dfs Profile Joined June 2010 Russian Federation 2340 Posts #1 VP's Lil Interviewed

DAC, SL, Kiev, and more



Lil sat down with the RuHub team to talk about his Starladder, DAC, and major experience thus far as well as the psychology of banter and more during Day 1 of the Kiev major. We have the full translation!









— Hello, Ilya, how is Kiev for you and when was the last time you’ve been here?

— Last time I’ve been here was two years ago, at StarLadder, where we lost to Empire in the finals.



— Was that a sad loss and have you ever lost to Empire since then?

— I don’t remember those games. I think back then they were super strong and we weren’t, so it was a deserved loss. We never lost to them at LANs since then, they never qualified to the ones we managed to attend, so we just never met.



— I hope this time in Kiev things go better for you.

— Well, there is no Empire here this time



— The first real question I want to ask is a weird one. Try to look from a different point of view, and tell me why Virtus.pro won’t win this Major.

— Virtus.pro will not win this Major to win TI later, a second place here would be enough to get a direct invite.



— I expected to hear something among the lines of, You would end up matched versus EG who would play the best game of their life again. But you don’t care who you play against, right? Do you care how you play?

— Of course, both in life and in Dota everything depends on yourself. You either win or you lose, your opponent is just there as a given. You don’t even have to know who you’re playing against. That’s how it works. Plus, right now in Dota anyone can win against anyone and can lose to anyone, it is hard to evaluate anyone’s strength. You can’t just say, for example, that IG are the favourites and that they will beat everyone.



— Does your play in-game depend on who your opponent is? Would it be easier for you if you didn’t know who you’re playing against?

— I think it would be easier. You subconsciously understand that, “Whoa, those guys won three Majors, they probably know stuff, I gotta be way more serious about this.” So in some situations you would be afraid to act in some risky way. Psychology is a big factors. Plus, every team has a more or less different play style. Greeks [mousesports, ex Ad Finem] for example, just run and fight; they just don’t care; there is no super genius macro, while EG will have all their actions be thought through, so if they went in your jungle smoked, then they most likely placed a ward there, but if those were Greeks, then they probably didn’t, they probably went there just because they could.



— If you would play vs Virtus.pro, what would you expect?

— When I just started playing with this new team, in time I noticed that we started playing more like a world class team, while before that, in a team with fng, Illidan, G and Silent, we had total chaos in our play. There was no practiced templates for us, we weren’t using our heads as much. I believe that we are playing like a tier 1 team now, that our actions are consistent, there are little rash decisions, and those rash ones that we make are due to a lack of discipline in one particular player.



— Psychology is indeed important. With the way you carry yourself publicly, on Twitter and all, does that give you an advantage versus at least the CIS teams? Are your words aimed to trigger an opponent, so they would think on how to kill Lil, and not how to win the game? Because that is what was happening.

— I never thought about that in particular. I don’t have any goals with that, I just try to be honest and frank. I say what I think and I think what I say.



— Do you think everyone should be like that?

— It depends on the person. Not everyone is honest. It’s more comfortable for some people to be a hypocrite, and for some people to be honest, like me.



— How do your teammates react to you going over the line sometimes?

— At some point it started to annoy my captain, Solo, and we talked a lot on this topic. We came to a conclusion that it is fine as long as: first, it doesn’t affect the game; second, it doesn’t affect the team. I can say things from my own position, but not from a position of my team. Very often if I say something in my usual colour and there is no other feedback from anyone else in my team, then people start thinking that my team shares my opinions, when quite often it is not the case. At least, it is quite possible that it is not the case. You have to feel the line to not go too far. After the talks with my captain, I’m trying to be more careful to not damage the team’s image. Although, I think that I trigger all the trolls, so if we would lose a game for example, everyone would flame me personally. I’m kind of a lightning rod for the team.



— Was your tweet during DAC about “why is the skill level so low” your personal opinion or from your team?

— It might be from the team as well, I’m not 100% sure on that. The skill level was very low. IG played well though. I watched almost all of the replays; they have a similar play style like we do. The rest though… I think everyone invited to The Major played poorly because they were saving strats for it, and the rest of the teams, like NP, Empire, tried their best. It was quite obvious when Empire, third best CIS team, is breaking faces in the group and going to the winners bracket. There is no way everyone is genuinely playing so poorly. There has to be a trick. When you look at OG, every game they had different drafts, different play styles, first pick 5th position Visage that takes the +gold talent and runs in a dual lane… It was very weird, at least from my point of view.



— You had internet problems that prevented you from going to DAC. Looking back at that tournament now, do you think it’d be better for you to have been there or to have stayed at home and watched and prepared quietly?

