DreamHack Corsair Vengeance Cup starts on Thursday and We haz Asian had a roller coaster on their way to Jönköping: Qualified via online tournament, picked up by H2k for travel costs sponsoring, affected by H2k organization implosion and then helped by the community to eventually make their trip to DreamHack Winter. pedda, the manager, and Unicornxoxo, the Danish player, talk about what happened and what is going to happen.
How big was the financial hole that the H2k-problem caused and how did the community help you out with that?
Peter 'pedda' Kolaska: The hole was kinda big, because we lost our sponsor just a week before DreamHack. Flight prizes went up, which made our problem even bigger. At first we thought of everything and had a rough sum for the DreamHack trip, which actually wasn't that huge as thought at the beginning. At the same time, people wrote messages on facebook that they want to help wherever they can. We can say that we are glad to have such a nice community behind our back. A major reason why our costs are so low is Tommy, who offered us so many things you can't even imagine.
Unicorn, considering the problems your team faced before DreamHack, how did that affect your preparation for the biggest offline tournament in Europe this fall?
Going back to the H2k misery, as someone who was involved, how can such a thing happen that an organization first wants to hire you and pay your DreamHack trip and then suddenly implodes? What went wrong on the H2k side from your point of view?
pedda: Well, we were talking to H2k for a month before Dreamhack. It seemed like everything would be better than with their last teams. We heard people telling us we shouldn't join them, they aren't a good organization, they make empty promises. This time it looked different. New CEO, new people, contracts and really friendly and helpful people. Because DreamHack being so short-dated and H2k looking like the perfect partner for us, we agreed on a partnership. This was probably the biggest mistake we could have done. We didn't want to announce it before the flights weren't booked, but they somehow wanted to publish this pretty fast. After being announced, two days later, I was watching our game against Virtus.Pro with their news writer (he is a nice guy, shoutout to Dextronic!) and after this game I got the message that they can't send us to DreamHack, because they miscalculated and that their CEO somehow wasn't their CEO and that all the people there have no contracts with the old management from H2k, why H2k isn't running anymore, no, it's still dead. You can't imagine how bad I felt after seeing my mates writing how happy they are after winning against Virtus.Pro and that they want to go to DreamHack so badly... it literally broke my heart.
With the help of the community the travel to DreamHack is possible, what's the status of Thor Open for the team?
pedda: This is written in the stars right now. Let's see what DreamHack will bring for us, both placement and sponsor wise.
How are you getting to DreamHack then, now with the new plans?
Unicornxoxo: Using the money we won in 4PL and some of our own, we managed to get enough for Flight and train tickets, but the main reason we could go was Tommy, a Swedish Dota player, offering us living at his apartment.
Obviously, with putting this effort into making the trip eventually, DreamHack is special for your team. How would you describe the DreamHack spirit and atmosphere, that drags you to this tournament?
WhA confident to go to DreamHack already in August.
Speaking about the competition, will you already be happy if you pass the group stage, or is WhA aiming for more?
Unicornxoxo: We will be aiming to win, but since this is our first LAN with this roster, we'll see what's possible. And yes, we will be happy if we pass the group stage. :)
First time on LAN for a team is always special, you most likely get to know all your teammates seriously for the first time. Do you expect this to be an extra-task for you, or an extra-motivation? Do you expect that to affect or boost your performance as a team?
Unicornxoxo: This is definitely an extra motivation, after playing online with these guys for a while I'm looking forward to meeting them in person. I can only hope this will boost our team work and so affect our performance.
Let's go a bit more into the DreamHack Corsair tournament: Will we see a second mTw' story of dreams with one of the teams again? Is Na'Vi beatable in Jönköping?
Unicornxoxo: We can only hope, on LAN anything is possible. But I doubt Na'Vi will lose.
Which teams would you expect to reach the semi finals (without knowing the exact group constellation yet) and why are they favorites for you?
Unicornxoxo: Navi, Empire, Dignitas, and NTH. They have been showing great performance these last couple months and having some LAN experienced players is also helping, of course.
Going more into the picking and banning, we had October where Jakiro made his way into the top picked heroes and this weekend was probably the weekend of Magnus. What what kind of a phase are we currently in with the meta game?
Unicornxoxo: Right now I would say that tanky style heroes are the primary choice. This implies that heroes like Necrolyte might be doing a comeback soon.
A former teammate of you, FATA-, has recently teamed up with Zero. How did you compensate that loss and do you think you've gone out of that transition strengthened or weakened?
Unicornxoxo: We tried out some diffrent people, but FATA- being one of the best solo mids I know, it was really hard to find a replacement for him. After trying out a lot of people, we finally found Cr1t-. After we played some time fitting him into the team I would say we come out strengthened, but let's see!
You're starving in Division 2 for some seasons as a team now, always just reaching 2nd and 3rd positions. What was the team lacking in last seasons to make the step to first divisions? Is Season 5 going to be your break-through season in GosuLeague?
Unicornxoxo: Last season we ended up in same group as Empire, unfortunately. We won all our matches and they won all their matches. Facing them in the last game they won against us 2-0, that was what kept us in Division 2!
So you say, with Empire out of the way, we'll see you in GosuLeague Season 6 Division 1 for sure? ;)
Unicornxoxo: Yes, you will see us in Division 1 once the new season starts next year!
Thank you for the interview.
