The International 2012: Na`Vi-XBOCT (english subtitles)
Uploaded by MoscowFive on 31.08.2012
Transcript:
Alright, everyone. We’re back at The International 2 in Seattle, sitting next to Na`Vi-XBOCT. His team just won over DK 2:1 and advanced to the upper bracket’s semifinal. How do you feel right now?
We were a bit nervous, but everything has turned out well for us. In the second game we made a small mistake in the pick stage. We weren’t actually doing what we were supposed to, so our opponents just went on farming and won the match. We’ve been expecting it to happen, but we felt like we were on a streak picking whoever we wanted. So if they had gone and fought us, they would have lost, but they’ve decided to just put some save lanes and play farming. That was a mistake of ours. The third game went the same to some extent but they seemed to be scared and picked a free-win-lycan. Nevertheless, we were able to take a late, make some split-pushes at the right time, fight back and win in the end.
I’ve noticed that they’ve banned Pudge. Was Dendi upset?
Pudge have been banned by everyone for the last 10 games or so. At least, by Chinese teams.
- Only when playing against your team? - Of course!
The thing is everyone’s now aware of Pudge’s capabilities, so that’s why people ban him, especially against us: we were upgrading the strategy pretty much, so it’s very dangerous for our opponents. So, the Chinese interact with each other and agreed on banning Pudge.
Were you surprised when they picked Dazzle?
Not really. Many people preferred to pick him since it’s a good thing to do. But we decided not to fight with them unless they approach us themselves. Still, they have nobody to fight with, because if they attack all together, then we can just make a move to trick them at the right time and kill’em all. The spells and blackhole were under our control, so we were doing what needed to be done.
Three people just approached you waving their hands like they’re in the bed with a girl. How often does this kind of things happen when people see you?
It has nothing to do with me personally, ha-ha. Seems like it’s more about the game. Generally speaking, these guys have spent a lot of time with us away from computers, hanging out together, drinking and laughing. So, nothing serious.
Talking about the fun part. Remember that performance of yours? When you and Dendi made something similar to Cirque du Soleil at that single computer club in Washington? Have you been preparing long enough for that performance?
Yeah, man. 1.5 years of hard work and practise. We can now apply just for any circus, you know. Clowns are so clowns everywhere you meet them.
You did really well. I liked your performance pretty much and hope that you’ll repeat it some day. Maybe after one of the matches?
Sure. We actually have something already prepared for you, so if everything goes our way - you’re gonna see it.
We will be looking forward for this. Now, tell me about the problems you said your team has been experiencing prior to this tournament?
There were a lot of different situations, a little bit of misunderstanding, everyone was sure in his own uniquely outstanding abilities to perform extremely well, the teamplay was absent. So in reality we could kill our enemies only if they weren’t showing any resistance whatsoever, so that we could at least do some pushes. We were losing a lot of clanwars so the teammates were really nervous and upset about it. We were going to reboot ourselves prior to this tournament for the sake of winning it, but Puppey then got ill two days before the event, so we had to just play some pubs and watch others play. Going into the match versus iG, we weren’t prepared at all. We didn’t know who to pick, what had been changed, how to adjust despite having watched a lot of replays. Going into the second day, we were really upset and Dendi was sharing his emotions with Orange when we were losing 2:0 and it seemed we could already go on packing our stuff to fly home. Coming up next, we met Darer and mTw, whos victory over us could’ve meant that we really needed to just go home. But we were able to pull ourselves together and show some decent performance against them. So, that’s why we’re here right now, as you can see.
Did Puppey catch a cold or something? Seems like he has a flu.
Not really sure about it. He had something like stomachache, couldn’t really eat anything and was complaining a lot about him being sick. But thanks to VALVe and some folk medicine we were able to get him back on track before the games of the first playday started.
So, the local food isn’t that good, is it?
As for me, I’m very satisfied with America and its food here. Everything is relatively cheap comparing to any European country, almost like in Ukraine. I have also a lot of good words to say about the infrastructure and the general level of the organization preparing everything needed for the players. No tournament could be compared to this one in this context.
How about comparing it to the previous International?