— There is no absolutely better option here. We didn’t show our strats and just sat at home and watched other teams who also didn’t show their strats anyway, still it’s a positive. The negative is that we didn’t get the precious experience of a big tournament: playing on stage in a booth, experiencing together those kinds of moments in a game that can give you a big moral boost. So I can’t say that it was definitely best that we didn’t go to DAC or that it was absolutely bad.



— You, Team Secret and Thunderbirds [ex DC], are the teams that haven’t played an official match in forever (I don’t include CIS quals, it wasn’t the highest level). About 4 weeks of boot camping without a single official match. Does that become annoying?

— Of course it does. Let’s say you’re training something in a pub game, just running Monkey King, figuring out builds and all that, and then you go to play a scrim and you realise that those things you practiced just don’t work. Same thing in a boot camp, you could be preparing strats, duos, something else, then go to play an official match and find that none of that works at all. Because in a scrim people don’t really try to play that hard at all. So it is quite difficult to do for a long time, you always need some kind of a real test to understand what works and what doesn’t.



— Since The Boston Major you had some big changes. ArtStyle is your coach now, which was quite surprising to me personally that you hired a coach at all. What changed in your preparations and practice?

— There is kind of a stereotype that a coach must figure out strategies, teach people how to play, stuff like that. In reality, coach is just a sixth teammate who holds an authoritative opinion, who people will listen to, who will maintain discipline, kind of a psychologist, who will solve conflicts. That’s what ArtStyle does in our team. Sometimes he does suggest a hero, like «a QoP would be good as a 4th here guys», and we’d be like «… suuuure Vanya», but when we eventually decide to actually pick it, it turns out it works out quite alright, but that’s more of a joke. In reality, during a conflict he just tells people who’s right and who’s wrong so no one would waste time on it. So yes, a lot of things changed.



— Let’s get to The Kiev Major. Who do you think is the favourites to win?

— It is hard to evaluate the strength of the Chinese teams, since we never played a single game with them. With EG we had some scrims, so we understand that in some regards they are really strong and in some they have holes we could exploit. So, regarding Chinese teams, there is a thing that some play styles might not work well against other play styles. So it’s possible that some Chinese teams play style won’t work against ours, and even if they could be the strongest team on the tournament, they would still lose to us, because it would be uncomfortable for them to play. But aside from that, nothing really changed since last Major, OG, IG, EG could do very well, even DC could.



— Let’s have a hypothetical situations where for whatever reason Virtus.pro closes it’s Dota 2 team and drops the roster, and you personally get an invite from every top team in the world, even Chinese, and you have to give an answer in 20 minutes, what team would you chose to join?

— I’ll change the subject a bit here. Why do people play Dota [professionally]? To win, yes, but there is a «but», at least for me. I play Dota not only for the sake of itself, but also to socialize, to interact with my teammates, to have them be my friends, to enjoy winning together. For example, let’s say you have won The International, but you have 4 assholes in your team. Yes you got the title and the money, but for me that’s not important. For me it’s much better to end up in a second place, but with friends, than in the first place, but with assholes. Everyone has different priorities though.



— You’re saying that this team is the best one you’ve ever had, but will it be the best one you will have ever had in the future?

— Yes, I think it will be.



— Any words you would like to say to people who would be cheering for you? Or even the haters?

— Thank you all to all the people that cheer for other teams and not us, and to the small groups that do cheer for us. We will try to do our best, tier 1 level. Thank you to absolutely everybody for just existing.





Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuFscKVMeQg April 23rd 2017 (by RuHub v1lat)

