Interview with Linus "Kefka" Bleckert

I’m joined today by the captain and offlaner for team Basically Unknown, formerly Aftershock Gaming . The other members of the team are Magoma, MindControl, Jellopy, and Zeroji, three Swedes, one German, and one Bulgarian. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today.

No problem, it’s my pleasure.

So first question right away is about how you got into playing professional Dota. Were you looking to go pro from the start, or were you just very good and playing with friends and suddenly ended up where you are now?

I started playing Heroes of Newerth when I was about 16 years old as a result of going to a new school where I made friends who played that game and I just started playing casually with them with no real idea of there even being a professional scene. I continued playing until the release of Starcraft 2 in which I got into real fast. After realizing I was decent at the game I decided to try and become a pro, but unfortunately I did not reach that kind of level. When Dota 2's beta was released I just started playing and after some time I realized I was good enough to become pro in this game so I started playing in teams and eventually I got to this position I am in today.

So as mentioned earlier you're the offlaner for your team as well as the captain. You've had some pretty reliable success with some less common heroes like Tusk, Troll, Alchemist, and you yourself play Axe. Can you explain the thoughts behind those hero picks and why they seem to work so well for you and your team?

Ok so the Tusk is a hero we played because he is just in general very strong and offers a lot as a support hero but he is hard to play with and hard to play around so a lot of teams tend to avoid him. The Troll and the Alchemist are a bit more situational as they fill a very specific role and our players like those two heroes so we pick them if the situation allows it.

Regarding Axe, we just think he is a very strong initiation hero with a lot of control as well as tankability and if the opponents are unable to punish us running him in the jungle it's like having a fourth core in the team. He’s similar to Enigma but less push and more gank.

On a similar note do you find it easier to captain from the offlane when you are on an initiator like Axe or Tidehunter where your movements can set the pace for where and when teamfights happen or is it just personal preference and dependent on how the draft goes?

It's more that I’m the best fit in our team to be captain and I always played offlane as well as most offlane heroes are the initiators so I can decide if we should fight or not. We always used to have only one initiation hero in the draft which would be the offlaner so I could control our movements but we have practiced a bit with me not being the initiator so that we can expand our hero pool.

How much of an impact do you make decision-wise in other lanes during the early levels? I imagine it's fairly difficult to make calls while also trying to survive and get what you can out of the offlane. Is there any other player that normally makes calls for the safelane before you really become involved with your hero?

I usually make the call that something has to happen but after that it's usually the supports who have to go and decide what to do since I can’t really think about that too much when I’m laning versus three heroes. It’s usually Magoma that decides what to do. There are some things I want our supports to be better at in the early game since I can’t be that involved in the first 10 minutes of the game like switching up the lanes a bit or stand and guard our mid.

You recently achieved first place in the Gigabyte Challenge #9 which had teams like VP.Polar, Lajons, both the current and former M5 squads, and a few other known teams. What was it like to win a tournament where I think it’s safe to say you were the underdogs? What did it do for your team in terms of morale and to you yourself as the captain of the team?

As an underdog it's always awesome to win and seeing us have 1:5 odds against a team and then winning 2-0 is an amazing feeling. It increases morale a lot which is very important for teams that are trying to reach that level where you can actually go fulltime gaming but aren’t there yet. It was a huge boost for me as a captain since I have been captaining for less than 3 months but still manage to keep up and even outdraft my opponents even though they have players with years and years of experience.

Did anything change for your team after the win? Invites from more tournaments or more teams willing/wanting to scrim against you for practice?

The main thing is that we got some invites to tournaments and a bit more respect as a scrim partner but I still think tournament organizers are not giving us enough credit or just don't know about us. We see teams getting invites to tournaments even though our latest results are so much better than theirs and it’s a bit frustrating.

I'd imagine so, especially as a team that probably doesn't have as much financial backing as others. Do you think it's a problem for a lot of teams trying to make it into the pro scene who are good enough but just not getting the attention they deserve? Do you have any ideas for how tournament organizers could try to solve the problem? Or does there just need to be maybe one or two more open bracket slots in major tournaments to try to help teams like yours get in if they never seem to be invited?