This one is 10 times better than the first. It’s their homeland, they have a lot of useful connections here, so that they can arrange everything perfectly. It’s the United States of America, so everything’s top notch here.
By the way, are those play booths sound-proof? Or have you heard the crowd were really cheering for you guys like I have?
A little bit. We heard the roar of the crowd but didn’t hear the voices of the casters. Me, Lost and Dendi had really quiet level of our voice communication, but we did hear “NA-VI” screams from the crowd despite the booths being actually sound-proof.
Your team is one of the few who decided to go practise in between the matches. Did anybody on the team complain about it whining for having a little bit of rest after the official games?
We did have a rest actually, even after the pcw, but everyone’s had to change his plans. When I got to know about us going to practise the second day, I had to cancel the meeting with my old friends from Canada (ex-classmates) who were heading to the US to meet me that day. I was supposed to get together with them and hang out, but my team needed me for practise, so I decided to sacrifice the meeting for the sake of winning the important matches and not being just a tourist at The International. My Canadian friends had already left to meet me that day, but I texted them explaining the situation and they returned back home. I hope everything turns out well and pays off, so that I will visit them myself.
As you mentioned, the level of organizing the event is really high. I agree with you on that one, having visited many tournaments (not only DotA-ones). But how do you like the fact that you’re forced to sit here and wait for your own matches to start?
I think they do it for the security reasons. They want to have everybody at hand, so nobody gets lost around the town, and also to prevent technical losses. Because there are some guys who can accomplish such a failure and not show up even at The International 2 LAN-tournament. You know who am I talking about, don’t you, ha-ha.
You’re going to face iG, while LGD and Zenith are going to battle in the second semifinal of the upper bracket. What are your thoughts on the outcomes?
LGD are going to crush them. We were practising against Zenith two recent days, and I can tell that they are, of course, playing more for fun, letting go of Dark Seer and stuff. They told us about it right away, so we knew who were we going to practise with. I don’t really believe in them. They have iceiceice who can perform really well when on a roll. But generally he doesn’t really care too much about the strategy and thinks it’s the right way to play the game. In contrast, LGD have their discipline and the strategy, so they’re favourite to win that encounter.
Your team is the only one to beat the Asians in the upper bracket. There were a lot of rumours before the event about how strong the Chinese were. Could you imagine you would beat them that easy or was it just your default performance?
The thing is that it was DK who performed poorly, obviously. Or maybe we have really step up our game and now it seems to be a default match for me, but considering what I see from LGD in their games versus other opponents, they show a much better performance there. Maybe they will fail in a match against us, when we will make some certain moves to counter them. Just have to wait and see. As for us being the only team.. Yeah, I’m aware of this. I had some expectations about Darer making some damage because they were destroying DK 5:0 and EHOME 3:0 at pcw, so it was a surprise for me when they started to play the way they did. About us being the one and only... nothing has changed since the last International, ha-ha.
Ok, nothing has changed. Tell me, how did you find motivation to participate in tournaments with prize pools of $15k-$20k after winning million dollars?
We understood that there would be another million-dollar-tournament, so we had to stay fit in order to keep our top shape. And there’s no other better way to do it, than to participate in tournaments, where you and your opponent show the best of your capabilities.
How did the whole year between two Internationals go for you? Were you looking forward to it or just playing for fun and having a good time in StarLadders and such?
Even though everyone had been doing his own thing not being too excited about the upcoming tournament, we had practised playing DotA 2 quite a bit in order to be prepared for the International 2. Some people went on vacations, other visited different countries, but we kept on getting ready for this LAN, nevertheless. Everything fell right in its place after all.
Could you explain that problem which you described your team had when all five of you decided to play different ways, not paying attention to the teamplay? Is it fair to say that all five of you “caught a star”?
- Yep, it is. - But what happened?
It’s hard to say about all five of us though. Dendi had the least of it. Lost never had it, but he’s a unique person who tends to always disagree with everybody else - he never gets into word-fights when everything’s ok, but when it’s not - we had some real hard-boiled discussions going on in the team. Talking about the actual reasons for it... the first thing is disobedience...
[Somebody interrupts the interview] - Do you know this guy? - Nope. PGG-style though. - Okay, go away, dude.
