Interview conducted by Kary

We got hold of Rikard '' Holm Melin for a quick interview ahead of Dreamleague Leipzig Major where he sheds light on being an observer, his humble beginnings, predictions for Leipzig Major and more.Howdy, I'm Rikard 'skrff' Holm Melin I’m quite fine; thank you for asking. I consider myself a pretty ordinary guy - grew up in a small town in Sweden with my parents and my big brother. I'd say my video game interest comes from the competitive needs I had growing up from normal sports where I played football, ice hockey, floorball all the time and i can also thank my brother for the sibling rivalry i guess. I also grew up with having a NES then later on an N64 while also having a home PC very early on in life, so later on, the interest for sports died out and the video games took over.I got into Dota2 when i got my beta key in 2011, but I have many years of WC3 DotA experience on battle.net. On the question of being an observer - that came later on when we were doing various tournaments for different games back in the GD Studio and James 2GD Harding just said, “Why not do observing for Dota2 when there is [observing] in Starcraft II and other games?”, so we did.I guess not much anymore, but ages ago with the GD Studio I [produced].My PC setup at home isn't much to brag about - just my PC and 2 screens. Nothing special. And compared to a Major or TI setup, it’s about the same..? I guess my personal PC is outdated, so it’s smoother.I didn't start in esports doing only observing, but I wouldn't say it’s been hard, but challenging and fun. [In the] early days it was not sustainable to make a living off of, but luckily I had extra gigs and worked with GD Studio, so it’s worked out over the years.I don't consider the job being hard. It’s more that it’s focus intensive and you need a little passion for it and good knowledge of the game. With that said, during long days with jetlag and little sleep and a lot of games the eyes can get quite dry. (:I think there is only a handful of us because the market is quite saturated, and with a personal guess I’d say most getting into this esports ride would rather take a shot at being on camera then being the silent guardians behind the camera. xDMy advice would be, abandon hope all ye who enter here! On a serious note, play the game you are observing for, talk with the people you are doing the observing for and take feedback from them.I personally don't have anything special planned, just excited for some great dotoes on this new crazy patch and hopefully some wild hero picks! Will be really nice going to Leipzig since I haven't been there before so maybe i should have planned something.Oof! This is a hard question with the shuffles and new patch, but I would say the safe picks are TNC or Vici because they are the ones who look the hottest right now after the Chengdu Major and the qualifiers. It will be exciting to see how this DPC season shapes up with the big EU powerhouses coming back from their hiatus.I was at TI3, but as a spectator, watching the Swedish boys win! xD But I feel good and you appreciate getting invited every time, like getting confirmation that you are doing something right. TI is the big event of the year so getting invited is always a huge honor of course!I'd say the most memorable one for me is TI3 as an attendee when the Alliance boys won in Benaroya Hall. It was my first time in USA too so that whole trip was amazing! That or Shanghai Major — oh, the memories...Thanks for having me for an interview, and to anyone reading, remember to be excellent towards each other & party on! (:If you enjoyed this interview with skrff, follow the author on Twitter at @Karyb4u . Image courtesy of Skrff's Twitter