Pusher interview part 1: My archenemy became my friend

MYM|Pusher reveals his innermost secrets, his ideas about playing assist and his views about all the DotA players he has played with.

The full interview has been split into two parts due to its length. In this first piece, Pusher explains his long way joining up with MYM, lost teammates and his role in the game.

Let's start with how you actually met the guys from MYM and how it came to form a team together.

- Well my story into the old MYM team was a long one: it all started with my friendship with MaNia whom I have known since I was 7, and we always played video games against each other and also together (bubble bobble 4ever!). So we've pretty much always played the same stuff because we hated losing to each other and it was a great way to pass time, when you didn't have enough for football.

Then we started going to PC cafes with our friends since you could only play 2-4 on N64, Starcraft was a bit too hard for me because back then I was only 11 and I didn't really want to compete with MaNia in that game since he was far superior then me. But when WC3 was coming out I decided to get better than him, which didn't work out of me though :S He was still better.

Then when TFT came out MaNia was on vacation so I had two weeks I could play where he couldn't. So I thought I would abuse this chance and I pracced, pracced and pracced to beat him when he came back and I could finally get my revenge since I never beat him in SC and only once in WC3 RoC. So the day he came home I convinced him to buy TFT so we could play vs. each other.

And let me guess: you lost?

- Yes, he owned me sooo hard with some cheesy RoC strat I was soooooo pissed ever since then, so I decided I would just team up with him instead (dreams shattered :S ). Funny story though back then.

How did you come to know Maelk?

- I hated Maelk back then because he had his own Danish crew competing with me and MaNia's. We were always flaming each other every chance we would get. It was always Maelk/Reveal/Tulkaz/Loca vs. Me/MaNia/Flaskehals/41-eyes and it was really funny to have this rivalry since we won the first 3on3 Bnet tour on Northrend and Maelk had to sit there and choke on it. We loved that :)

But as WoW came out I started playing it and I tried to lore MaNia with me until he got level 21 in one weekend, but he stopped playing it because he was more focused on WC3 at the time since he was playing on a more serious level then me.

After a year of WoW, MaNia said I should start playing DotA with him so we could start playing against each other again. At first I was like "DotA is a noob custom game", but he said I should just try it out again because it changed a lot since I first played it (remember Riki’s death ward...).

...which is the best hero ever! So you gave DotA a second chance?

- Yes. I started playing DotA-League SIG vs. MaNia, Flaskehals and 41-eyes who were all on the Danish national team at the time. I got owned a lot in the start, which was a great motivational factor since I hate losing especially to fucking 41-eyes and Flaskehals because they would gloat sooo hard. After my basic level improved, MaNia said I should start playing IHCS2. SIGs would only make me good at farming and not improve team play.

I still remember my first IHCS2 game: MaNia challenged Maelk! I was like “Yes now I can own this fucking asshole” (I still hated him at that time). I didn’t know who Maelk picked and I didn’t care, since it was me, MaNia, Flaskehals and 41-eyes plus random and we’ve never lost. Maelk's team consisted of him, Merlini, Admiration, Bemyvalentine and H4nn1. I solo'd bottom as Scourge with Warlock. I had 0-5 in 5 minutes vs. Merlini and Admir, when I realized I still had a long way to go. That game was such a rape, but I knew I can only improve if I face good players and not noobs.

What happened next?

- That time I decided that I was gonna make my own team and improve from there so I made a team with Flaskehals and 41-eyes. But they didn't wanna play that serious anymore and MaNia came along with a fake account since he played for MYM at the time, and I played support for that team since all Flaske did was farm and MaNia only played solo middle Pudge so someone had to support that's how it started.

Then I would start playing with all the MYM guys in IHCS2 games with MaNia, and that grew to me filling in when they needed +1 for scrims etc... Till Danish national team (was prolly to early for me to play for that team though, looking back I sucked so hard but all our strats was basically just to have 3 solo's so Slahser, MaNia and Maelk could carry us),it was a long road =).

So you teamed up with the arch enemy again?

- Maelk, my arch enemy became my friend through MaNia telling me that he wasn't such a bad guy and when we won a couple of games together we started growing on each other =) But he still derives great pleasure from beating me in SIGS and I do the same when I beat him (still a great rivalry just friendly rivalry now :D.

