ADVERTISING:

Malystryx: Is it fair to say the The Impress Dad Indy 500 was a pilot for future endeavours with Face-it? You mentioned during the final game this weekend you plan to increase the prize pool. Will it still be aimed at smaller teams? What's the plan.

James "2GD" Harding : The first 4 tournaments we're running are used as a test product. The goal is to not only deliver hopefully an enjoyable experience and exposure to the teams. But also to see what the engagement is with the players and audience (the 2 most important entities with any eSport tournament.) So far the engagement has been great.



So yes, we are already planning on trying to do something bigger for the PRO-AM scene after TI5, I'm not really interested in working with only the Pro scene anymore since everyone else has that covered, including Valve! Our goal is to shift focus towards helping DoTA2 stay on the map for a good while, and I think that comes down to helping new players into the pro scene.



This is primarily done from experience, exposure and prize money. We want them to get recognition, but also to be able to tell close friends and family members that "I won prize money this weekend. Playing video games". That alone is a huge factor for gamers earning the trust and support from their peers to further pursue their eSport goals. It's a huge step that many overlook.

The official banner for the competition courtesy of Faceit The official banner for the competition courtesy of Faceit

Malystryx: Why is it called Impress Dad Indy and who came up with it? What other names did you consider?

James "2GD" Harding : I'm just pissed we didn't call it the Andy 500. The main reason I came up with the weird name that's related to Draskyl is that now I know he can't bail that easy on casting (because no one's getting paid to do the show, and the prize money is from FaceIT). Anyways, because I put his fucking name in it he has to cast! Right?



Blackmail is such a powerful business tool. It's also nice to have a tournament name that people might remember. So its a win-win. Also Andy is kind of our star commentator. But yeah, no other names. I just wanted to make it as stupid as possible.

Malystryx: You've previously done tournaments with huge backing such as DreamLeague, what's it like to be back at ground roots again? Is it less stressful?

James "2GD" Harding : I love working with DreamHack... sometimes ;), but more than that I love working on projects that feel needed. When we did our early DoTA2 tournaments, they were needed. But now others fill the gap quite well. I don't care to fight with others over the eSport market as that generally can cause saturation. I'd rather find products that help the scene first.



So going back to grass roots now is great, as I really feel we need new players, teams and story lines to maintain a healthy DoTA2 eSport scene. Same reason I'm making a competitive FPS game. I felt it was needed, and hopefully it still is.

No expenses spared - Aim of the game to impress Dad (Draskyl) No expenses spared - Aim of the game to impress Dad (Draskyl)

Malystryx: Why did you decide to break away from a "real" studio look and go back to basics? I'm assuming it was a conscious decision and you're not actually broke..

James "2GD" Harding : It looks shitty because we have a lack of qualified poster putter uppers in the studio, but the studio is actually quite well equipped, especially the casters..

Malystryx: Obligatory question about the GD Studio being dead

James "2GD" Harding : Yes, but we have 9 lives. Currently we are on our 3rd death and going strong! Hopefully if we pull off some fun projects with FaceIT after TI5 for Doto we won't hit our 4th. :D ...who am I kidding? we expect 2 more deaths over this summer.

Champ: Hannu "Netukka" Saarivaara Champ: Hannu "Netukka" Saarivaara

Maksalaatikko in another finals which included 4ASC's Buugi which you said was pretty easy. The Grand Finals of Impress Dad Indy 500 were "Pretty easy" for you as well. Game 1 was 25 mins and Game 2 was just 12 minutes... was it generally quite a comfortable tournament for your team? Your team managed to beatMaksalaatikko in another finals which included 4ASC's Buugi which you said was pretty easy. The Grand Finals of Impress Dad Indy 500 were "Pretty easy" for you as well. Game 1 was 25 mins and Game 2 was just 12 minutes... was it generally quite a comfortable tournament for your team?

