"We have never felt like our victory was a guarantee."

One of Chinese DotA's most renowned and formidable carry players takes a stab at his chances against WE at the upcoming G-League semi-final, his thoughts on the metagame changing hero Pandaren, and his team's current situation.

With the semi-finals of G-League just around the corner, your team has been travelling to various LANs in the preceding weeks. Does it affect your training? If so, how do you compensate for it?
-"At our base, we usually play for around six to eight hours a day, and at least two to three 'best of three' scrims. Now that there have been so many competitions lately, we certainly couldn't keep up with our normal schedule, so we had no choice but to use the various offline tournaments as practice instead.

We would now then have to rely on our pre and post-game discussions at the tournaments as training fodder for G-League and to maintain our standard of play."

Your next opponent at G-League will be WE. After topping your group (and realizing your opponent in the semi-finals would be WE), do you feel like as if you are already halfway to the grand finals?
-"Even though WE might be a young team, they consist of players with high individual skill. After a year of training together, it no longer falls on just their lack of LAN experience.

Furthermore, I heard that they have been putting a ton of effort into practice recently, so it might be a tough call to make when the time comes - we have never felt like our victory or our spot in the grand finals was any guarantee."

What are your thoughts on Pandaren Brewmaster, a hero which is currently very popular in the competitive scene? Do you think the hero has attained first ban/pick status?
-"Played as a semi-carry at the most recent tournaments, his main strength lies in his ultimate, which lets him be very aggressive in team fights and its ability to take out the weaker, softer heroes. His Cyclone ability can also greatly limit the damage output of your opponent's main carry.

To counter the hero, your lineup will need to be farmed, be aggressive with the pace of the game, and take advantage of the long cooldown on his ultimate - you do so by forcing teamfights when its on cooldown and making sure your entire team has sufficient tanking items. If you satisfy the above, Pandaren's presence in teamfights will be stifled.

As for whether it's a permanently first ban/pick hero, I disagree. We will occasionally take the hero out when we are playing teams who can really exploit the hero (iG), but it will not be in our team's list of ban/pick heroes."

At the recently concluded fourth season of ECL, xB once again entered the spotlight with his practice of trashtalking (against iG). Does it stem from your team's rivalry with them?
-"There's no animosity between the two teams, period. We mix around and play with each other a lot when we're not at competitions. It did get out of hand with xB the other day - I guess even good friends will have an off-day once in a while and get into a huge fight. It's no biggie."

What are your thoughts on the best of five system employed in the semi-final matches?
-"I feel best of five matches will be a better test of the players' (and team's) standard and endurance. For example, being able to keep your calm and capitalize when you're ahead, and also being able to adjust your state of mind and maintain your composure when you're behind - these things matter."

Give us a prediction of your match against WE.
-"I guess 3:1 or 3:2 in our favor, because we have a tendency to drop games at best of three or best of five match-ups. And you can't possibly predict your team to lose. *grins*"

Last shoutouts?
-"I hope you guys will continue following and supporting DK. We'll enter G-League and all subsequent competitions with nothing but the best!"

DK will play WE at the semi-finals of G League Season 4 later at 08:00 CET. Click here to place your GosuBets.