Xiao8: 'Our goal is yet to be accomplished'

 

Hi now we have Director 8, Xiao 8 with us. Thank you for taking our interview. First of all, what do you think is the difference between TI2 and TI3?

The International series is getting better and better thanks to Valve.

Could you specify a little bit? Like, is Valve improving your food quality?

Basically improvements everywhere, from itinerary to training facilities. I can feel Valve is paying respect to us.

When did you guys (LGD.cn squad) arrive in Seattle?

We reached on the 30th of July. Um... flight is on the 30th and arrived at Seattle on the 31st.

Could you tell us about your training in the hotel?

Just like normal. The goal is to accomodate to the new PC as well as new environment.

We were told that Alliance avoided all Chinese teams on purpose during their training. Is that so?

I am not too sure about this. We trained with some overseas team as well and learned some of their playstyle.

You finished 3rd last year and returning to Seattle again, do you feel the pressure to win?

No not really, instead I feel that finishing third feels like our goal is yet to be accomplished.

In that case, what sort of aspect does LGD.cn needs to improve on to win the championship?

We need to do better on a lot of things. In games, in our mentality and in luck as well.

We wish you the best luck. What are the chances of LGD taking the champion this year?

I cannot tell, but we will try our best.

Let's talk about something else. Recently iG has been losing a lot of games. They sometimes lose games even when they had advantage in the early phases. What do you think iG's problem is?

They make mistakes in many small things.  I don't think they didn't try hard enough in the preliminaries. They will definitely doing better in the playoffs.

Could you give us your opinion on maybe the two most popular teams, Navi and Alliance?

They are doing almost flawless in the preliminaries. We will do our best to go up against them.

Have you got any special strategy for Alliance tomorrow?

We had our discussions.

OK now off to fun topics. What is your favorite ingame item in Dota 2?

I'm not a collector. Sometimes when my friends get fancy item drops, they always give them to me. I would not intentially ask for any item however.

If you have to metamorph into one hero in Dota 2, which hero would be your choice?

Kunkka!

I guess that's your favorite hero. Well in recent games, we often see your opponent banning out some of your signature heroes, namely Nyx, Beast Master and Kunkka. Could you give us your thoughts on this?

On one hand, this is kind of approval to my performance. On the other hand, these three heroes can give the enemy team enormous pressure, and they fit into our team well.

Thanks for taking our interview. Any shoutouts to GGnet viewers?

Thanks for all your supports. I will do my best this time in TI3.