[Translation] DkPhobos Interview January 13th, 2017 11:48 GMT Text by dfs Graphics by Team Spirit DkPhobos

"When a person grows older, he becomes stronger"

Source:



Aleksander "DkPhobos" Kucheria talks about his new team, the disband of the old Virtus.pro roster, his relations with Atryom “fng” Barhsak, and why 7.00 caters to longer games.

— After Polarity disbanded, you went inactive as one of the strongest hardlaners in CIS. Why did you leave? Were there no invitations from other teams?

— There were a number of reasons. First — I got a bit tired, because I had to do coordination, drafting and the like in Polarity. I had to do stuff I never gave another thought before. It took more energy, that practice. Player replacements also take a lot of strength, because you put a lot of effort into a person, and then he leaves. Polarity was changing player for half a year, was evolving, until we got a strong roster with potential. We would’ve continued playing with that roster, but Silent got ill and left. We didn’t have time to gather up the team again. Second reason — the desire to become a competent hardlaner again, since I lost a bit of that while spending time on teaching new players, captaining and drafting. I practiced less, and the practice I had I spent on general things, not hardlane specific. Third reason — the lack of strong players. What I mean by “strength” isn’t someone’s MMR, or how he pushes buttons. I mean it as a wider range of things: how he acts in a social group, how he learns, how stress-proof he is, how reliable — how professional, all-in-all. There are not that many people like that in CIS, and I had no confidence that I would be able to pull people to the needed level due to my fatigue. Plus, I didn’t have much information about those people. While I was inactive, I trained hard and payed attention to our scene, to figure out who plays how, since I didn’t pay much attention to that before. The last reason — the necessity to keep [playing at] a certain level. If you’ve been on the top, placed high at The International, then it’s wrong to start from some mix teams, from nothing. It is better to skip a season, than to play in tier 2 or tier 3 teams just for practice. In my personal case, it was best to invest my time in personal practice, than play in mix teams and achieve nothing. If I’d never played in The International and in strong teams, then it’d be okay, but in my case, I must keep a certain level.





— You played in Virtus.pro with Artyom “fng” Barshak, but then you and Ilya “Lil” Ilyuk got kicked. Do you hold a grudge against fng? Are you ready to play with him in a team?

— There was a grudge, because me and Lil didn’t even play that badly, and even considering our failures as a team — sometimes there could be a patch, and someone will become weaker than the opposition, like a captain or just a player. After certain patches, you need time to relearn different hearos. You have to approach that with understanding, and me and Lil understood, that we got weaker in this patch drafting and strategy wise. We still believed in our captain and didn’t really pressure him much, so his decision felt wrong to me. But I understand fng as a person: in that situation he chose to follow the stronger, gave in to his influence. But I would rather stay with people that are loyal to you, rather than just with strong ones. Me and Lil were displeased, but we didn’t force any replacements and believed we could keep playing and developing. While fng traded our loyalty for a phantom strength. Right now there are no grudges. The conflict was exhausted, we found common ground and figured it out. I got more mature, smarter, and understand it. And I believe fng got much stronger in this regard. He got the needed experience to not make the same mistakes again.



— How was the current roster forming? Who initiated it’?

— As I said, I was paying attention to everyone. Got matched up with some, played with them, watched them — how they talk, how they think. I had no offers from other teams. Maybe due to me being very definitive about going inactive. So I took everything in my hands, and contacted some organizations myself, instead of proudly sitting on one place and being upset about no one is inviting me anywhere. And I got a response. I talked to Team Spirit and we decided to build a team around me. I told Nikita (Executive Director) about my expectations from the roster, what goals it will aim for and who should be there — not only from in-game point of view. He agreed with me, and we started to gather the team one player by one, based by those criteria. For me, it was important for the players to want to play in this team, to want to evolve, from scratch. Because some people want to come where everything is ready. A player who wants to chew through the ground has more value to me than someone who turns his nose and wants to wait for super conditions. You will not have great offers if you’re not very popular — popularity is a bigger criteria than skill. Everyone wants the one who creates the most hype around himself. The first player in our team was Ivan “VANSKOR” Skorohod. I believe in him, he used to play very well in Empire, later he went on a decline due to personal reasons. Not many people believed in him after that, but I personally think he still has potential, and I chose him as our support. He is calm, reasonable and was ready to join as only a second player. It is the hardest: when you have four players ready, it’s easy to join as a fifth. He already had a team, but was ready to leave it. It is also very important, personally. After that we had a lot of options. Though, I played with Iceberg in Polarity, and I liked playing with him. He is a fun, good and talented person — all the qualities I wanted to build my team on. It so happen that he got kicked along side with fng. fng — is one of the best options for the fifth position. First of all, he has very good knowledge on drafts and strategies, second of all, he is quite a strong player, and third of all — he is one of the few roaming fifth positions. There are position fives that play defensively, statically, but some are active. It is rare, at least in CIS. It could also be SoNNeikO, Solo and that’s it. That’s why fng looked to be the best option on that position. We didn’t rush with a carry, since there are a lot of options there in CIS — both in matchmaking and in teams. 633 — is a calm guy, has been playing for a long time. Yes, he made mistakes, couldn’t break through. Maybe started partying too much, or maybe something else. But you could take that as a positive as well, knowing that this person won’t make the same mistakes again. He used to play consistently well during RoX.KIS times and before, and during F5 he showed decent results playing mid. In his case, playing mid taught him how to play less greedily and more actively, which is also rare. All other options were somewhat worse. It as kind of an accident with 633, I didn’t actually consider him at first. I thought he was a good player, but he is a mid player, playing in F5. I thought he was the best option, but didn’t think I could pull him out of F5 — it wasn’t a guarantee that he would agree. But one evening I decided to call him. We talked, and I really liked the way he was answering — he wasn’t pulling the sheets on himself. He just wanted to be happy in a team he is in, where everyone will be friends, play well, evolve. He was thinking rationally, without the desire to win TI right away. I think it’s cool when you have a team you're happy in. If 633 had declined, we would have asked Illidan. He is a very talented player, but I think 633 fits better with his teamplay qualities. We discussed it in the team, and all thought 633 would be a better option.



