle to join beastcoast and Evil Geniuses.

Keyd Stars had a roller coaster of a DPC season. They started in Division I, but the final tour found them in Division II, with no chance at clinching a spot at the last Major tournament of the year.

Mere weeks before joining the regional qualifier battle, Keyd Stars changed two of their core players and brought under their banner Gustavo "fcr" Ribeiro and João "4nalog" Giannini.

Fortunately, the roster changes proved to be the right decision.

Keyd Stars is now making history as the first Brazilian team to get through the group stage at The International.

We had a chance to meet up with Guilherme "Costabile" Costábile before their playoff series began. The carry player shared some insights on their mentality, confidence, and what's gone right and wrong for the team so far.

Their next series is the lower bracket elimination series.

Keyd StarsvsBetBoom Team on Sunday, October 22nd at 19:00 CEST

Read KingRD Interview at TI12: “I don't want to come to TI and have to change everything”

Costabile Interview with GosuGamers at The International 2023

This is your first TI in Seattle, is it everything that you expected to be? How do you enjoy your stay here so far?

I quite like it here so far. I like the cold, I like the atmosphere of the hotel. I have not gone to the stadium yet, but I expect it will also be very good. It's very good to be back in tier 1 tournaments. It's been a while since I qualified for one of them, but it definitely feels very nice.

You are the first Brazilian team to make it out of the group stage. How does it feel to be part of history, now that you made it to the playoffs?

It's kind of a mixed feeling. Of course, it feels good to make history, but it also ... I wouldn't say it's a loser's mentality, but not getting last at TI is not something we go to the tournament thinking about. But it definitely feels nice because other people are very happy that we did not get eliminated but yeah, I think it's a loser mentality if I think like 'I didn't get last at TI, that's good enough'. We are here to do our best and see how it happens.

So you made it out of the group stage and are you still unsatisfied with the results after the group stage?

Yeah, I think so. I think we lost one game from Quest that we should have won. We could have been 3:1 instead of 2:2 and I think we had some idea and draft issues on day 2, also some play issues as well and I think we could have done better.
In the series against LGD we felt kind of lost, but I think we took that loss as (an opportunity for) an improvement to learn about the meta and I also think that LGD is a very good team so there's no shame in losing to them.

What about the surprise that Quest didn't make it? Did you guys value them to be one of the favourites for this event?

I'm not sure about favourites, but Quest was actually the team we scrimmed the most, one of the scrim partners we had for TI. So we knew Quest really well. We played 10 scrims against them and I'm surprised they didn't make it. Everyone was counting us out because, to be honest, the group was really strong, but since I'm not going to count ourselves out, I don't think it was quite a surprise, no.

So of course you don't have to spoil anything, but how is your confidence level to the playoffs and beyond?

I'm pretty confident. I think the only issue is that after we win the first series against BetBoom we have another game the same day, and if we manage to win that game as well, then I think we will have another 7 days of rest and practice. I think we can make it to the top 8 and with the 7 days rest, I think we are going to be the team that improves the most.
Throughout the year we didn't qualify for tournaments so we didn't get the practice as the other teams did so, I think you only get better the more time you have here to practice so I'm pretty hyped to survive the next one on the 22nd and then get some practice in.

I still want to talk to you about the road to TI because you guys had a rocky season, it wasn't all the best Dota that you played. Do you think that you can identify if there was any turning point any key point throughout the season where you were like, 'ok this is what we need to do and we are going to go to TI like that'?

Yeah, so I think we started off the year kind of confident because we were all playing with old teammates and we all played together before. But I think that we got pretty frustrated when we didn't get the result that we wanted and it only went downhill afterwards. I think that team just crumbled due to our expectations and not qualifying for majors and actually getting worse and worse.

So I think the change for the team was actually necessary. I don't think the other 2 players that left are bad players, I think we just needed to change something coz because we played together for so long and it wasn't working, so something needed to change. So I would point to the change of the team as a turning point and the BootCamp we did for TI was also a turning point. I think the BootCamp was really nice and was the right mentality for everyone.

How do you feel about boot camps? You obviously said it was very good for the team but do you think there is a limit on days maybe away from family and friends, away from home?

Yeah definitely, I think the last TI I qualified with SG we had a two-month BootCamp. The first month was really good but the second month we were already burned out and it was way too much, way too much time spent with each other in the same house, the same atmosphere, it just hurts a lot. This year was also a very long BootCamp, but it was a bit better coz because we could go back to our homes since we just bootcamped in Brazil not in Europe for example like in SG. So I think there is a time limit but it is definitely necessary.

How does it feel to be the best Brazilian team in a while?

I mean it feels good (smiles). It's kind of like a similar question as before. It feels good, but it also feels bad because the Brazilian scene is just dying. There are no new players

Or maybe WAS dying?

(raises eyebrows) It was... I hope so... so it's kind of sad that there's no (trails off to think) ... I mean, now that I think about it, we just got two new players that were never in the spotlight in Brazilian teams, so I guess this is also very good. Brazilian teams were known for being the old dogs. Always the same guys, always shuffling the same guys, and now that we actually got newer people it actually worked out.

So now that I think about it, the scene isn't dying as I said (originally)... it's alive (smiles).

How do you like the implementation of the behavior score and what's your behavior score?

My behaviour score is pretty high - 11 or 12k. I think smurfs are very good for the most part for the community. The only bad thing is when you get to the pro scene.
I'll give you a very good example about smurfs. fcr, before going to TI started playing a lot of pubs with Lone Druid — and he won about 20 games in a row playing it. So whoever opens like datdota or protracker, any tracking device on Dota pubs, is going to see that he won 20 games straight with LD. Now LD never gets in the draft for us. We never get LD. So if they didn't implement those smurfs, he could have just played LD and we could have scored a lot of free wins.

That's the problem with Smurfs for pro players. Sometimes they need to hide what they are playing or they need to test something and that's what smurfs are for. But excluding pro players, it's very annoying for the other players of the game.

Is there any way that you can come up with to solve that problem, like a way to ban smurfs to the bigger player base and still not affect the pro players?

I'm not sure how that would work, but I definitely think it needs something different for pro players to hide what they playing. I mean, it's a competitive game, right? You want to win, you don't want to just play the game. It's like if you play soccer games and every practice game you play is public and is on television. It's literally just like that so it doesn't make much sense.

Did you ever get a Smurf account banned?

No, I didn't get banned, but I got a warning that if I kept playing I might have been banned.

More interviews from TI12

Author

Cristy "Pandora" RamadaniPandora is a behind the scenes Dota 2 professional Jack of All Trades. When not busy with Dota 2 work, she is out trying to save the world or baking cupcakes. Follow her on Twitter @pandoradota2