The interview was originally conducted in German by Matthias 'Crysma' von Lachner for Fragster.de. You can access the full German interview at Fragster.de.
Hello H4nn1, first of all thanks for your time and congratulations for winning the tournament. Your team We haz Asian was not considered as favorite, nevertheless you stomped through the upper bracket. How did you do that?
Kai 'H4nn1' Hanbückers: In principle, we waded from match to match and learned from our mistakes in the previous WCG Germany tournament. In the deciding match of that tournament on Wednesday, one single solution made the difference. Otherwise, we could have won that as well. We only started playing together three days before, so there was no experience we could have benefited from and in those situations, experience from previous tournaments helps a lot. Half of the guys I didn't even know before and never had played with. Finishing as the winners after that is wonderful, of course.
You already raised the issue on the WCG National Final and that a single mistake was decisive for the loss. What kind of mistake was it?
That was the situation with Roshan, I think it was the first Roshan. Chaos Knight and Wisp have TPed in after our Tidehunter ultimate was already used. This way, CK had a clear track.
You said, you didn't know some of the players and you only had three days to get used to each other. Which kind of training is most important in these situations, to improve your performance as a team?
I think most important is communication. It's very important, especially as a team, to mention anything happening in the game. Of course, it should have some value, but in general, you have to talk about everything which misses and what is noticed. I personally have a lot of experience in this matter and added a lot of this in our game. Concerning picking, of example, but also within the game when it comes to wards, lanes, item builds and this was a major part of the success, I think.
In your team at fnatic, you play together with people from different countries, here at We haz Asian, you only play with Germans. How does the communication differ ingame in general?
For me, there is no difference. I have been playing for the las seven or eight years competitively, even in MYM I was the only Germany, so for me that doesn't make a difference.
The victory in the Samsung European Encounter is the first major success for a German team not only in Dota 2, but also in DotA 1. What kind of a feeling is it to bring home an international title?
Technically, it's not my team, but it's always a pleasure to win. Even more, when you start with the attitude of winning a single round, and then hoping, then winning another round and hoping again. As soon as you are in the price rankings, it doesn't matter, because you already gained something. That is a wonderful feeling.
How did it turn out at all that you came to We haz Asian as a stand-in?
In the beginning, I didn't take care of WCG mostly. Generally, I wanted to play, but I missed it somehow. I asked Kuroky, if anything is still possible, but he said all teams were set and the qualification had already begun anyway. In the very last moment I was asked ingame if I wanted to play, because someone else dropped out. Of course, I couldn't say no to this opportunity, because I only live 20 minutes from Cologne and Gamescom is always a nice event.
In the first map of the grand final, you played an Invoker with Quas/Wex skill build, which is not too standard, because nowadays mostly Quas/Exort is played. With this build you have great success in the game. Why did you choose this build?
In my mind, it's the stronger build in any kind. Of course you don't have the Sun Strike for ganks, but in teamfights the mana burn is decisive, especially against Chen. However, that was not the important point. More important was that we played Invoker on a dual lane. Normally, you expect a solo lane when playing Invoker.
In the second game you had a Queen of Pain. There I would have expected you going middle lane, but instead you joined Rubick on the top lane. You had to fight a triple lane and did not get a good start into the game. Why was that the case?
Well, what does that mean 'I didn't have a good start'? You have to consider the whole situation: There were three heroes on the top lane which all concentrated mainly on one hero. Rubick wasn't completely on top lane, he oriented himself towards the middle. The thing is - and that is something I expect at The International as well -, people have to start using their heads more often. You can't play the obvious stuff any more. A triple safe lane with a carry get's countered nowadays.
FATA- threw the pick on my head, literally, because the is a natural counter to Storm Spirit. After that I thought about how to lane that. A safe lane wouldn't have worked out, because I knew they thought we would play a safe lane. That was obvious, especially because we even added Anti-Mage.
If you set the QoP on the safe lane, although she is already hard to kill anyway, that destroys the whole game plan. The fact that they even played Prophet on middle lane against Anti-Mage was even more bitter. Normally you would have thought they send Storm Spirit into the middle lane, and Prophet to the bottom, but the other way around was even worse for them.
You now defeated almost any team in the tournament, except mTw. Are you happy that you avoided mTw in the upper bracket?