Translator: dfs

Editor: Tangeng — Last time I’ve been here was two years ago, at StarLadder, where we lost to Empire in the finals.— I don’t remember those games. I think back then they were super strong and we weren’t, so it was a deserved loss. We never lost to them at LANs since then, they never qualified to the ones we managed to attend, so we just never met.— Well, there is no Empire here this time— Virtus.pro will not win this Major to win TI later, a second place here would be enough to get a direct invite.— Of course, both in life and in Dota everything depends on yourself. You either win or you lose, your opponent is just there as a given. You don’t even have to know who you’re playing against. That’s how it works. Plus, right now in Dota anyone can win against anyone and can lose to anyone, it is hard to evaluate anyone’s strength. You can’t just say, for example, that IG are the favourites and that they will beat everyone.— I think it would be easier. You subconsciously understand that, “Whoa, those guys won three Majors, they probably know stuff, I gotta be way more serious about this.” So in some situations you would be afraid to act in some risky way. Psychology is a big factors. Plus, every team has a more or less different play style. Greeks [mousesports, ex Ad Finem] for example, just run and fight; they just don’t care; there is no super genius macro, while EG will have all their actions be thought through, so if they went in your jungle smoked, then they most likely placed a ward there, but if those were Greeks, then they probably didn’t, they probably went there just because they could.— When I just started playing with this new team, in time I noticed that we started playing more like a world class team, while before that, in a team with fng, Illidan, G and Silent, we had total chaos in our play. There was no practiced templates for us, we weren’t using our heads as much. I believe that we are playing like a tier 1 team now, that our actions are consistent, there are little rash decisions, and those rash ones that we make are due to a lack of discipline in one particular player.— I never thought about that in particular. I don’t have any goals with that, I just try to be honest and frank. I say what I think and I think what I say.— It depends on the person. Not everyone is honest. It’s more comfortable for some people to be a hypocrite, and for some people to be honest, like me.— At some point it started to annoy my captain, Solo, and we talked a lot on this topic. We came to a conclusion that it is fine as long as: first, it doesn’t affect the game; second, it doesn’t affect the team. I can say things from my own position, but not from a position of my team. Very often if I say something in my usual colour and there is no other feedback from anyone else in my team, then people start thinking that my team shares my opinions, when quite often it is not the case. At least, it is quite possible that it is not the case. You have to feel the line to not go too far. After the talks with my captain, I’m trying to be more careful to not damage the team’s image. Although, I think that I trigger all the trolls, so if we would lose a game for example, everyone would flame me personally. I’m kind of a lightning rod for the team.— It might be from the team as well, I’m not 100% sure on that. The skill level was very low. IG played well though. I watched almost all of the replays; they have a similar play style like we do. The rest though… I think everyone invited to The Major played poorly because they were saving strats for it, and the rest of the teams, like NP, Empire, tried their best. It was quite obvious when Empire, third best CIS team, is breaking faces in the group and going to the winners bracket. There is no way everyone is genuinely playing so poorly. There has to be a trick. When you look at OG, every game they had different drafts, different play styles, first pick 5th position Visage that takes the +gold talent and runs in a dual lane… It was very weird, at least from my point of view.— There is no absolutely better option here. We didn’t show our strats and just sat at home and watched other teams who also didn’t show their strats anyway, still it’s a positive. The negative is that we didn’t get the precious experience of a big tournament: playing on stage in a booth, experiencing together those kinds of moments in a game that can give you a big moral boost. So I can’t say that it was definitely best that we didn’t go to DAC or that it was absolutely bad.— Of course it does. Let’s say you’re training something in a pub game, just running Monkey King, figuring out builds and all that, and then you go to play a scrim and you realise that those things you practiced just don’t work. Same thing in a boot camp, you could be preparing strats, duos, something else, then go to play an official match and find that none of that works at all. Because in a scrim people don’t really try to play that hard at all. So it is quite difficult to do for a long time, you always need some kind of a real test to understand what works and what doesn’t.— There is kind of a stereotype that a coach must figure out strategies, teach people how to play, stuff like that. In reality, coach is just a sixth teammate who holds an authoritative opinion, who people will listen to, who will maintain discipline, kind of a psychologist, who will solve conflicts. That’s what ArtStyle does in our team. Sometimes he does suggest a hero, like «a QoP would be good as a 4th here guys», and we’d be like «… suuuure Vanya», but when we eventually decide to actually pick it, it turns out it works out quite alright, but that’s more of a joke. In reality, during a conflict he just tells people who’s right and who’s wrong so no one would waste time on it. So yes, a lot of things changed.— It is hard to evaluate the strength of the Chinese teams, since we never played a single game with them. With EG we had some scrims, so we understand that in some regards they are really strong and in some they have holes we could exploit. So, regarding Chinese teams, there is a thing that some play styles might not work well against other play styles. So it’s possible that some Chinese teams play style won’t work against ours, and even if they could be the strongest team on the tournament, they would still lose to us, because it would be uncomfortable for them to play. But aside from that, nothing really changed since last Major, OG, IG, EG could do very well, even DC could.— I’ll change the subject a bit here. Why do people play Dota [professionally]? To win, yes, but there is a «but», at least for me. I play Dota not only for the sake of itself, but also to socialize, to interact with my teammates, to have them be my friends, to enjoy winning together. For example, let’s say you have won The International, but you have 4 assholes in your team. Yes you got the title and the money, but for me that’s not important. For me it’s much better to end up in a second place, but with friends, than in the first place, but with assholes. Everyone has different priorities though.— Yes, I think it will be.— Thank you all to all the people that cheer for other teams and not us, and to the small groups that do cheer for us. We will try to do our best, tier 1 level. Thank you to absolutely everybody for just existing. http://i.imgur.com/Q1jSb9X.jpg (c) Shiro; http://i.imgur.com/lSDLLKb.png (c) drav