Now, let’s take me and Smile or me and Dendi. Why did things go wrong? Simple example: let’s go, I throw the attack, and you kill them? - No, I won’t do that. Period. Alright, bye. Buy me wards? - No. This kind of thing went on and on while we were losing one pcw after another. The attitude in the team was really poor, so we couldn’t really concentrate on the actual game.
Did it all start after Dreamhack?
Nah. We were upset of course. We shouldn’t lose that tournament, but what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, you know. There was chaos in the team during the following week. The three days after the interview we began to destroy everyone again not losing a single pcw. We believed in ourselves, went to fly here and faced that kind of team crisis again. All these swings, ups and dows led us to our current shape which is really good right now, I think.
How do you like the format of this tournament? It has a lot of matches to say the least. Wouldn’t it be easier to use the traditional system with half of bested teams advancing to the play-offs with the losers going home early on?
Not really. I do like the system with a lot of room for a mistake which is something to consider for all the teams from CIS. In fact, we just had an unbelievably important match. We are now already In The Money! It does actually motivate us a lot. We plan like we’re getting $2k each for winning next game which can be compared to winning the whole StarLadder tournament. Something like that, ha-ha.
I’ve just imagined 5 Scrudges McDuck’s sitting and counting their potential profit.
No, it’s me who does all the counting and then tells everybody how much they’re gonna earn. So they go like: “Hell, yeah, we want that money!”
Ok, I see ZeroGravity getting nervous, so we’d better wrap the interview up. If you want to tell your fans anything, here’s your best chance to do it.
I would like to say “Hi” to everyone who knows me and who cheers for me. It’s actually very pleasing to realise how many people are rooting for you. Because there was no such hype during whole year while we’re winning the European tournaments, and now all the people I know are trying to cheer me up when my team loses. They don’t call me an idiot - they try to make me feel better and concentrate on the game better. It really helps a bunch. So, thanks to everybody who’s helping me. Hi, Yalta. Hi, Kiev. I would also like to thank my girlfriend. Now, I would like to appreciate the support from our sponsors: Antec, SteelSeries, Kingston, and AlienWare. Yeah, four of them.
Ok, thank you for this interview and good luck. I hope you will get that million down. It was XBOCT at The International 2012.
We were a bit nervous, but everything has turned out well for us. In the second game we made a small mistake in the pick stage. We weren’t actually doing what we were supposed to, so our opponents just went on farming and won the match. We’ve been expecting it to happen, but we felt like we were on a streak picking whoever we wanted. So if they had gone and fought us, they would have lost, but they’ve decided to just put some save lanes and play farming. That was a mistake of ours. The third game went the same to some extent but they seemed to be scared and picked a free-win-lycan. Nevertheless, we were able to take a late, make some split-pushes at the right time, fight back and win in the end.
I’ve noticed that they’ve banned Pudge. Was Dendi upset?
Pudge have been banned by everyone for the last 10 games or so. At least, by Chinese teams.
- Only when playing against your team? - Of course!
The thing is everyone’s now aware of Pudge’s capabilities, so that’s why people ban him, especially against us: we were upgrading the strategy pretty much, so it’s very dangerous for our opponents. So, the Chinese interact with each other and agreed on banning Pudge.
Were you surprised when they picked Dazzle?
Not really. Many people preferred to pick him since it’s a good thing to do. But we decided not to fight with them unless they approach us themselves. Still, they have nobody to fight with, because if they attack all together, then we can just make a move to trick them at the right time and kill’em all. The spells and blackhole were under our control, so we were doing what needed to be done.
Three people just approached you waving their hands like they’re in the bed with a girl. How often does this kind of things happen when people see you?
It has nothing to do with me personally, ha-ha. Seems like it’s more about the game. Generally speaking, these guys have spent a lot of time with us away from computers, hanging out together, drinking and laughing. So, nothing serious.
Talking about the fun part. Remember that performance of yours? When you and Dendi made something similar to Cirque du Soleil at that single computer club in Washington? Have you been preparing long enough for that performance?
Yeah, man. 1.5 years of hard work and practise. We can now apply just for any circus, you know. Clowns are so clowns everywhere you meet them.
