BurNIng: We’re bound to face greater challenges and difficulties in TI4

In a recent interview with Esports magazine, the prolific star carry player of Team DK, Zhilei 'BurNIng' Zu shares his thoughts on his team's recent performances and title wins, SLTV 9 Championship, his thoughts on the western teams and most importantly on the upcoming The International 2014.



21st of April midnight, DK defeated Empire 3:0, without losing a single game they earned themselves their first international championship in 2014. What more impressive than becoming the winner itself was their amazing performance throughout the tournament. Not only they had a perfect streak, Burning even played 9 different carry heroes in these 9 games.

Ever since you’ve transitioned to dota2, although have a couple domestic titles under your belt, such as WPC and G-League, you’ve yet to win any international tournament, until your success in SLTV 9. How do you feel?

Burning: Indeed playing in international competitions is fairly different from playing in domestic competitions. Winning SL9, luck was more or less an important factor. Western teams aren’t familiar with our playstyle, they weren’t able to immediately adapt to it. Not to mention we deploy some random picks from time to time, making it very difficult for the western teams to target ban us. Also SL9 isn’t the competition of highest prestige, Na’Vi and Alliance were obviously not in their best condition.

EG played really well indeed, though when I was chatting with RTZ on the bus, he told me they’ve never trained together as a team before (with EE). Thus while I am thrilled to win SL9, this experience only tells us that we’re bound to face much bigger challenges in the future, and we have to work extra hard and perform even better.

How do you think about your performance overall as a team?

Honestly speaking, I don’t think we were at our best. Mushi and Icex3 had to apply visa from 28th of march, Lamn lost his passport, we’ve actually only had 3 days of training time before the competition. I think our determination pulled us through, we were confident that we could slowly get back to form as the competition progress.

From group stage to the finals, you didn’t lose a single game. It looked like you were never really threatened in most of these games.

I think there are mainly two reasons behind that, firstly other teams weren’t in their best condition, and then they aren’t familiar with our playstyle.

Which opponent were you most impressed with?

Definitely EG. RTZ is player with amazing mechanics and solid foundation. We all know what EEsama is capable of. Zai and ppd are arguably the best support combo in the west, Universe are really good with his position 3 heroes as well. The chemistry in this team is undeniable.

The first day after we arrived Ukraine, we scrimmed with them twice, and we lost both games. They were indeed very aggressive, their playstyle was rather new to us. Though during the winner’s bracket final, we changed up our ban/pick to counter them, while it felt like they didn’t adapt very well to our playstyle. Thus it looked like we won with ease.

So what do you think about the western teams, about their gameplay?

SLTV 9 alone isn’t quite enough to thoroughly analyse the western teams. Fnatic C9 are also very talented teams, they have their unique strategies and playstyle. It is actually fairly difficult to really understand a team from replays alone. I can answer this question better after more encounters with them. Maybe by then we’ll have a better understanding of their gameplay.

In the 9 games in SLTV 9, you played 9 different heroes. Your fans are ecstatic about it. How do you feel about it yourself?

Haha. I don’t think much of it. If I could win the competition playing just one hero, I would be equally satisfied. Indeed we all have a fairly large hero pool. Honestly speaking, we don’t even know ourselves what hero we can play and what we can’t. Some of those picks came naturally with our strategies. Some we picked on purpose. My flexibility was simply the result of our team’s capability. We are a flexible team, I am only a part of it.

What type of carry hero fits the current meta the best? And why?

It is hard for me to say which hero is the strongest, it really depends on our opponent’s ban/pick. Perhaps Lycan is a bit overpowered, fast rosh means even more pushing power. Though after all our carry choice also depends on the rest of our picks. So overall it is really difficult to say which hero is the best, or perhaps I should say there really isn’t a carry that you should always pick first right now.

From before only using a few popular heroes, to now using a great variety of heroes, is it because you’ve grown as a player yourself or the team is different now.

I think our mentality and our way of training and competing have already deviated from the traditional Chinese style. Perhaps in our future competitions we’d be even more willing to try new strategies. Innovation hardly equals to success though. However I think we will continue to play our own style like we are doing now. Regarding me playing differently myself, it is definitely the results of the change of our team’s direction. Naturally each player will adapt around the team.

After last year’s loss in MLG, you posted on Weibo that you don’t have the fate to be the winner. However ever since then you’ve got yourself quite a few championships.

At that time we haven’t won anything in nearly two years. It was indeed demoralizing to miss out on such a precious opportunity. The success followed are the fruits of everyone’s effort. Oh well, Icex3 says a lot of stupid things in his interview too.

After your stunning performance in SL9, you were defeated by Newbee in your first match home. What’s the reason behind that?

Well first of all Newbee is an amazing team. Their lycan was a lot harder to counter compared to the western Lycans. Maybe holidays, jet lags had tiny bit of effects on the game. Those weren’t important. It wasn’t a must-win match for us, and it is rather common to lose in a bo1 to a tough opponent.

Originally you had planned to retire after TI3. Eventually you decided to play for one more year. However now you guys are playing so well, do you have any reconsiderations regarding retirement?

Hmm this is a difficult topic. Sorry I’ll leave it a secret for now. You’ll find out when the time comes.

What do you think about TI4 this year?

Even more tough opponents, the competition is definitely going to be fierce. I heard this TI is going to be held at Seatle’s Key Arena. It is my first time playing in a basketball arena. I think it is going to be a very refreshing and unique experience.

Anything to say to our readers?

Huge thanks to our sole sponsor – TT-sports. Hope our fans will continue to follow and support us Team DK. Thank you!

Source: 178.com

Credits to kodo12 for providing the translation.

Headline image by SLTV.