Hi Kelly, how are you doing today?
I’m busy as usual, but I am very excited about the announcement of our new team and their participation in their first official matches together in the DAC qualifiers.
Teams are being very cautious about explaining their roster change decisions, so why are you choosing to be this open about them?
I wish to explain the roster change because I feel like our fans deserve this, for being patient with us, for bearing with us when we have not been able to field a proper lineup for the past couple of months.
As for the secrecy of the other teams, it is openly known that I have a unique management style. I have always preferred to be upfront about our team's updates, because I believe that, once again, we owe it to our fans after all the recent turmoil.
Can you explain your roster decisions then? To begin, EGM left Alliance after TI4 - you had mentioned in a previous interview with us that Alliance was a family that would not change members - why did he leave?
The problem we faced with EGM was of a serious nature - he had motivational issues back then and that affected the rest of the team. A team is only as strong as its weakest link, and at that point, he was mentally the weakest link. It was hard for us to kick him and it took a very long discussion, but ultimately we needed change to revitalise us.
So now that EGM is back on Alliance, what prompted this decision to bring him back into the folds?
He has proven through the past two weeks of practice and scrimming that he was back in the right state of mind to once again compete at the top level. However, it is a new position for him and he will have a lot of things to work on in the near future.
EGM will be playing the offlane for Alliance, leaving Mynuts to pair with Akke as a support duo. Rumour had it that pieliedie was scrimming with Alliance, and he has unquestionably achieved a great deal in Dota 2. Why did the team choose mynuts over pieliedie?
We never tried out PLD because we did not expect him to part ways with Cloud 9. By then, Mynuts, Akke and Loda had also developed synergy as a trilane and it would have been unwise to disrupt their teamwork and start afresh.
At the same time, Loda has always tried to bring new players to the scene and groom them for the future. I guess you could say that Mynuts is one of the new talents that he wishes to develop further by competing on the highest level. It is always a risk to bring on newer players into the team, but the rewards are often unexpected as well. They bring innovative views and playstyles which are good for evolving the team's strategy.
AdmiralBulldog has been one of the mainstays of your Alliance squad on the offlane, and has been on break for a couple of months. Why did he not return to reprise his role as the star offlaner for the team?
I'm sure that this is the most anticipated question of this interview. The honest truth is that he has been extremely burnt out over the past six months. Instead of him retiring from the scene forever, he decided to take a break from competitive Dota and focus on what he enjoys - streaming and interacting with his viewers.
We had asked him multiple times if he wished to return to the team, but by his own acknowledgement, he felt a change was needed as well. As of now, he will still remain part of Alliance, perhaps occasionally standing in for us. I cannot promise that he will return to play for us at The International 2015, and there is a possibility that he may play for another team when he chooses to make his competitive return. Until then, he will always be our lovely Bulldong.
Will there be future role changes within the team since EGM and Akke played a very successful duo in the past?
I believe that the current roles are set for the moment, but we will announce any changes if they do occur.
Who will be drafting for this team?
We have always drafted together as a team, but Pajkatt will be the in-game captain for us. Loda will continue to be our team captain and spiritual leader.
Was it important for you and your team to stay a full Swedish team? Rumor has it 7ckngMad was considered for the new roster.
Sebastien is an amazing player with great ideas. I had originally encouraged Loda to pick him up and try him out. Unfortunately, because we have tried a full Swedish lineup before, we realised that the advantage of being able to communicate in-game in your mother language is too much to pass up.
In a situation where the team is comprised of four Swedish players and one of another nationality, it would just be less effective. Conversely, if our roster only had three Swedish players and two others who did not speak Swedish, speaking English would still be a reasonable option.
Has this restructuring put a lot of pressure on Loda, the team captain to provide a team primed towards success?
Definitely. This has put a lot of strain on Loda, Akke and me - Loda has always been a captain that takes too much responsibility for his team. When he loses, he takes all the blame upon himself even if he does not show it, but tries to give as much credit as possible to his teammates.
We have moved to a new team house in Gothenburg, and hopefully this will serve as a good training ground for us towards #roadtoTI5.
Do you have more details about Chessie? He has been seen scrimming/stand-ing in for other teams already although he has not fully recuperated.
We have been praying for his recovery as we really see his potential as a player. I know we have not had any official updates for a while, but here is the rundown: he has a similar injury to Fear, except that it is on his back, where static pressure is applied upon his spine.