You did really well. I liked your performance pretty much and hope that you’ll repeat it some day. Maybe after one of the matches?
Sure. We actually have something already prepared for you, so if everything goes our way - you’re gonna see it.
We will be looking forward for this. Now, tell me about the problems you said your team has been experiencing prior to this tournament?
There were a lot of different situations, a little bit of misunderstanding, everyone was sure in his own uniquely outstanding abilities to perform extremely well, the teamplay was absent. So in reality we could kill our enemies only if they weren’t showing any resistance whatsoever, so that we could at least do some pushes. We were losing a lot of clanwars so the teammates were really nervous and upset about it. We were going to reboot ourselves prior to this tournament for the sake of winning it, but Puppey then got ill two days before the event, so we had to just play some pubs and watch others play. Going into the match versus iG, we weren’t prepared at all. We didn’t know who to pick, what had been changed, how to adjust despite having watched a lot of replays. Going into the second day, we were really upset and Dendi was sharing his emotions with Orange when we were losing 2:0 and it seemed we could already go on packing our stuff to fly home. Coming up next, we met Darer and mTw, whos victory over us could’ve meant that we really needed to just go home. But we were able to pull ourselves together and show some decent performance against them. So, that’s why we’re here right now, as you can see.
Did Puppey catch a cold or something? Seems like he has a flu.
Not really sure about it. He had something like stomachache, couldn’t really eat anything and was complaining a lot about him being sick. But thanks to VALVe and some folk medicine we were able to get him back on track before the games of the first playday started.
So, the local food isn’t that good, is it?
As for me, I’m very satisfied with America and its food here. Everything is relatively cheap comparing to any European country, almost like in Ukraine. I have also a lot of good words to say about the infrastructure and the general level of the organization preparing everything needed for the players. No tournament could be compared to this one in this context.
How about comparing it to the previous International?
This one is 10 times better than the first. It’s their homeland, they have a lot of useful connections here, so that they can arrange everything perfectly. It’s the United States of America, so everything’s top notch here.
By the way, are those play booths sound-proof? Or have you heard the crowd were really cheering for you guys like I have?
A little bit. We heard the roar of the crowd but didn’t hear the voices of the casters. Me, Lost and Dendi had really quiet level of our voice communication, but we did hear “NA-VI” screams from the crowd despite the booths being actually sound-proof.
Your team is one of the few who decided to go practise in between the matches. Did anybody on the team complain about it whining for having a little bit of rest after the official games?
We did have a rest actually, even after the pcw, but everyone’s had to change his plans. When I got to know about us going to practise the second day, I had to cancel the meeting with my old friends from Canada (ex-classmates) who were heading to the US to meet me that day. I was supposed to get together with them and hang out, but my team needed me for practise, so I decided to sacrifice the meeting for the sake of winning the important matches and not being just a tourist at The International. My Canadian friends had already left to meet me that day, but I texted them explaining the situation and they returned back home. I hope everything turns out well and pays off, so that I will visit them myself.
As you mentioned, the level of organizing the event is really high. I agree with you on that one, having visited many tournaments (not only DotA-ones). But how do you like the fact that you’re forced to sit here and wait for your own matches to start?
I think they do it for the security reasons. They want to have everybody at hand, so nobody gets lost around the town, and also to prevent technical losses. Because there are some guys who can accomplish such a failure and not show up even at The International 2 LAN-tournament. You know who am I talking about, don’t you, ha-ha.
You’re going to face iG, while LGD and Zenith are going to battle in the second semifinal of the upper bracket. What are your thoughts on the outcomes?
LGD are going to crush them. We were practising against Zenith two recent days, and I can tell that they are, of course, playing more for fun, letting go of Dark Seer and stuff. They told us about it right away, so we knew who were we going to practise with. I don’t really believe in them. They have iceiceice who can perform really well when on a roll. But generally he doesn’t really care too much about the strategy and thinks it’s the right way to play the game. In contrast, LGD have their discipline and the strategy, so they’re favourite to win that encounter.
Your team is the only one to beat the Asians in the upper bracket. There were a lot of rumours before the event about how strong the Chinese were. Could you imagine you would beat them that easy or was it just your default performance?
