Evil Geniuses have finished top six at the ESL Katowice Major last week, and unfortunately for them, their run in the Bucharest Major ended earlier today on the 7th-8th place. This leads to no Dota Pro Circuit points for them from both last two Majors.

We spoke to EG’s captain Rasmus “MISERY” Filipsen a day before their game against Team Liquid in the Bucharest Major playoffs and we approached the delicate subject of the current DPC points distribution.

Hi Misery, and congrats on the fabulous group stage run here in Bucharest. After seeing how EG performed these past four days, is it fair to say that everyone in the team adjusted to the role swaps?

Yes, I think so. I think everybody settled quite nicely and feel comfortable in their new roles.

Sumail has been one of the best mid lane players for straight three years. How did you guys decide to move him to the offlane, walk me a bit through the decision process for this big change for EG.

I think that the EG team from TI7 didn’t feel that they are as good as they wanted to be and they felt that they needed a bigger change than the usual ones.

When you say a usual change you mean a roster change, right?



Yeah, exactly, a roster change that would mean somebody is swapped out. At that time Sumail said that he would like to move to the offlane. I was the new guy in the team, so I didn’t have that much to say but, to be honest, I thought that was kind of a good idea.

Nobody doubted Sumail that he won’t be able to adapt to the new role because he is such a good player. The only thing we asked him was if he is serious about it. Like what happens in two-three weeks or after the first tournament he plays in the offlane. But Sumail was extremely serious and seemed really committed, so we decided to go with these role swaps.

The NA teams have suddenly shown a surge in performance. Do you think this patch is in some way favorable for the NA playstyle?

I don’t think it’s the patch, I’m not even sure it’s Dota related. I believe that the more you lose, the more hungry you get while with the other teams, the ones that won a lot, they might have lost a bit of their motivation. In some other regions, teams had a few issues so, I’m thinking it was just a natural process if you want. I don’t know, maybe on the next tournament China will be extremely strong, it’s how it goes in Dota 2 I guess.

I’d like to talk to you about the position 5 Nature’s Prophet. You played him from your hard support role twice in the group stage and you ended up more of a position 4 or even 3. So far, in the group stage, it was only EG playing it this way and it seems it got you to the playoffs, so I’m extremely curious to hear from you what was the inspiration behind this specific Furion support strategy?

Well, the way I see it right now is that the roaming supports are not that good anymore because there is no real way to get experience. Bounty runes don’t give experience anymore, kills give very little experience, so a Furion in a lane somewhere, just helping out is really good. He can teleport across the map pretty much at any time, he can snipe couriers, he can push towers, he has a lot of value and brings a lot of options to a game.

The support Furion was just an idea that I had. We tried it out a few times and worked perfectly during our practice so we decided to just go for it here in the group stage.

Do you expect some teams to steal your idea and use the hero the same way in the playoffs?

It’s a pretty gimmicky strategy. I don’t believe it’s something that you can just copy. Maybe some players will see the idea behind this pick and maybe they will find the perfect opportunity to try it.

Do you like the bi-weekly patch system?

Yeah, I definitely think it’s a good idea as long as we don’t have too big changes every two weeks. If they will just change a few small things, balance a little bit every patch then it’s all good.

After your 6th place finish at the ESL One Katowice Major you mentioned on twitter that the point system needs to improve. What changes would you suggest for how the points are distributed?



If there is a 16 teams Major with an elimination group stage, then I believe that whoever passes the groups should get some DPC points. Or at least the top six teams, because getting out of the group it’s really difficult. Half of the teams are cut in the groups, so I don’t see why not reward the ones that passed. To spread the points only between the top 4 it doesn’t make the tournaments that much competitive because for a team with no points for instance, the only way to recuperate is to somehow just win a Major.

So, for all the underdogs who do make it out from the group stage, but then they are eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, there is no way right now to get a few points unless they cause some big upsets. And it’s very, very rare that someone who haven’t played semifinals or finals constantly through the season will make a big break out. So, yeah that’s why I think it would be healthy for the scene to have the DPC points spread between top 6 or top 8 even.

How about no prize money for the bottom eight teams, here at the Bucharest Major, any comments on this?

I didn’t even know it was like that until we arrived here. I don’t have a very strong opinion on it, to be honest, because for me and for my team it’s not about the money right now. But yeah, I can see how a small share of the prize pool for a team like paiN Gaming or some teams that don’t get to qualify to each and every tournament, would mean a lot.

Last questions: Is Sumail as good of an Uber driver as Universe?

Come to think of it, I realize that I don’t even know what Sumail drives, but he doesn’t really like Underlord that much so probably Universe is better.

Alright, thanks for your time Rasmus, I hope you’ll enjoy your time in Bucharest and we wish you and EG best of luck In Indonesia at GESC. Any shout-outs at the end of our interview?



Thank you, and shout out to all our fans and everybody who is cheering for us, and of course, shout out to EG!

Interviews from the Bucharest Major

KuroKy – “I actually think that all heroes should be in Captain’s Mode”

PPD – “Hopefully we can make our fans proud at this Major”

KINGRD & Tavo – “It’s challenging and more fun to play against the best teams first”

Ohaiyo – “It wouldn’t be wrong to say Eternal Envy was behind my termination from Fnatic”

Yao: – “We are definitely prepared to fight”

Kyle: – “We are pretty good at Dota, we just need to actually prove it once in a while”

Faith – “Opponents Begun to ban Naga Siren – so we had to revert to older drafts”

headline image courtesy of PGL