He has been visiting five different medical practitioners, including chiropractors, physiotherapists and MRI scans. Right now, the latest update is that his doctor told him to take a complete break for a month for the sake of his back. We have played a few scrims with him in the past month, but playing five games a day is too much stress for his back.
We will know more about his condition in two weeks.
MiSeRy officially took a break as well but shortly after stood in for Team Secret - why do people choose to go with a less than truthful explanation at times?
Honestly, most players are unsure about what they want to do, especially when they are between teams. When they take a break, they are most probably thinking about what their future plans are. We mutually agreed with MiSeRy that we had different visions on how to play Dota 2, and so we wish him the best with his new team.
What do you see this team achieving in the short time before the DAC?
Right now we just want to focus on getting the team spirit right, and develop a playstyle that suits our team. We hope to make it to the DAC to play our first LAN together. If we fail to make it, please do not lose hope in us, our team has only been officially training together for about a week.
As for this iteration of the Alliance roster - is it likely to change in the future, or do you hope for it to remain stable?
I definitely hope that it will remain stable as we have not had a stable roster since after TI4. It has put a lot of strain on both the management and the players, but if Chessie makes a full recovery it will prove to be yet another conundrum for the team. I have to explain this once again: Bulldog was not kicked, he chose to take a break from competitive Dota, while Chessie has always been our first priority pick-up for 2015.
Could you tell us what you meant when you cryptically tweeted Team Snake?
I was very emotional in the last two weeks, and I would like to apologise for this right now. I try to be a mum to many players and recently things have happened in the scene that have left me very disappointed. I know that winning is very important, but certain players and teams would do anything it takes to win. I admire that ruthlessness, but as a mum-type of person, I find it hard to stomach how some events have gone down in the past month.
Some players have been kicked, as well as some managers. I am a (sadly) rather self-righteous person, and I feel a strong sense of injustice for these people. I hope that the players will take a good, hard look at themselves, and question if the blame they are putting upon tournament organisers, casters, as well as the team organisations is justified. Certain things are needed to change and improve the community, but it is also important to balance the eSports ecosystem, instead of maximising the benefit gained by any party.
I really care about the players, but I get the impression that we are moving towards a situation where the players seek maximal control and output over the community, which will be detrimental towards professionalising our scene and the game in the long run. If we are heading towards a situation where players, teams, organisers or sponsors hold each other hostage over monetary gains, I am quite sure the scene will collapse really fast - the collapse of the Warcraft III competitive scene is a precedent for us to avoid.
Some community members have tweeted out their disapproval about players not keeping to the terms of their contract. Do you think this is a problem endemic to the scene whereby the players do not act professionally and adhere to the contracts they sign?
Every player receives a contract at the point of their entry to a team/organisation. When a player signs a contract, they are not forced to put their pen to the paper immediately, they are allowed to bargain and negotiate for terms that they are comfortable with. At the same time, a contract is meant to be a legally binding agreement between the players and the teams/organisations or sponsors, and as such the players are expected to uphold their end of the contract, as are the organisations.
However, some players have argued against professional contracts, to the extent that they have described them as a "piece-of-shit paper". To turn the tables around, how would you feel as a player if you were cut from your team mid-season for underperforming, and with no spots on other teams for you to pursue? You would waste a year and miss tournaments that you might have attended and won, and also be out of a salary until the next reshuffle.
Contracts exist to not just protect the organisations, but to protect the livelihood of the players as well. If sponsors, organisations and teams did not honour their contracts, the players would almost definitely not be able to survive in the frontier industry that characterises current eSports development. In a harsh landscape where they can be replaced or shunted aside, it is important for them to secure a stable job and salary.
Do you have any shoutouts to sponsors and fans?
I wish to thank our organisation, sponsors - Monster Energy, HyperX,Logitech and XMG - and fans for being as patient as you are in us, often tweeting my players and I encouraging messages although we have not performed well in 2014. The pressure on us has been very high since winning TI3, and dealing with it has been hard for us. While we have made it to every LAN event possible and won a couple of majors, we did poorly in the one that mattered the most (TI4).
I really want to say I promise, but I will use the word hope - I hope that we will perform and show you amazing games throughout the whole of 2015, and continue being the team that you can be proud of supporting.
I also want to give a special shout out to Akke, for being the best support for Loda not only in game, but in real life when times were hard as well. Look out for a "Lokke" Dota 2 set soon in a few months!
Finally, I want to thank Mervyn ‘ISB’ Tan for giving me a platform to reach out to the community and for providing thoughtful questions for me to answer.
You can find Kelly on Twitter and Facebook.
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