— Right now many teams try to pick one one or two young players, hoping they will end up like SumaiL or Miracle-. You have a lot of old blood, as may say. What is your opinion on that?

— That’s a very sensitive topic. When people talk about “young” and “old blood”, what do they mean by it? “Old blood” — are those who play for many years in a row, or those who play professionally for a long time, or those who are older than 25? What do people mean by all of that, why is it a bad thing? I personally think, when a person grows older, he becomes stronger, it is logical. Can I be considered an old player since I played DotA 1, and then took a 4-5 year break? The young players that get hyped up — SumaiLs, RAMZESes and others — play Dota since the same time as I did. But I took a break, while they did not. They are considered young, but is that correct? All these “new” players — they aren’t new at all. They are the same old tryhards, even have the legacy keys. Iceberg plays in pro scene and he is 19, fng is relatively young — he started the same way as I did, with Virtus.pro, a year and a half - two years ago. It’s not as much as the people who took the all the pedestal. Lil plays since about the same time as I did. VANSKOR started earlier, but took breaks. 633 also started earlier and took breaks, but they are 21-22 years old, not that much.



— The CIS scene has finished forming their rosters, or are close to it. What do you think, will this season be more successful for CIS than the last?

— I think VP are in good shape, everyone is in the right place, and I think any replacements would be detrimental. They are fine. Talking about the philosophy of forming a team — it is very simple. It’s both funny and sad to watch people still not understanding it. It consists of two terms: if you look at a team as a group of five beasts that must get to the finish before other beasts , then you can understand that the beasts must be as strong as possible, as fast as possible and as enduring as possible. So, the first goal — is to pick beasts like those. Second goal — is to not end up with a skunk in the team. He will automatically hold everyone down. Maybe not from the start, but it will definitely happen. The only exception — is if the team consists of five skunks. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any teams like that, but I would love to watch. Although, think a skunk would hinder other skunks as well. As we can see, teams don’t follow all these conditions. There are only two damn conditions, but they can’t follow them. Why is that? I do not understand. People are either too stupid to understand or too greedy, because they rely on the skunk to not poison other beasts in time before they get to finish. But sooner or later it will happen. I will not give specific examples, but I think they are quite obvious to everyone either way. VP follows both of those conditions. But if the roster would’ve been gathered by their CEO, Sneg1 — he gave an interview about how he would’ve formed the team — both of those conditions wouldn’t have been met. Talking about the current teams — anyone can break out. But I do not believe in anyone to do well long term, except Virtus.pro. I will not talk about my team. I think I followed both of those conditions, time will show the rest.



— Patch 7.00 turned everything upside down. Did Dota need such drastic changes?

— If you would look at the Majors and other tournaments, you could notice — meta got a bit narrow, and games — quite unvaried. It’s not particularly interesting to watch all those Alchemists, Shadow Demons and Lunas. It is normal, when [the game] goes stagnant, new patches come out, new heroes get used. This is what is cool about Dota and esports — they constantly change, rekindle interest. It’s a slight stress for new player, because you have to relearn, but overall — it is cool. A patch that changes everything — is even better. Because when the rules are one and the same, and only heroes change slightly, people figure out more or less optimal combinations in 2-3 months, more imbalanced, more simple, and everyone starts playing around it. You can’t get out from global changes as easily as that.



— How did hardlane meta change with the new talents and reworked heroes?

— Talents are aimed to boosting heroes while covering some of their downsides. Talents have two types — defensive and aggressive. Defensive type — reduce respawn time, harder to push highground. Aggressive style — stats increase, resistances and so on. Amount of heroes for a hardlane gets bigger, because many heroes get things they lacked through talents. Clockwerk gets armor and health. The whole gameplay on hardlane changed so much, that it might not even be that hard of a notion anymore. It got easier to stay on hardlane, because, firstly, the space got narrower and, secondly, a lot of trees were added for you juke and hide behind. Thirdly — neutral camps for pulling to lane are now on low ground, which means the pulling supports can’t see you but you can see them. Fourthly — neutrals don’t spawn every minute, which means if they pull a hard camp to lane, without stacking and just farm it, you’ll get the exp eventually, since neutrals won’t spawn again and won’t stack.

