Noes: 'We have high ego, but we don't show it.'

Your game against Na'Vi is a proving ground for your team, the new Darer. How have the first weeks under the new tag been?

Well, we actually had a little problem. We needed to change one player, the team roster is now: me, Grumpy, HawkEye, SavaDoom and nOwhere. We decided to find a good middle player, which is the only thing we needed to become a bit stronger. We found nOwhere, he is a Bulgarian player as well, and he is pretty famous in Bulgaria, maybe even in Europe. He was inactive for a long time; he was playing at the ESWC 2010 in DotA times. That is the one thing I can think of, when it comes to his achievements. We asked him to come into the team and at this moment everything is going great. We just need a bit of time to get used to us again. In DotA 1 we actually played as one team, we played on the tag Microgaming and we had lots of achievements at that time together. I don't know if everyone remembers that team. We got a lot of money in that team as well. We were pretty confident, playing all day, training a lot. That was the only goal for us. We actually found ourselves in public games, just like everyone else. We started playing and decided to try achieving something, because everyone knows Bulgaria is a little bit bad in DotA.

Bulgaria is the right topic. Do you feel a bit pressured being the "best" Bulgarian team or are you rather motivated by this fact?

We are actually the first Bulgarian team in Dota 2. I don't think there is any other Bulgarian team which is taking this a bit more seriously. We tried to find sponsors to give us the motivation to start playing and make achievements. Darer is, as everyone knows, a Bulgarian company and they contacted me and we started talking about making a Bulgarian team, because they had some problems with the other old one. I took this opportunity to make another Microgaming with even bigger sponsors. I think we have the right motivation to make some achievements. I know it's a bit hard because we are now in StarLadder and there are the top European teams. It's hard because we have been playing now for maybe only two weeks, we need some training and some bootcamps as well. With our motivation, we are going to do these things.


Talking about your team now, especially after switching one of the players: Could you briefly describe what role which player is taking?

The roles are pretty simple. I'm the captain, although I haven't been a captain before done it before, at least not in such teams like this. I'm the hardcarry at the moment and it will stay like this. nOwhere is the midplayer and initiator. He plays really aggressive and that's what we need. HawkEye is playing the hardlane solo. SavaDoom is playing support and has played for teams like …. and HelloMoto. He is one of the best Bulgarian support players at the moment. Grumpy is playing both support as well as initiator and ganker. He plays heroes like Chen or Enchantress as well. He is playing them very well, he has great micro.

You play the role of the hardcarry, which is not that common as a captain. How do you define your role?

We actually talked about that early on and asked ourselves whether we should be switching captains or not, but decided to go with me. I say what's going on in the game and when to push, when to kill towers. I know it's really hard for the hardcarry, because he has to take care of the creeps and the lanes, but I think I can work with this. I'm the kind of person that needs to be pressured, I like to be pressured all the time. I don't only want to outfarm the enemy's carry. But even if I wasn't captain and hardcarry, I don't think it's boring being "only" hardcarry: if you want to be a good carry, you have to get used to being in control of the creeps and the lanes at all times.

What are you and your colleagues doing aside from Dota2? Are you studying, are you working or is Dota 2 now your full-time job?

I'm actually working, so you could call Dota 2 my part-time job. I work in a store, but I have enough time to play Dota 2. Grumpy is in college now, HawkEye as well. SavaDoom and nOwhere are still in school. Sava actually changed the city for the team, so we can bootcamp better.

Since signing with Darer, have you already seen improvements in training or were you rather pushed back because you weren't completely focused?

We are actually not trying on focusing on a certain strategy. When I draft, I try to pick five heroes that synergize with each other. We know each other pretty well. Everyone knows I'm an aggressive player, even when I'm not playing a hardcarry. We just need to get more used to each other. The only tactic we can win with against any team that is better than us is picking very a hard carry and going into late game with heroes like Magina or Faceless Void. If you see someone better than you and if you play their style, you just can't win it. Like the Chinese at The International: if you just play picking hard carry and the other team picks hard carry as well, as Europeans teams did against Chinese teams, then you play their playstyle and you can't win it.

That would be trying to beat them in their own game.

Yes, you have to put your game into the match.

You talked about bootcamping. Are there already concrete plans about bootcamping in Bulgaria?

