Henry 'henryd' Dickenson handled the picking and banning for his team Copenhagen Wolves in the last weeks. His team is currently tied for third place in GosuLeague and he gives some insight about the team captain choice, his opinion on training, the fnatic game from Monday and his plans for WCG.
Your game against fnatic on Monday: Pretty nasty in the end, wasn't it?
- "Yeah. The thing about tinker is, when they are pushing, what is going to happen is, they are gonna grab a creepwave, go and let the enemy team kill it. And the tinker is just going to stand there building up his March of the Machines and then they are going up with their ranged heroes, because we can't fight against March of the Machines. What you gotta do is jump in before the fight starts. You can't let Tinker choose where you are going to fight. But we never did that."
Morphling against Anti-Mage, both on fullbuild is kind of random, one mistake and the game is over, right?
- "Well, Morphling wasn't really a problem. He was fat, but we could kill him. Tinker was the problem with his crowd control. DarkSeer sure can do his combo, we got Aghanim's because Morphling was fat. We had Anti-Mage and 140% of Morphling's damage, but we got hexed. Like three of them had it, and we couldn't get it off, because we got hexed."
- "Yeah, pretty sure. He was part of the HoN team as well. They do a lot better with him then they do with other players, so I'm pretty they he is going to join them officially."
In GosuLeague, your team is now 1-3-1 in score, tied with three other teams for third place, what do you think how good are your chances for third place in the league? Your next matches are against GamersLeague and Ben's Fuck Buddies.
- "If we win those two games, we might even end up in second place, perhaps if the other teams lose. I'm never going into a game thinking who we are playing against, be it Na'Vi, be it fnatic. I always only go in, thinking what I can do to win. If we can play appropriately we can win any matchup, against any players. We can also lose, though, that's the point."
When you say you don't care who you play, you mean: You don't care how good they are. But some teams have special tactics when it comes to picking and drafting, right?
- "When we are looking at picking and drafting, sure. But when we actually play the game, I don't get nervous at any games, I don't care for example if Korok gets his Morphling that everyone is getting hyped of. I don't care if he is good at that hero. Just because he is good with that hero doesn't mean he got an inbuilt level 5 Dagon. I don't care what he gets."
Is there any exception to this rule, any player who can do amazing things with specific heroes?
- "Not really, maybe Dendi's Tinker is probably the only person I actually fear. But I wouldn't think that in the game, I wouldn't be like 'Oh, damn, he's got his Tinker, we are going to lose'. I know what a Tinker can do, he can't do anything special that noone else can, he just does it very well. So we counter the Tinker in our playstyle, whether it will be a pick a Storm Spirit or ban Tinker or ensure to fight outside the base, or whatever. Then still we are gonna win. He is impressive with it, but that doesn't mean he is unbeatable."
Back to GosuLeague, 1-3-1 in score, how confident are you with these results so far?
- "I'm pretty happy with it. We are kind of in a down time at the moment and we managed to pull a draw against Darer and mTw. I'm actually pretty fine with it and I know my team is as well. We were playing with Standins both against Darer and mTw as well, because Calculus was on vacation. I even played Slardar in one game, which was hilarious, I was the carry. The two draws were completely fine, then we lost to mousesports, which sucks, but mouz is a really good team. At this point, I'd also like to thank SteelSeries for their support."
As far as I know, you have switched team captains, right?
- "We are currently working that out. But ye, for a while I took over as a team captain."
What was the reasoning behind that?
- "Before DreamHack, for example, we were pretty good, we were beating al the teams. Quite frankly, if you are looking from a spectator side of view, I know that a lot of people thought we were the most impressive team in the scene at that point, you know, not unbeatable, obviously. I was really happy with that. Then we kind of started picking the same thing. I mean, we won with the same thing before DreamHack, we won with picking our solid Pandaren, Shadow Demon, stuff like that. We were playing pretty well with that. I mean, if we pick the same five heroes again and again, I don't care if it's Weaver, Spectre, Bone Fletcher, Razor and Bloodseeker. If we are winning with that, I don't care what heroes it is. But then we started to lose with that.
So Neno took over as a captain for a while. That worked out pretty well for a while as well. We drafted a bit differently, a bit more aggressive. Then we decided to play a different style, a different strategy. I'm not going to tell what it is about, right now. Neno wasn't comfortable drafting it. At this point I said I wanted to try drafting for a while. We started winning with that a lot, because I think my picking is very unorthodox. I love to pick completely random heroes, because people don't know how to play against it. I came up against mTw with a strategy with Weaver and Dazzle, for example. People aren't too used to play against that. I also have a strategy in mind with playing Razor and Wisp, for example, but playing Wisp a little bit differently than you normally would. People don't expect that, with my kind of drafting. At the moment, Calculus is taking over the draft again, as he is back from vacation."
Let's talk about training. How can you really improve your play? Is it about playing as many scrims as possible, or does training last hitting two hours a day work? What about watching replays?
- "I'll never in my live train lasthitting for two hours, I think I'd rather shoot myself. What I do, for example when I sit in the drafting role, I usually watch a lot of replays against our enemie. And I like to do that. If I watch a couple of replays of a team, I know a pattern, of what they are going to do, where they are going to ward at what time, so if I'm able to counterward at that phase, I know what they will to next, I know when they are going to try Roshan, etc. I usually watch replays, I think that is the best way to train against a certain team. But if you are player that doesn't have a team, the best way to do it, seriously, is keep playing. Not really public, try to get a team, even if you are by far the best player in the team, this is still going to give you experience. Dota public and Dota competitively is not really the same game. In a public you can carry with a Crystal Maiden. In a competitive game, there is no chance to do that, no matter who you are."
So when lasthitting training is what you personally wouldn't do, however it might be necessary for some of The International teams. Which of the Seattle teams is going to profit most from concentrated training?
- "I honestly think that if mTw go back to their 'practice all the time'-hardcore-mode, I think they will have a seriously good shot against the Asians."
Just as they did before DreamHack.
- "Exactly. I don't know if they dropped the ball, or if they are not comfortable with the draft at the moment. Right before the DreamHack they qualified for The International, maybe they decided just not to care about the online tournaments, which would be fine, sure. But if they go to their hard training mode, I think they can have a pretty good shot at The International. I also think it's iG with Ferrari, they will cause trouble. Because, holy mother of god, Ferrari is a good player. The game against mousesports, he won the game from his Force Staffs. He just forced people in, he is so fast with that. So I'm really forward to seeing him."
You just don't expect those kinds of offensive Force Staffs usages.
- "It's very unusual, not many players use it like that. Sometimes, Invoker players use it on themselves to push themselves forward aggressively, or themselves out defensively. But Ferrari pushes the enemy into the fight. And he didn't do it once, but many times."
ComeWithMe twittered that SingSing said, GosuLeague is easiest money of his life. Your comment on that?
- "To be fair, they can be cocky how they want, but at the moment they are probably the best team in Division 1, so it might be the case for them, because Na'Vi is hanging in Division 2. What I like about GosuLeague is the fact that you can't just be a good team and get in. For example Na'Vi, they are not in Division 1, because they started late. You are not giving anyone an advantage just because who they are. That is a really good way to run a tournament. At the same time, mousesports is probably the best team in that league at the moment, at the current state, of course. If mTw go back to their training, that would be cool. It's good to be cocky, as long as you are not offending anyone with it."
Are you looking forward to the tournament at the gamescom in Cologne?
- "Yeah, I'll be going to Germany. We are going there for WCG qualifiers. It's me, Neno, Balsam, PimpALiCiouS and qojqva. We are trying to get through and play for Germany at the WCG."
More information: Standings GosuLeague