After all these years of humiliation, are you glad Maelk finally left MYM?

- Well he hasn't left MYM he is still quite active on Ventrilo and in our private channel and he's playing a lot these days actually, but I’m not happy at all about him playing less and stepping down a bit. He's an awesome friend, player and is just soo funny to be around, always had a great time when we're together whether it's VT/LAN or even Christmas lunch!

With the addition of KuroKy, it is said that the team's play style has become more aggressive. What has in your opinion really changed?

- It certainly has changed since Kuro came in with some fresh ideas which mainly focused on us working more together as a team and not revolving our game so much about killing creeps. I wouldn't say we've gotten more aggressive, I just think we're working more together and as a result more fights occur. DotA right now is all about Strength in numbers. But I have mention that now I get to play Jakiro which Maelk wouldn't let me since it's his most hated hero =(.

Talking about most hated hero: What's your most favorite hero and which one do you hate to its guts?

- My favorite hero is Jakiro since it’s a chimera which is the most imbalanced unit in WC3. And the hero I hate the most is 100% Spectre. I just hate that hero sooo much; joke hero :/.

In one point DotA is like football: the defense (in DotA: support) never gets the attention or fame the offense (in DotA: carry) has. Did you ever think of changing your play style and "become" a carry?

- Well I thought about it. Sure, but there's just no room for it on MYM since the players on the team had been carrying for a lot longer than me and are better and more experienced at it then me, but it was okay I could always just play a SIG or high level room game to tickle the itch of getting items and going godlike.

All that matters is the team wins in the end and I don’t care if I had to stand in the fountain for two hours and do nothing.

Anything for the team! How did you experience the change in MYM as Merlini and the rest left and the former MeT guys joined your squad?

- When MYM collapsed we had already known about it for some time when we were at DotA-League Masters we already knew what was going on. As for the breakdown of the team was really sad since H4nn1 just sort of left the team without saying anything to us, he just suddenly appeared in an official game for KS.Int. That´s how me, MaNia and Maelk found out that he left.

The rest of us were just like okay so now we're down to Merlini, Maelk, MaNia, Loda and me and at that time Merlini was really busy with finishing his school so he wasn't really around a lot, but we got the chance to finish out on a high which we all thought was really fitting for the team by winning the last Farm4Fame.


» Pusher, PlaymatE, Maelk, MaNia, H4nn1 (from left right)

Photo by myMYM.com

I saw you guys greeting H4nn1 and joking around at the Gamescom. You guys are cool again?

- Don’t get me wrong from that answer I still like H4nn1 a lot and so does MaNia and Maelk as well. He still joins our vent some times, he's an awesome personality to have around; stereotypical German guys are a must for comic relief I think.

Will he ever play DotA again? :) I mean clan-wise.
- H4nn1 is playing HoN and WoW Arena so if u see him compete it most likely gonna be in one of those two games.

Ok, let’s go on with MeT teaming up with you.

- After Farm4Fame 10 ended I got into a fight with Loda over something really stupid which I regret now, so he ended up leaving a couple of days after we won F4F10. Besides the team wasn't working out well, we could all see it but we hold no grudges to each other (at least I hope :S). So we were down to 4 people: the 3 Danes and our Merlini!

Wanna talk about the fight?

- No I don’t want to get into the details about the fight with Loda, since it was stupid, my fault and over.

At that time the ENC was announced and the team was decided to be me, Maelk, MaNia, Angel and Miggel and we started practicing a lot and we all hit it off and raped Germany soooo hard in 2 games and everyone else we played for that matter, so it just happened that we became a team since we hit it off so good.

What happened with Merlini?

- When we decided to join Ravens, Merlini still wanted to play with us and we still wanted him to be part of our team since he's such a good player and amazing person, but he asked us what his chances were to go to Dreamhack and other LANs with Ravens as sponsor. We pretty much had to tell him that if he wanted to go to a LAN then he should prolly not sign a ravens contract, since Ravens was only focused on the Danish scene and the Danish players. So after a few days Merlini came back to us and said that he would join up with Fear in EG and we understood him totally and had no hard feelings whatsoever towards him.

And so the new MYM was found.

Stay tuned for the second part of the interview with Pusher coming in a few days talking about SMM, his tics during gaming and who is the better play for SMM: KuroKy or Maelk.