Black: 'We will go into this match as the obvious underdog.'

 

 

First of all, thanks you on behalf of GosuGamers for your time. This interview will mainly focus on the upcoming EMS finals and a bit on the recent DDoS attacks. I also have some fun questions prepared.

Okay, hopefully I'll be able to answer them all. Here we go!

The offline finals of EMS will be a tough tournament - Single elimination with best-of-three matches. How does that influence the team’s spirit, knowing you do not have a second chance?

Not having a loser bracket and facing the - in our opinion - best team of the Western scene definitely levels up the pressure, BUT that can both be a good or a bad thing, either it will make us worse or much stronger since everything is on the line.

Do you think there will be more cheese or pocket-strategies with less used heroes? This can give an advantage for a game or two before the enemy figures out the new strategy.

Definitely. Single elimination-based tournaments are the best place for teams to use their prepared cheese strategy. It's always risky though because lots of teams expect cheese, and on LAN, with the additional pressure that is applied on teams, it might be hard to execute the strategy as well as they did online.

Can you tell me if mouz has any special strategies prepared?

Yes, we prepared strategies, I think every team did, but whether the enemies pick the right heroes and fall into the trap is always a bit luck based, I guess.

Good luck with that! Let's go back to the tournament format for a question as many fans were disappointed with it. Four very strong teams - your team, Na`Vi, Alliance and Fnatic.EU - were seeded to meet in the first stage and two of those teams will be eliminated right after the first match, whereas three smaller teams - RoX.KIS, dd and rat - as well as Absolute Legends seem to have an easier time. What is your take on this tournament format?

Hmm, I think they drew the brackets, which makes everything random, if they used the group seedings - like the winner of A meets the 2. place of B - it would have been much different. What also influenced the brackets was that nth, now Alliance, actually placed second in their group. I know, many people think it's bad and that the semi final of the lower part of bracket is considered to be the *grand* final because no team of the upper part of the bracket stands a chance of the bottom part-winner, but I'm not so sure of that. RoX.KiS, dd and aL really stepped up their game, so I think they can definitely pose a threat to any team in this tournament, so it shouldn't be as bad as everyone makes it.

 

If I remember correctly, the team that finished second in their group has to go up against a team that finished first. Alliance and Fnatic were both second, so they face against the winners of other groups.

Yeah, they threw the four first places and the four second places into a box and then drew. Pretty unfortunate seedings, but well, that's the method they chose so we gotta respect that.

Your first opponent will be Alliance, formerly know as No Tidehunter. How confident do you feel going up against the winners of StarLadder Season 5?

Our previous encounters have always been fairly close, but they keep improving every day and we think they're the best team in the Western scene as of now. Since it's single elimination and because of our recent encounters we feel rather confident, but we will still go into this match as the obvious underdog.

FATA unfortunately had an accident recently and broke his wrist, but as mousesports announced, he will be attending nevertheless. However, you had to play a few games without him. Did that influence your skill as a team and the overall synergy?

At first, because he couldn't play for a week his reactions were much slower than they used to be which kinda made teamfighting a lot harder. He recovered nicely though and is back to 100%.

That is nice to hear. Other teams like Na`Vi have already gathered in their boot camp to practise for the tournament. Are you planning on bootcamping in the future as well?

We wanted to bootcamp before this event already, but qojqva had exams scheduled for the time that we wanted to bootcamp in. We definitely plan to bootcamp in the future though.

Now the straight-up question -- who are the favourites to win and why?

In my opinion, the Alliance is definitely the favorite to win this tournament and Na`Vi following them closely, reasoning is that their recent play has been magnificent and s4 really likes to outpick the enemies. They also just won the Starladder LAN which should boost their confidence level by a big margin.

Interesting. Why, in your opinion, are Alliance stronger than Na`Vi?

Alliance spends massive amounts of hours every day to practice their mechanics and their timings, offlaning a Syllabear versus that team is neigh to impossible because of that. Generally spoken, I think their individual skill is higher than Na`Vi's, due to the fact that Kuroky said Na`Vi didn't play for two weeks straight before their bootcamp.

 

Okay, let's speak about less serious things now. Have you ever been to Poland before?

Nope, never.

I see. You have attended quite a few LANs with mouz now. How do you like the overall atmosphere, which other players are you friends with and do you have to give a lot of signatures?

The overall atmosphere is awesome most of the time, cause we have lots of fun together when playing, everyone is friends with everyone. Concerning the signatures - at TI2 I had to give about 150+, on other lans such as DreamHack, it was about a quarter of that.

Nice! On a completely different note: The past week was rough for the Dota 2 scene as all G1 League Western Qualifiers have been hit by DDoS attacks. In your match against Virtus.Pro, both NS and Airman were not able to play the second game and the team had to use stand-ins. First of all, did your team take any precautions?

Yes, we did use this guide written by destiny.

Do you have any idea why someone would try to sabotage the Western Qualifiers?

There are some websites where you can bet items and money(?) on Dota 2 matches, that would be my only explanation of why it would make sense to sabotage games.

It is considered unlikely though as some games were sabotaged very early on, about 4 minutes game time. If you don't have any other clue -- What can the players, tournament admins and VALVe do about it?

I'm personally not into that kind of stuff and my knowledge about it is very limited. From what I know, they can get your IP from skype and steam, so I'd suggest that the players go offline on skype and steam before playing their matches. I think the tournament admins are the most helpless ones, cause they're not the ones being sabotaged. Maybe make the players play the game at a time that is unknown to the public and make replays casts of the games? Concerning Valve, I'm not sure what they can do, they're the specialists here so I'll leave it to their hands.

The problem with playing games secretly is that people cannot watch in DotaTV. It's a difficult issue.

Yeah, but in my opinion, that is the only thing that the tournament admins could potentially do.

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To top this off, I have 9 very short questions -- please don't think too long about the answers.

 

The best-looking Dota 2 hero. 

"Antimage"

The best music to listen to while playing.

"Epic music"

Your favourite Russian word.

"Harosh"

Top 3 mouz picks.

"Gyro, Clock, Lifestealer"

The biggest throw you remember.

"Mouz vs Liquid, The Defense 3"

One question you are always asked.

"Why do you always pick Antimage in Matchmaking games"

One question you always want to be asked.

"What is the biggest motivation in your life"

A profession you would have liked to attempt apart from professional gaming..

"Playing guitar in a band."

One person you would take to the grand finals of TI 3.

"My mother"

 

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Aww, I think we can end on this. Thanks a lot for your time! Do you have any shoutouts?

Thanks a lot for the interview ^_^. Shoutouts to our sponsors, Marija Jimmy Inah Misha and Mineralwater and all of our fans and supporters!!