Newbee pulled out a stunning victory in Genting just a few weeks ago but followed that up with a rather poor performance in Katowice. We got a chance to chat to Zeng ‘Faith’ Hongda just before his team begun their journey at The Bucharest Major and he was gracious enough to give us some responses.

Faith has been involved in the Dota 2 world ever since the very first International – and was part of the Invictus Gaming squad who secured the Aegis at The International 2. Along with this he and Newbee put on a magnificent show at TI7 last year, only to lose out to Team Liquid in the Grand Finals. That aside, here is what Faith had to say:

Hi Faith, thanks for giving us the time for this – lets get right to it. At Genting just a few weeks ago, Newbee were looking like their old self again, taking down every challenger in spectacular fashion. But then Katowice came and everyone expected Newbee to dominate, but instead you guys were knocked out fairly early – what was the reason for this? Could it be the Chinese New Year effect or was there something else?

I think after Genting a lot of teams figured out our drafts – but at the same time we did not get a chance to practice due to the Chinese New Year. So I’d say we were definitely not at the top of our game.

Once again, looking at a comparison between Genting and Katowice, the team barely drafted Sand King at the Minor but the hero seemed like a staple pick at the Major. What brought about this change, seeing as SK was given a minor nerf between the 2 events?

Without much practice we didn’t really have a proper set up for what we would do when opponents begun to ban Naga Siren – so we had to revert to older drafts such as Bounty Hunter and Witch Doctor. And these didn’t really work out for us.

As a follow up to that, why do you enjoy those picks so much?

Bounty Hunter can prove a lot of lane pressure if your opponents don’t counter him quickly and with Witch Doctor, he is really strong. Especially during the laning phase of the game where he has huge kill potential from both stun/lockdown and Maledict.

Moving on from that, how close are you guys with the other Chinese teams? We heard that you were with Vici Gaming at an Internet Café this week, getting in some practice. Do you guys spend a lot of the downtime between tournaments together?

Definitely. We have a great relationship with all the Chinese teams. We went back home earlier this week so we didn’t have much time to practice again – so we thought we’d get in some time with VG where we could.

That’s great to hear. So, is there anything apart from Dota that you and the team play?

Yes, we play some CS:GO and PUBG.

Thanks for the chat, finally do you have any shout outs that you want to send out?

I really just want to thank the fans, they’ve always been there for us. We promise to keep bringing you guys amazing matches in return for the support.

Interviews from the Bucharest Major

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”