Interview with Empire-Scandal (English subs)
Uploaded by MoscowFive on 12.07.2012
Transcript:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to our coverage from StarLadder #2. I'm standing with Roman “Scandal” Sadotenkov from Team Empire.
- Hi, Roman. - Hi.
How did you choose your nickname?
It's not really MY nickname, to be honest. I “borrowed” it from a friend of mine. We were playing WarCraft 3 2x2 on Battle.net long time ago. We were using different nicknames. So he named himself “Scandal”, and I really liked it. That's how I “stole” it, ha-ha.
Not bad to begin with. Even though, I wouldn't say your team got like REALLY lucky to be here, still – it should have surprised you guys pretty much. How did you get to know about your participation in this event?
Well, we were guessing that we might get a slot, actually. The news was coming to us from different sources. To be specific, PGG was telling us like EG and Keita were not going to attend.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but as far as I know you were bootcamping. Wasn't it like getting a text message on your phone, saying “Go get some bread at the grocery, and by the way – we're going to StarLadder”?
Nah, nothing like that :)
So, when you heard the news, wasn't there any doubts about going to the finals because of not being prepared well enough?
I don't think so. The experience is always great to have. Especially, the one like this.
So, going into StarLadder you were mainly aiming for the experience, not the first prize, correct?
That too, but we wanted to show some good results as well, you know. Unfortunately, after two matches we played they're not that good.
You and BlowYourBrain were previously playing HoN. How come you guys switched to DotA 2?
Well, personally my attention was attracted by the larger community and the overall competitiveness of DotA 2. More than that, DotA is DotA while HoN is only DotA-like, and I always wanted to play DotA, but didn't because WarCraft and alike seemed too slow. But DotA 2 is nice, I like it.
I see your point. You certainly know that fnatic won Dreamhack in HoN, and they've been switching between these titles pretty often recently. Let's imagine that there will be held some decent HoN-tournament in Russia with a prize pool, say, $50k. Would you along with BlowYourBrain find another 3 players to take part in such event?
We haven't really thought about it. I would think twice before making such decision because I think HoN has evolved a lot since the time we had left it. There were a lot of new heroes and items added. Our knowledge of the game would be kind of outdated, and we would have to relearn. So, I don't know. We might or might not do this.
- How hard for you was it to switch from HoN to DotA? - Pretty easy, I would say.
- What about learning HoN? Easy enough? - Depends on a person. As for me, it was quite easy, yep.
I'm asking because I came to HoN from the first DotA, and my first match was against Juggernaut with someone else, ending that match with a score of 29:0, so it didn't seem that hard to learn the game for me either at the moment. What would you consider the main differences between HoN and DotA 2 though?
Hard to tell. Everything seems quite similar. The basics of interface were taken from HoN. Also, HoN is more like a fast-paced game comparing to DotA 2. But I would say that the main differences are the specific heroes in DotA-series which HoN lacks.
If I'm not mistaken you and BlowYourBrain played for the International-qualifier as a part of the team Virtus.pro. How come they invited you?
The organization's representative contacted us and said that they would perform better in the qualifier with us on the roster rather than with the other players that they had at the time.
I was watching you play and it seemed that you and BlowYourBrain had a way more greater impact to the overall results of the specific matches than the other 3 players of the team. Do you agree with that?
Hard to tell. We were just using those heroes who are supposed to have greater impact in the first place (like killing and farming). In DotA all the glory anyway goes to the carry-solo connections which are able to do some serious damage while performing triple-kills and things like that. Definitely, we were trying our best, but happened what happened, you know.
Did Virtus.pro try to offer you guys the spots in the team after the event though?
Nah, there hasn't been anything like that yet.
But let's say you were able to qualify. Would you abandon Empire in that case?
Ha-ha, you love to ask tricky questions, don't you?
Well, you were playing in the qualifier, which means you were counting on something, right?
You see, if we did qualify we had to practice really hard for the event, so that we just had to leave Empire to practice with VP, indeed. The time would be the key factor then.
You had your first match versus Darer. It's started pretty smoothly for you. Gaining a slight lead, you then were unable to consolidate success, as ArtStyle said in his interview. What's the reason behind it? Why were you unable to beat them in the end?
There was a lot for small mistakes on our part. Our experienced opponents just took advantage of it and punished us for making them.
So, your main weaknesses are those micro-mistakes?
Nobody is perfect, you know. I mean top teams minimize this kind of mistakes but even those are making them every once in a while.
What did go wrong versus MoscowFive?
They've simply outplayed us. Were killing us without any problem. That's it.
So, you have 2 game left: vs. mouz and vs. Na`Vi. Will you try to play solely for experience and maybe make some moves to surprise them or you're gonna still try and win?
We're gonna play for the victory. It's not like we're demoralized or something. Not at all. We will try our best.
What event were you bootcamping for in Belarus?
Nothing. Just decided to unite and play together, that's it.
- Was it effective? - I believe so, but I think nobody has noticed it yet, ha-ha.
Ok. I hope you will improve your game, so that you won't make any small mistakes in your future games. I wish you good luck. And if you have something to say for the audience, then here's your chance to do it.
Thank you. I salute all of our fans, and also my friends, who recognized me. Mom and dad, thank you too. I would also like to express my appreciation to our sponsors: Seagate, Adidas, Intel and Razer.
