MI.ASUS: john, wootz, julz, harhar, owa
With one million dollar "The International" less than 10 days away, GosuGamers caught up with one of the participating teams, Mineski Infinity, more famously known as HappyFeet. Julius Deleon, known as Julz in the DotA world, plays the role of a hard carry for MI.ASUS and he sat down for a short interview regarding their rise to fame and their preparations for Dota 2.
How did you first start playing DotA and how was your team formed?
At first, DotA was just a game that everyone played to have fun. But as time went by, the number of DotA competitions started to rise and that increased my interest in the game.
How has the transition from a semi-professional team, to a fully professional team with established sponsors been? What are some of the differences?
In the past, I never had a team, I was always playing as a stand-in, playing in as a support player at many different teams. After a period of time playing in such a capacity, I decided to make my own team, which we all know as team Happyfeet. We didn't have any sponsors back then, and what fueled us was pure passion to improve, to hone our individual skills. We started slowly, as all new teams would, and we lost often, but slowly we improved and become what we are today.
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what fueled us was pure passion to improve, to hone our individual skills..”Playing as hard carry for a team is not that easy. You need to be knowledgeable in many aspects of the game such as map awareness, being able to farm well, and not feeding, knowing when to engage and when to retreat. DotA in the Philippines is largely decided by how fat your carry is, and almost all the time the team with the larger carry will win. However a carry is nothing without good supports, so special thanks to them!
Any advice to fans aspiring to be a pro DotA player?
Fight with your heart! Play the game not for fame, but play the game because you want to be the best. Never underestimate any opponent, and lastly, like our manager Jerry Ocampo always says "never forget where you started from".
What do you do in your “free time”, when you’re not playing DotA?
I just usually hangout with my friends, and almost all of my friends are from the local DotA community so we hang together.
Mineski Infinity.ASUS has been invited to Gamescom, and the 1 million dollar tournament, how have preparations been for this huge competition? Many European teams are holding bootcamps, are you doing the same?
We have a regular training session specially for Gamescom, which also involves bootcamping. However, we are under quite a bit of pressure to balance our schedules because after Gamescom we still have 2 major LAN events to attend, MPGL 3-8 and TGX at Singapore."
What is the team roster going to Gamescom?
James Kenneth 'wootz' Valdez (C) Julius 'Julz' Deleon John 'JJR' Roxas Joshua 'Owa' dela Serna Jessie Cristy 'JessieVash*' Cuyco (Stand-in)RR will not be joining us at Gamescom because he still has some passport issues to attend to.
What is the team you most look forward to meeting and why?
We are excited to face the Chinese teams, specially iG. But we are kind of frustrated at the same time, because my favourite international player will not be coming along, Y-GOD (Yamateh).
Facing certainly more well-known opponents and more experienced players from all over the world, do you think your team has a chance of winning? Do you have any specific strategy in mind? How about studying (the replays) or training to counter any particular team(s)?
Dota 2, has a very different gameplay as compared to DotA. There are some heroes that are very strong, due to the fact that the traditional counters to them have not been released yet. We are still observing and experimenting with some imba heroes. As for the other teams that we have played with, I can say they are all pretty strong and talented as individuals.
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...still observing and experimenting with some imba heroes”Dota 2 is very impressive. Specially how Mirana Nightshade looks, watch out guys! *laughs*
Do you think Dota 2 will be able to crush its competitors (e.g. HoN, LoL, etc) once and for all when it hits the shelves?
For me Dota 2 will be a big hit, specially because the many pro-teams would be coming from DotA, and we all know that each team has a huge fanbase of its own. About HoN and LoL, we shall see.
Where do you see your career in DotA after the tournament? Will you stick to the original game, make a complete move over to Dota 2, or play both games?
For this year, our main goal is DotA 1. We have a lot of international events that we would like to attend (ESTC, WDC, SMM). Maybe after this year, we will sit down and talk about the future for the team.