I can't say it's going to be soon, but we think about this. Bootcamping is about having an apartment with computers and then keep only playing. I can't say yet about when we will be doing this, maybe in one month or so.

What is your goal for the upcoming GosuLeague?

Our goal is simple: Win every game and try to do our best. The Ukrainian team was famous, but only for ArtStyle and God. For now, the fans and all other things are going down for Darer. Our goal is to return all the fans of Darer and try to get even stronger than the old Darer team. But that will take time.

So for Darer it was maybe even a risky move to go from a well known Ukrainian team to a local team more or less.

It's not actually a risky move. It's risky only for the fans. eSports are like real sports. If you do wrestling or some other sport. I was a wrestler. To win against someone, you just need to train a lot. We actually train five, six, seven hours a day Dota 2. And in the other free time we just play public games. For the The International 2, as far as I know, Na'Vi was bootcamping only for one week or so and the Chinese teams were bootcamping for one year. It's like playing one hero. If you play one hero 10 times, you are going to be OK, you know everything about this hero. But if you play him 5,000 times or 10,000 times, you will be even much better. That is the same thing as a team. If you give everything you can to make this team get stronger, you just need to play and train all the time. That is the only thing. There is no such stuff as good players, bad players. If you train 24/7 you are going to get better in the long run.

Do you think you are an underdog in the upcoming GosuLeague?

No. There are many underdogs in the GosuLeague.

Basically everyone has changed their lineup, except Na'Vi, yes.

See, in the last GosuLeague, have a look on some of the teams: they actually stopped playing for maybe one or two weeks, and then they lost almost every match. As far as I know, GamersLeague was playing all the time, about eight hours a day, they trained a lot. And they actually finished on third place: Because they trained a lot.

So you would have liked to have some more preparation time for GosuLeague?

Of course, we are going to lose about 90% of every match in GosuLeague or StarLadder. But that will make us even stronger. If we win every game in clanwars or tournaments, then you can't see your mistakes. If you lose a game, you can see your mistakes. Only then you can change your game and get better next time.

So how much time do you spend on replay analysis or analysing lost games, or do you just go into the next game without having a look, trying to play as much as possible?

Everytime we lose a game we spent around twenty minutes until an hour to check the replay. We do that after every loss, trying to find out our mistakes and fix them. You know, in Dota everyone is better than anyone. If you tell someone you are better than him he is going to flame you, that you are not better than him. And that's the really hard thing to make a team better. Most of the teams are breaking down because of a high ego. We don't have this. I mean, we also have a high ego, but we don't show it. Because if you show it you will just go down, and down and down. You won't reach a higher level.

Do you think there is a really bad example in the scene, who is showing it all the time? Someone losing confidence?

No. When we have a fight in team, start shouting at each other like: "If you would have been there, using that skill, we would have killed him", etc. We don't do this stuff. If someone is shouting at someone or starting a fight, I just say stop it and everyone stops.

You are also eligible for the ESWC open qualifiers, is that something you are going for?

The only thing I can say: We just sign up for every tournament and cup. Even without prize money, it doesn't matter. The only tournament we won't play is DreamHack. It costs too much and we would have to bring our own computers and stuff. We thought it will be better to spend that time for practise.

Except if you play the open qualifier and qualify. Then you don't have to bring your own computer.

We asked our management about the tournament and they said we should decide if we want to go or qualify. We decided not to go, we thought it might be better to train.

In your two losses in StarLadder you picked two rather push heavy lineups which didn't quite work out.

We actually played this strategy versus more teams, trained the picks two or three times, where it worked pretty good. That's not so much, but like I said before: The only chance to beat a better team is to outpick them or pick a hard carry and hope to win it late game. We try to play our game and not against their game. I thought that can work out, but maybe we had too much pressure and didn't play so well.

Having only two matches played in Starladder yet you got a bit time pressure, because everything is supposed to be settled next week. Was it because you were still searching for your fifth player?

I don't know really. I talked with the admins about this. We played two games and waited again two weeks for the next game, which was pretty good for us, so we had more time to train. So we can show the people we can really do something with this new roster.

Thank you very much for the interview.

Shoutout to our fans, team Darer, Razer, TwitchTV, all Bulgarian Dota 2 players and last but not least Secunden (bache Mire best BG player)!