The thing is that it was DK who performed poorly, obviously. Or maybe we have really step up our game and now it seems to be a default match for me, but considering what I see from LGD in their games versus other opponents, they show a much better performance there. Maybe they will fail in a match against us, when we will make some certain moves to counter them. Just have to wait and see. As for us being the only team.. Yeah, I’m aware of this. I had some expectations about Darer making some damage because they were destroying DK 5:0 and EHOME 3:0 at pcw, so it was a surprise for me when they started to play the way they did. About us being the one and only... nothing has changed since the last International, ha-ha.
Ok, nothing has changed. Tell me, how did you find motivation to participate in tournaments with prize pools of $15k-$20k after winning million dollars?
We understood that there would be another million-dollar-tournament, so we had to stay fit in order to keep our top shape. And there’s no other better way to do it, than to participate in tournaments, where you and your opponent show the best of your capabilities.
How did the whole year between two Internationals go for you? Were you looking forward to it or just playing for fun and having a good time in StarLadders and such?
Even though everyone had been doing his own thing not being too excited about the upcoming tournament, we had practised playing DotA 2 quite a bit in order to be prepared for the International 2. Some people went on vacations, other visited different countries, but we kept on getting ready for this LAN, nevertheless. Everything fell right in its place after all.
Could you explain that problem which you described your team had when all five of you decided to play different ways, not paying attention to the teamplay? Is it fair to say that all five of you “caught a star”?
- Yep, it is. - But what happened?
It’s hard to say about all five of us though. Dendi had the least of it. Lost never had it, but he’s a unique person who tends to always disagree with everybody else - he never gets into word-fights when everything’s ok, but when it’s not - we had some real hard-boiled discussions going on in the team. Talking about the actual reasons for it... the first thing is disobedience...
[Somebody interrupts the interview] - Do you know this guy? - Nope. PGG-style though. - Okay, go away, dude.
Now, let’s take me and Smile or me and Dendi. Why did things go wrong? Simple example: let’s go, I throw the attack, and you kill them? - No, I won’t do that. Period. Alright, bye. Buy me wards? - No. This kind of thing went on and on while we were losing one pcw after another. The attitude in the team was really poor, so we couldn’t really concentrate on the actual game.
Did it all start after Dreamhack?
Nah. We were upset of course. We shouldn’t lose that tournament, but what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, you know. There was chaos in the team during the following week. The three days after the interview we began to destroy everyone again not losing a single pcw. We believed in ourselves, went to fly here and faced that kind of team crisis again. All these swings, ups and dows led us to our current shape which is really good right now, I think.
How do you like the format of this tournament? It has a lot of matches to say the least. Wouldn’t it be easier to use the traditional system with half of bested teams advancing to the play-offs with the losers going home early on?
Not really. I do like the system with a lot of room for a mistake which is something to consider for all the teams from CIS. In fact, we just had an unbelievably important match. We are now already In The Money! It does actually motivate us a lot. We plan like we’re getting $2k each for winning next game which can be compared to winning the whole StarLadder tournament. Something like that, ha-ha.
I’ve just imagined 5 Scrudges McDuck’s sitting and counting their potential profit.
No, it’s me who does all the counting and then tells everybody how much they’re gonna earn. So they go like: “Hell, yeah, we want that money!”
Ok, I see ZeroGravity getting nervous, so we’d better wrap the interview up. If you want to tell your fans anything, here’s your best chance to do it.
I would like to say “Hi” to everyone who knows me and who cheers for me. It’s actually very pleasing to realise how many people are rooting for you. Because there was no such hype during whole year while we’re winning the European tournaments, and now all the people I know are trying to cheer me up when my team loses. They don’t call me an idiot - they try to make me feel better and concentrate on the game better. It really helps a bunch. So, thanks to everybody who’s helping me. Hi, Yalta. Hi, Kiev. I would also like to thank my girlfriend. Now, I would like to appreciate the support from our sponsors: Antec, SteelSeries, Kingston, and AlienWare. Yeah, four of them.
Ok, thank you for this interview and good luck. I hope you will get that million down. It was XBOCT at The International 2012.