OpTic Gaming won their first Dota Pro Circuit tournament last night in Kiev, Ukraine. They are the Champions of StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational Season 5 Minor and we had the chance to have a chat with the team captain Peter “ppd” Dager right after his victory over VGJ. Thunder.

Big congrats on your StarLadder victory, how do you feel, did you expect to win the whole tournament?



To be honest, the grand finals were pretty tough. We’ve been playing the whole day, the semifinals with Fnatic were pretty intense as well and now four games. We played for I don’t know how many hours but it was a long day.

I am very glad and very relieved, this is my second StarLadder Championship title and the first for OpTic, so I am extremely happy to be going home with this trophy. In terms of expectation, we came here with a different mindset. We’ve been to a few tournaments before with expectation of winning and you know, it didn’t happen. So, for this one, I wouldn’t say we haven’t had any expectations but we were optimistic about our chances.

You guys said on several occasions that DAC was the best learning experience for all the teams who were there. I’m guessing that you meant it in terms of playing against these Chinese teams who more often than not are finishing top two, top four at Minors and Majors?

Yeah, being at DAC for about two weeks had a lot of beneficial impact on our games. We’ve scrimmed every single day while we were there. We scrimmed against all the best teams in the world right now, not only the Chinese, and we learnt a lot about how we want to play, about the matchups in the game, and honestly, it shouldn’t be a big surprise to see two teams who were at DAC in the StarLadder grand finals.

I’d like to ask you about game three of the grand finals here, and the Broodmother pick. It was your fourth pick, not last, and you made it into an Earthshaker and a Puck. Did you prepare this Brood strat especially for VGJ Thunder, because they do have an abysmal loss rate against it?

I’d say we like the Broodmother up against Death Prophet and that’s a hero that VGJ really, really likes to pick early in the draft, so we just decided to up our priority for the hero. Also, Neta (33) plays the best Brood in the world, so he made that pick very easy for us.

This win brings also the first DPC points for OpTic. You guys started the season a little bit later than a lot of your competitors, do you think there is still time for you to recover and get into the Dota Pro Circuit top eight?

I hope so. I do hope that these first points will help us qualify for TI.



Alright, unfortunately, you’re not going to the next three events, two of them being Majors Epicenter and MDL. Evil Geniuses was the tournament organizers choice for a direct invite to ESL One Birmingham. Could you tell us if you are going to play qualifiers for ESL One?

Yes, definitely. We are heading home tomorrow, I think we have three or four days off and then we will be playing in the NA qualifiers for ESL Birmingham and then immediately after we will be playing in the Super Major qualifiers. All our focus will be on these two. We are optimistic because we feel like we play our best Dota right now, so I’d like to think we are going to win these qualifiers. But, realistically, we know that VGJ Storm, compLexity, and Immortals are just as hungry as we are and I have no doubt that they will bring their A game.

Good luck then and congrats on your win here, at StarLadder.

Interviews from StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational Season 5 Minor