Netukka : For the most part yeah, we had one tougher game in the round of 16 I think and one damn long game in the semi-finals on stream thanks to our...exciting techies + naga draft. But other than that it was pretty smooth sailing. We didn't go in to the tournament expecting anything, it was just something to do for fun, the results came as an extra.

Click to view team leader blu3's thoughts on Techies and Naga

Techies delays the game and makes space for naga. When Naga has a considerable amount of farm (Radiance, Octarine) she tries to get the map and then Techies can make minestacks near enemy base. Also when Naga gets level 6 you can use Naga sleep and lay mines under people, thats almost 100% kill in early stages of the game. It was not a fundraft, ive played a lot of techies beforehand and we were serious when picking both. Techies delays the game and makes space for naga. When Naga has a considerable amount of farm (Radiance, Octarine) she tries to get the map and then Techies can make minestacks near enemy base. Also when Naga gets level 6 you can use Naga sleep and lay mines under people, thats almost 100% kill in early stages of the game. It was not a fundraft, ive played a lot of techies beforehand and we were serious when picking both.

Team Captain Matthias "blu3/german_player" Deutschmann



Some of your picks seem straight out of a pub game. You had Clinkz in game 1 of the GF and then Huskar of all heroes in game 2, you didn't seem that stressed out by picks. How can you get away with winning with Huskar?

Netukka : Generally for the start of draft we would pick something a bit more standard in the meta (banning qop/lesh, picking tusk/undying etc), but towards the latter picks take heroes our players preferred to play, like R3niart who plays a lot of Huskar in pubs.



But to get specific, I wouldn't say Huskar is only a pub hero at this point, we've seen EG run him a few times lately and he can be REALLY strong if the enemy draft doesn't have a good counter to it, like in the finals game 2, when they had 0 stuns and 0 damage over time abilities to stop armlet toggling.

Apparently your team's average MMR is quite impressive, between 6k and 7ks. Recently Zai struggled to reach 6K despite winning four tournaments in a row. Why is that? Is there something you guys have that pro players might not possess?

Netukka : Well I'm probably not the best person to answer that, since I'm not even 6k solo myself! The rest of team all are though.



But I would say that succeeding in pubs and succeeding in pro tournaments are just two different things, different heroes are the easiest to succeed with and some strats that might work in pro games will never work in solo queue pubs.



Spamming heroes like Bloodseeker or Huskar this patch or Earth Spirit a few patches ago might be an easy way to increase your MMR but something that doesnt work in pro games.

So which 3 heroes can we spam to guarantee we get to 6K?

Netukka : For the current patch, for winning pubs I would say Lesh, Bloodseeker and QoP are pretty safe bets if you wanna spam something.

What was your experience of The Impress Dad Indy 500? They plan to expand the prize pool in the future. Will you defend your title?

Netukka : The experience in general was pretty good, there were no issues with the system during the tournament, all result confirmations etc happened fast, although we had to wait for our ro8 game for a few hours since other games took so long. We'll probably play next week as well, might not be all same 5 players though.



For everyone else interested in joining, I can't say I have one great piece of advice since I'm not exactly the most experienced player in the scene myself, but don't be afraid to join and just try it out. It's free, if you get knocked out in first round, whatever, who cares, but you just might make it far in the tournament and if nothing else, get some good experience out of it!

Netukka The Impress Dad Indy 500 winner : "For winning pubs I would say Lesh, Bloodseeker and QoP"Last weekend saw the second of 2GD and co's Impress Dad Indy, with eLab winning the first andKraut Nein winning the most recent.Kraut Nein are the most mysterious of teams, no logo, no facebook page, no team Twitter but yet managed to win the bo3 Grand Finals of the second Impress Dad Indy 500 in just 37 minutes time.A group of pub stars who even managed to make Huskar work beautifully. The team were thrown together by kingpinMatthias "german_player" Deutschmann, and we caught up with one of his recruits 25-year old Finnish medical student Hannu "Netukka" Saarivaara.There are two more Impress Dad Indy 500's still to come over the next fortnight. More information about how to join the next one here