Even if everything is going poorly for you — a hardlane is for active heroes that can move around the map. There are many things you can do — get runes, farm a bit, stack neutrals. Hardlane got very versatile. I think heroes strong on level 1 will be in high value now, strong when contesting runes, maybe with invisibility, since it’s all about running around the map. There is also a sanctuary on the hardlane you can use to regenerate, which is also important, and there isn’t one on the easy lane. So hardlane is no longer hard, but something in the middle. Maybe you can even get more out of this lane than from easy lane. At least by my personal matchmaking experience, you get quite high in the networth on hardlane now. Often it is advantageous to go there in a pair.

The hardlane hero pool is high now. For example, I can play 20-30 heroes. Broodmother got very strong, her talents are the best ones. But Lone Druid won’t fit the meta with his talents, since he is quite slow. And if you’re slow and you going to get pushed, and you need Radiance, but don’t have it yet? Then you’re running around on a hero, who, firstly, doesn’t help the team to create action and pressure, and secondly, often runs around with inefficient networth — like with a Sacred Relic. After all, the point of a hardlaner is to help the team and stretch enemy on the map, creating action. Lone Druid doesn’t do that. The only team that used to play like that — was Alliance. More accurately, they just had an unusual roles distribution. Space creator was in mid, while in most teams he is either a farmer or a semi-core. Their hardlane is a potential carry — Lone Druid, Nature’s Prophet, extremely greedy heroes than can get to the top of the net worth. So, basically, their hardlaner was a position 1. And the bear fit in their style. It is harder to play like that for other teams, it ends up being something defensive.



— The first professional 7.00 match go very fast, dynamically, with many fights. Is that the new meta or teams aren’t yet ready to play 7.00 and just bet on winning fights?

— All in all, the patch does look lategame oriented. Firstly, it is much easier to defend the ramp. You have sanctuaries to help. New talents and certain general nerfs — early kills give much less gold and exp, gold bounty for 3-4-5 people also got reduced, so early aggression isn’t that impactful. But you now get many more macro goals (runes, enemy forest and so on), the game got more active for you to be able to capture those goals. Right now the best style is either hyperactive — it’s the most obvious and the easiest — or very passive, where you must pick correct heroes, defend, understand who can win late game, defend highground, who will be respawning faster and defend longer… All in all, it is more interesting to play actively for many teams, than passively farming.



— This patch brings Underlord and Arc Warden to Captains mode. Is there a place for them on professional scene?

—Well,if you want to ask about Arc Warden you should ask Lil! I haven’t played a single game on him, unfortunately, so I can’t say. But I think he can be used. Since the patch is lategame oriented, then you can get Midas on him now. And you get levels quicker in general. In my opinion, Underlord isn’t at all the strongest hardlane hero, not mobile, likes static games, not movement. Either way, you still can try him out, he could be good against some physical damage heavy lineups, thanks to his aura and Pit of Malice. But he is not the strongest for teamfights. Overall though, for me — Underlord is just a good static hero, who deals badly with macro goals. He isn’t strong to contest runes, can’t gank, slow at pushing towers, can’t farm enemy forest nor quickly leave either.



— Four heroes got removed from the Captain's Mode. Necrophos, Techies, Lycan and Treant Protector. Do you think they needed such global changes?

— Lycan definitely got very strong now, his global HP buff — is very powerful. Maybe even imbalanced, since he got removed. Can’t say much about Necrophos. Removal of his buy-back blocking Aghanim’s Scepter buff is… not really a nerf, just a new mechanic. Since games can often go late, it would be quite unfair. Treant Protector’s changes are interesting and the could work. We’ll see in matchmaking. But I do think he is strong. I consider Techies a hero for fun, so I won’t make any comments.



— Is Monkey King also a hero for fun, or he will have a place in the pro scene?

— Usually, when Valve make a hew here, he gets very imbalanced, brutally, and then offer you to buy an Arcana for him — for fun. It’s a way to make a lot of money. Monkey King look really strong right now, it’s hard to tell if he will have a pace in pro scene, since, as usual, by the time they add him, there will be tons of fixes. Like it happened with Arc Warden. It’s Valve’s trick — to release a very strong hero so everyone would like and pick him and buy arcanas, and then he will be adequately nerfed.



— The years is coming to an end, and it is time to summarize. Which players would you call the best in 2016?

— To be honest, I didn’t pay that much attention to world scene to adequately answer that question. Taking CIS only though, No[o]ne looks very strong mid, RAMZES666 as a carry, forth position — Lil. Very hard to say who was the best hardlaners, but if to look at versatility and overall knowledge, I’d choose Mag. Fifth - SoNNeikO. Source: www.cybersport.ru - (16.12.16)Aleksander "DkPhobos" Kucheria talks about his new team, the disband of the old Virtus.pro roster, his relations with Atryom “fng” Barhsak, and why 7.00 caters to longer games. http://i.imgur.com/Q1jSb9X.jpg (c) Shiro; http://i.imgur.com/lSDLLKb.png (c) drav