Fear: No reason to be upset over Valve's choice

 

I hope for the west's sake that that won't happen. In any case, assuming that EG do get the invitation to TI3 qualifiers, which opponents do you think will be the serious threats against your team for the 14th spot?

All of them. There have been a lot of roster changes in nearly all of the teams that are expected to be competing, so it's going to be very hard to read the teams without having any sort of background on them. However, teams like RoX.KiS have also been showing very impressive results lately, and of course teams like Mouz can always pull a win from even the best teams in the world, if they are playing their A-game.

Alright in any case, let's move on to your team performance in G-1 recently. You guys really came out of the slump after switching up your roles in-game. Who was the first to suggest it?

It was my idea to switch the roles around. We've done it several times in the past with very little success, but I think the key to our success was not mere switching roles around, but switching a player around as well.

So, will you be playing the utility role permanently?

I feel I need to play more of a supportive role to get the results I desire. I can look at the game as a chess board and plan each step of the game, something we really lacked before when I was playing carry.

G-1 League was quite the roller coaster ride for you and your team. How was the experience as a whole?

Every tournament you play is a roller coaster ride for you when you have such a high-risk medium-reward play-style. We really need to focus on becoming a more stable team and not taking such needless risks. Overall, G-1 was alright I suppose, a little disappointing if anything.

Care to elaborate on the "high risk medium reward" playstyle here?

We take too many risks that have high potential for failure. I believe we call that greedy, kids. I would call it high risk, high reward, but in most cases the rewards aren't even that high, even if we do succeed. Something that I have been wanting to filter out of our play-style for a very long time. That's why you see us rolling the best of the best one day and then losing to lackluster teams the next.

I honestly think that the performances of most Western teams are quite unstable in general (winning big and losing against tier-two teams). What do you think about that?

Fairly accurate. I think most western teams try to rely on individual play rather than teamwork and calculated play. The problem with this play-style is that it has a much higher chance to fail. High risk, high reward defines it quite nicely. However, I've seen Chinese teams such as Rattlesnake adopt this style too. It's just extremely hard to master.

 

Moving on to your final game in G-1 League against Liquid here. Your team was down by about 10,000 gold in game two and then bounced back taking down two set of rax. Then you guys failed to stop a push by Liquid which resulted in your loss. What happened there at the final push? T

wo things sealed the deal for us that game. First was the fact that after we took two sides of rax (Should have throned in hindsight, so I guess that's three things) we didn't stick together and got picked off which forced us to use buybacks. This opened up a window for Liquid to gather and push for one last fight, which resulted in them killing our PL again, we would lose because we had just spent our rebuys. We failed to defend their final push due to good play by them and a bad call by myself to try and burst the Luna that was sitting far ahead of her team.

Do you think Alliance and Liquid will do the west proud in the G-1 League though?

I surely hope so. They are two of the western teams that I feel should do best against the Chinese because they both have a very calculated play-style.

People say Alliance has a very unorthodox style compared to the rest of the western teams. Do you mind explaining what makes them so great?

Do they? I feel Alliance is very easy to read, but they do what they do extremely well, to the point of mastering it. They however do have pocket strategies that are very clever to get them ahead really early and they are the type of team that once ahead, they never look back.

Would you have expected the Roshan bait again like they did against Fnatic? That's something that I've actually talked about with my team before TI2, but we were just too afraid to use it or practice it. Strategies like those take a lot of confidence to pull off, so no, I would not have expected it.

After your loss in G-1 League, you tweeted something about the gaming house. What can you tell us about it? Is it EG's existing gaming house?

Currently Jeyo and myself are in EG's gaming house in Arizona. We have actually been here for over a week now. The rest of my team is however, M.I.A (smiles)

Oh, so it is the EG Lair. I see. So when will they be moving over? I don't know. Currently there are a lot of personal problems that need to be resolved for the players that have not moved in yet.

 

So you guys will be competing in TI3 qualifiers separated?

I don't know yet, time will tell. First, we are just waiting for our invites to the qualifier.

Besides the gaming house announcement, I think Demon also posted something along the lines of changes are coming. What sort of changes can we expect to see from EG?

I can't really discuss that yet, but a multitude of changes could be happening very soon. That's all I can really reveal for now.

Since we are at this let's get all the rumour cleared anyway. There were rumors about EG also bootcamping in China. Was this plan ever talked about?

I don't think we had any clear-cut plans to just bootcamp in China. I think we only would have considered that if we played in a tournament there.

Speaking of China, do you think Dota 2 Super League will transform the whole Dota 2 scene in China towards a league-based system?

I have no idea. I haven't read up on that much. Too busy with other stuff that needs my attention. I like the concept though, hopefully it turns out well.

We noticed that you have been playing a lot of Rubick in recent games. Why Rubick? What's your secret on playing him so well?

I guess because I like playing high-impact supports and I really enjoy playing the hero in general. We have been over-picking Rubick to be honest, much like I feel Na'Vi has been as well, in my opinion. In the right line-up he can make or break the game, not many supports can have as much impact as a Rubick throughout the game.

If the era of the Rubick is now over, what is the next high-impact support that will be catching on?

It's hard to say, it really depends on what's good in the version and how clever you want to be as a team exploring new options. Usually it's the popular solo mid heroes that fade out from mid to the 4 role. Skywrath Mage according to my logic could potentially be the new flavor of the version. Time will tell!

Alright Clinton. I'm going to end the interview here and wish you good luck for the TI3 qualifier invites. Would you like to give a shoutout to all your fans?

I'd like to gvie a shoutout to Raidcall, Monster Energy, Kingston Hyper-X, Razer and Astro! Also special shoutout to all of my loyal fans that follow me @FearDota on twitter. I will do everything in my power to make you guys proud in the qualifiers.