Great. And I thank our partners BenQ and MSI for making this coverage possible. It was Scandal from StarLadder #2, special for MoscowFive.
- Hi, Roman. - Hi.
How did you choose your nickname?
It's not really MY nickname, to be honest. I “borrowed” it from a friend of mine. We were playing WarCraft 3 2x2 on Battle.net long time ago. We were using different nicknames. So he named himself “Scandal”, and I really liked it. That's how I “stole” it, ha-ha.
Not bad to begin with. Even though, I wouldn't say your team got like REALLY lucky to be here, still – it should have surprised you guys pretty much. How did you get to know about your participation in this event?
Well, we were guessing that we might get a slot, actually. The news was coming to us from different sources. To be specific, PGG was telling us like EG and Keita were not going to attend.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but as far as I know you were bootcamping. Wasn't it like getting a text message on your phone, saying “Go get some bread at the grocery, and by the way – we're going to StarLadder”?
Nah, nothing like that :)
So, when you heard the news, wasn't there any doubts about going to the finals because of not being prepared well enough?
I don't think so. The experience is always great to have. Especially, the one like this.
So, going into StarLadder you were mainly aiming for the experience, not the first prize, correct?
That too, but we wanted to show some good results as well, you know. Unfortunately, after two matches we played they're not that good.
You and BlowYourBrain were previously playing HoN. How come you guys switched to DotA 2?
Well, personally my attention was attracted by the larger community and the overall competitiveness of DotA 2. More than that, DotA is DotA while HoN is only DotA-like, and I always wanted to play DotA, but didn't because WarCraft and alike seemed too slow. But DotA 2 is nice, I like it.
I see your point. You certainly know that fnatic won Dreamhack in HoN, and they've been switching between these titles pretty often recently. Let's imagine that there will be held some decent HoN-tournament in Russia with a prize pool, say, $50k. Would you along with BlowYourBrain find another 3 players to take part in such event?
We haven't really thought about it. I would think twice before making such decision because I think HoN has evolved a lot since the time we had left it. There were a lot of new heroes and items added. Our knowledge of the game would be kind of outdated, and we would have to relearn. So, I don't know. We might or might not do this.
- How hard for you was it to switch from HoN to DotA? - Pretty easy, I would say.
- What about learning HoN? Easy enough? - Depends on a person. As for me, it was quite easy, yep.
I'm asking because I came to HoN from the first DotA, and my first match was against Juggernaut with someone else, ending that match with a score of 29:0, so it didn't seem that hard to learn the game for me either at the moment. What would you consider the main differences between HoN and DotA 2 though?
Hard to tell. Everything seems quite similar. The basics of interface were taken from HoN. Also, HoN is more like a fast-paced game comparing to DotA 2. But I would say that the main differences are the specific heroes in DotA-series which HoN lacks.
If I'm not mistaken you and BlowYourBrain played for the International-qualifier as a part of the team Virtus.pro. How come they invited you?
The organization's representative contacted us and said that they would perform better in the qualifier with us on the roster rather than with the other players that they had at the time.
I was watching you play and it seemed that you and BlowYourBrain had a way more greater impact to the overall results of the specific matches than the other 3 players of the team. Do you agree with that?
Hard to tell. We were just using those heroes who are supposed to have greater impact in the first place (like killing and farming). In DotA all the glory anyway goes to the carry-solo connections which are able to do some serious damage while performing triple-kills and things like that. Definitely, we were trying our best, but happened what happened, you know.
Did Virtus.pro try to offer you guys the spots in the team after the event though?
Nah, there hasn't been anything like that yet.
But let's say you were able to qualify. Would you abandon Empire in that case?
Ha-ha, you love to ask tricky questions, don't you?
Well, you were playing in the qualifier, which means you were counting on something, right?
You see, if we did qualify we had to practice really hard for the event, so that we just had to leave Empire to practice with VP, indeed. The time would be the key factor then.
You had your first match versus Darer. It's started pretty smoothly for you. Gaining a slight lead, you then were unable to consolidate success, as ArtStyle said in his interview. What's the reason behind it? Why were you unable to beat them in the end?
There was a lot for small mistakes on our part. Our experienced opponents just took advantage of it and punished us for making them.
So, your main weaknesses are those micro-mistakes?
Nobody is perfect, you know. I mean top teams minimize this kind of mistakes but even those are making them every once in a while.
What did go wrong versus MoscowFive?
They've simply outplayed us. Were killing us without any problem. That's it.
So, you have 2 game left: vs. mouz and vs. Na`Vi. Will you try to play solely for experience and maybe make some moves to surprise them or you're gonna still try and win?
We're gonna play for the victory. It's not like we're demoralized or something. Not at all. We will try our best.
What event were you bootcamping for in Belarus?
Nothing. Just decided to unite and play together, that's it.
- Was it effective? - I believe so, but I think nobody has noticed it yet, ha-ha.
Ok. I hope you will improve your game, so that you won't make any small mistakes in your future games. I wish you good luck. And if you have something to say for the audience, then here's your chance to do it.
Thank you. I salute all of our fans, and also my friends, who recognized me. Mom and dad, thank you too. I would also like to express my appreciation to our sponsors: Seagate, Adidas, Intel and Razer.
Great. And I thank our partners BenQ and MSI for making this coverage possible. It was Scandal from StarLadder #2, special for MoscowFive.