Originally I thought the tournament would be a walkthrough for them, which in the end it wasn't. The International is knocking on the door and this way you can't really judge this. It's the question: What do you want to have in, what don't you want? In my opinion, this also shows the individual skill. If you can't win against the normal teams, you cannot be Top 8 at The International. mTw in principle was only so successful at that time, because the picks fitted well. Of course, daily routine also is important. They had a pause now before The International and I gotta question if that was good for them. They know themselves that they have to compensate elsewhere in comparison to Na'Vi, because of Na'Vi having much higher individual skill. The decisive things are then picks, lanes, etc.
If I am sad not having played against mTw? As I said, I expected them to be going into the final and I expected us to lose much earlier. However, Wolves beat them 1:0 and 2:0 and we beat Wolves. This is sufficient for me, then. You have to beat anyone, if you want to win.
We haz Asian had four relatively unexperienced players and you as an experienced player and won the SEE with this combination. Do you think they weill be internationally successfull furtheron with an experienced regular player?
It depends. Personally, I'm more an offline-player. Communication-wise I do a lot less online, I know that myself, but it's simply because of a lack of interest. It's a completely different thing how to deal with people which you personally meet, compared with only talking to them through a headset. I think, it's going to be difficult for them, but recent results do not speak against them. They even won once against Na'Vi. They have some chances for a great future, but it depends on how they will play and if they will train hard.
You switched over from HoN to Dota 2 completely in April, and only played at DreamHoN this year. What kind of a feeling is it to switch over with the fnatic-HoN-team, with which you have defeated anyone and won everything, to come over to Dota 2 and not being first place all the time?
We kinda expected that anyway. You cannot be on top if you don't train, that's logical. I was the only one who came from the DotA scene to HoN and even had a lot of experience back then, but even I had to adapt to Dota 2. I also was the very last one to switch over.
I play a game because I like it. It's not about the prices or whatever is hidden within. That's also how you increase skill: You can only be top, of you're really behind it. My switch came only after like 100 matches, when I liked the game more and more. It was worth nothing for me, saying 'I'll switch now, but I'm not dedicated', that is nonsense. And that was the way I wanted to convey it.
Our problem was also, that we decided to switch over to Dota 2, but still we wanted to play in the DreamHoN tournament and win it. There was the online qualification tournament for DreamHoN and we decided to go for it once again. However, we definitely quit HoN now and noone of us wants to switch over yet another time. You can't play two games on a high level, that is just not possible.
What was decisive for Dota 2 being more interesting than HoN for you now?
The balancing. Dota 2 and HoN have different philosophies. In HoN they try to nerf the game and balance it out that way, in Dota 2 the game gets buffed, which is the right decision in my mind.
When I stopped playing DotA, everything was soso. Not all heroes could be played, but since then all heroes were buffed. And it were smart buffs that were made. Take Anti-Mage, he is probably the best best example for that: If you look at the first skill-levels, you now have many options. Anti-Mage is very weak in the early game, but you now can set a single point in every skill and you already have half of its power. After that you can go into stats, and make him more viable in early game this way. This is one of the options and they have made it work this way with many heroes. That makes a big difference.
The last heroes which were added before The International were also a smart decision. Without the latest heroes like Naga Siren, I think we would have seen a boring International. Now it's going to change this way that not everything imbalanced will be removed, but the supporters get banned. This way, all good heroes are still in the pool and the question will be: How do you react to this?
You won't be at The International with your team fnatic. Are you cheering for any team for personal reasons, or do you have a favorite team, who you think is going to win the tournament?
I cheer for EG in my heart. Maelk is my old teammate and I have played with the others as well. I wish them best of luck. About my favorites: LGD in any case. If Na'Vi survives the groupphase, they are Top 5. Same counts for Zenith. EHome is going to be very strong, although they have not showed the best performance lately. The European teams of course can reath the top 8, which is a jump for any of them. There are many good teams, but top 8 is more definite. You know who should be able to reach that.
Who do you think is the best player, concerning individual skill, momentarily?
That depends on which role you are talking about. The best carry is probably XBOCT, concerning skill play it's either Dendi or iceiceice. Ars-Art is definitely the best support player, by far concerning semi-support. Among the tea-captains it's Puppey, but the role is difficult for him when he exits the jungle, as announcements are difficult from there. If you leave the jungle, you have to care about last hits and stuff, so you can't be that focused on announcements.
The interview was conducted by Matthias 'Crysma' von Lachner for Fragster.de, in German language. You can access the full German interview at Fragster.de.
Source: Fragster.de