I think attention is very important but more so for the individual than the team. If the team is good enough they will attract attention eventually but for some players that are outstanding but don't have a team to back them up it's really hard to get the attention you deserve.

Regarding teams that get invited to tournaments, I don’t think there is really anything that needs to change, it’s just the way it is. Like for example if you as a tournament want to get as much attention as possible you will invite the team that has more attention even though they are lesser skilled. It’s a bit unfair for the teams that actually deserve to be invited but that’s the way it is.

Does it make it harder on you personally to stay motivated when it seems like even if you get the results it doesn't change much about how people view you and your team?

It’s a bit harder to be motivated but at the same time we are even more thankful for the fans we have right now so I’m fine with it either way. In the end if you keep performing good you will get the attention.

Jellopy, Zeroji, Kefka, Mindcontrol, and former team-member Dani

Moving on to even more recent results you were unfortunately just knocked into the losers bracket of Battle of Central Europe by Hellraisers in a very close 2-1 loss, but you came out first in your group after going 11-1 in a group with Denial, Power Rangers, and mYi. How do you handle the pressure of those 60+ minute games? What does your team talk about after losing those matches? What about before the games to come now, where you face elimination should you lose?

You just try and focus on what you should do that makes you have the biggest chance of winning the game. After a loss we usually talk about what went wrong and why and how we should improve so that it happens less. Before the next games in Battle of Central Europe we will just try and stay confident and play our game.

On the subject of confidence though, do you feel that it has an impact on your unusual picks of heroes you consider underrated, such as Tusk? Why do you think other teams are so hesitant to pick them while you have a pretty considerable win rate with them? (Note: they are currently 6-1 in official games with Tusk, an 85% win rate.)

Not really, it’s more so that when you are the underdog and you pick a hero in which your opponents are not experienced with, you can get a huge advantage in the draft because you are unpredictable and you force the opponents to follow your lead.

So do you think they underestimate the power of Frost Sigil, for example, which can lead to you winning an important engagement early game, and snowballing into a strong lead?

Yes, like when people pick Brewmaster against us and we get the Tusk and the Brewmaster uses his ultimate and expects to actually do damage to us, suddenly there’s a Frost Sigil that he has never played against and the ultimate does nothing and the entire team that followed his lead gets shut down as a result.

Are there any teams you would not want to use these heroes against? Like if you end up playing against either Denial or mYi in the lower bracket of Battle of Central Europe, would that change the way you draft or play against them knowing that they have a slightly better idea of what you like to play?

I might change some things up if I think my opponents know what we do regularly very well but if there is an opportunity for me to pick a hero I wouldn’t go with another hero just because my opponents know that we play him.

Lastly with all the talk right now about over saturation of tournaments and leagues I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. As a team trying to be more recognized and as a player, how does that affect you?

I think having too many tournaments can overwhelm the average viewer with the amount of games, therefore making the viewers less interested in them. I think this is a problem that needs to be addressed. When several big tournaments are run at the same time the excitement to watch your favorite team play gets lowered because there are just too many games to keep track of.

For me as a player it’s both good and bad; more tournaments would mean the chance of me winning money is bigger but also the amount of attention me and my team gets is lower which can be a problem as well.

I think we're just about done. Do you have any shoutouts to anyone, or any streams or Twitter you want to give out?

Shoutout to our manager Panda. And my Twitter https://twitter.com/KefkaDota which I should be using more.

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate it and I wish you luck in your upcoming matches.

No problem, thanks for interviewing me.





Writer: OmniEulogy

Gfx: Shiroiusagi

Editor: Firebolt145

Front Page Lead

There are many people out there who enjoy this game, pouring their life and soul into reaching the pinnacle of their craft. However, we actually know very little about the vast majority of those people. We wanted to know more about them, and to start us off we have a player whose recent team name change is strangely fitting.Enjoy!If interested, you can catch Basically Unknown's upcoming matches inwith teams like BBC and Albumsheet. Their next match is against gPlay on Wednesday, Dec 17 5:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00), and the full schedule can be found at http://www.dotaregions.com/schedule-of-events.html