posted by ReiNNNN

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[B]Do you work or go to school. What do you think lies ahead of you in the future?[/B]

[B]How about poker? Do you play for fun or do you want to make a career out of it?[/B]

[B]Do you have a girlfriend?[/B]

[B]What do you do in your spare time?[/B]

[B]Do you play any sports?[/B]

[B]Looking at the current pace of the development of Dota 2, do you think it will be a full fledged Esports title in the future?[/B]

[B]Are you doing something to help the game achieve that?[/B]

[B]Have you thought about going to China since they are offering decent salary, chance to go on television, the intensity of the crowd and so on?[/B]

[B]A couple of months ago, Kharkiv City Council awarded you with a medal and a diploma. How do you feel?[/B]

[B]So what is your plan for the future? Are you going to work like a regular Joe or will you want to make more money playing and winning Dota tournaments like The International?[/B]

[B]What kind of music do you listen to? Have you heard the rap song sang by PGG and other Russian pros?[/B]

[B]Would you like to be immortalized in history books?[/B]

Artstyle back in the DTS days

[B]What made you choose "ArtStyle" as your nickname?[/B]

[B]There were rumours that you were actively playing DotA until recently. Is this true? What do you think is the difference between DotA and Dota 2?[/B]

[B]You mentioned that you play Dota 2 15 hours a day now. Did you train so much on it because you are not as good on it at the moment?[/B]

[B]Have you played DotA version 6.73? What can you say about it?[/B]

[B]I'm sure you know that the 6.73 changes have been ported over to Dota 2 recently. What is your opinion on that?[/B]

[B]Do you play with Legacy hero keys or the new keys?[/B]

[B]Many refer to you as Ivan Balanar due to your great performance over The International using Night Stalker. Could you quickly give some tips to players on how to play this hero?[/B]

[B]Does Aghanims and Night Stalker go well in any kind of situation?[/B]

[B]In our previous interview with syndereN, he mentioned that his favourite hero is also the Night Stalker and that he could challenge you to a 1v1. Would you accept the challenge?[/B]

[B]What do you think about the league in Dota 2? Where would you play?[/B]

[B]When will you begin streaming? Are you still working closely with Darer?[/B]

[B]You once mentioned that 2010 was the best year in your Dota career and you have achieved everything that you wanted. How would you describe your career in 2011?[/B]

ArtStyle with Na'Vi at "The International"

[B]When and how did you start playing the role of a captain?[/B]

[B]Being the captain, do you make all the key decision in games? Do you take any advice from your teammates?[/B]

[B]How about during the drafting stage? Do you listen to your teammates?[/B]

[B]You mentioned that there is no such thing as "outpick" and that you can win with any heroes. Do you still hold that thought until now? Did you ever foresee an outcome of a game just after the drafting stages?[/B]

[B]Do you still think of new strategies? If you are, do you use other ideas of the people more or think of them yourself?[/B]

[B]Do you adapt yourself to certain situation when it comes to actual gameplay? Like do you trick them into picking something during the drafting stage or do you just do what is on your mind?[/B]

[B]I know that you do not like to call the strategy you employ as a "push strat", but let's pretend that it is. Everything in DotA is about countering your opponents. How would you win against a counter-push line up when you have already chosen a push line up?[/B]

[B]So there is no real way of countering a counter-push line up with a push line up?[/B]

[B]Now even the Chinese DotA games tend to end faster, within the 20-30 minute mark. Do you think you deserve some of the credit?[/B]

[B]Well let's start with the burning question, are you coming back to the competitive scene?[/B]-"Yes I will definitely be coming back. I've thought about it for a long time and if everyhting works out, it'll be stronger than my former team."Personal life-"At the moment, I am not going to school nor doing any work. Honestly, I'm not sure where I will be in the future but for now, I am just going to play and stream my games until the next million dollar Dota 2 tournament."-"Well, I have not actually played poker seriously and definitely have not earned from it. In fact, poker just takes my money away (laughs). Although I previously wanted to start a poker career, I have changed my mind now because I can still earn big money without playing poker."-"All I can is that my life is pretty much set. I don't wish to discuss any further regarding this."-"At the moment, all my time is spent on Dota 2 and trying to get to know "her". Apart from that I'm just resting."-"Hah! Previously I was an avid fan of soccer until I took a Dota to the knee. Now I do not even keep up with the sports because all my idols have grown old."-"It is hard to say but I certainly do hope so."-"It's not that I'm trying to make Esports into a real sports or anything but it has developed into a growing industry and it is still growing now. It will soon be the major social network for gamers and all I can do now is to help make gamers like the game more."-"Yes I have. I would very much like to work with iG but I have no ties with anybody there at all. Besides that, I do not speak Chinese and will have trouble communicating with the captain or the coach of the team. Therefore, it is not a wise choice."-"Yes, I received a medal and a diploma from the city council. I was pretty proud of myself although it was quite lucky that I got it until I won the million dollar championship in Gamescom. I'm not really sure whether I actually deserved it."-"Money is never enough (laughs). So I will have to do something about it. I don't think I will like doing a normal job though because I am currently a gamer and don't think I can stand doing a repetitive job over and over with a fixed salary. That is just not me."-"Yes I have heard it. I hope that they won't sing about me though because I'm normally pretty shy and quiet. In any case, I listen to music of all sorts. Well, all except for those street raps."-"Yes that would be nice but not with something associated to Dota. I would definitely want to be immortalized for something meaningful."Dota-"I've been using this nick for a long time now. I got the idea of this nick years ago while I was watching a WarCraft 3 stream of Happy playing with someone. When Happy's opponent was interviewed, he described Happy's actions as "ArtStyle" and ever since then, I have been using this nick."-"Yes it is true that I have been playing DotA until about a week ago before I started Dota 2 again. I cannot compare these two games because I love both games but since DotA is getting more irrelevant in terms of competition, I'll not be playing both the games at the same time anymore. I have completely switched to Dota 2 now."-"I am now studying Dota 2 closely for stuff like learning to estimate all the damage and cooldowns, getting used to the attack animations and such. Yesterday, for the first time I saw something in the hero Death Prophet that I didn't see in DotA. All her ghost will fly up into the sky first before coming down to attack. What a surprise!"-"In short, Legion Commander is such a broken hero. I was playing Pudge with 4,500 HP and 20 armor and he still managed to beat me down in five seconds!"-"Honestly, I have not played the new version yet and mostly sticking to the tournament version. Though I have to mention something about this new item, Tranquil Boots. We call it Vanguard for the mages and for its cheap price, I think it's almost a must to get for support heroes."-"I play with legacy keys but I'm starting to learn the new hotkeys now."-"For this hero, the standard build for me is Urn of Shadows, Power Treads, Vanguard, Magic stick, and Aghanims. If you are rich enough, you can probably go for Scythe of Vyse or Skull Basher later on."-"Yes of course! This is the way I win games. After all, you can see the battlefield while the enemy can't see you. If you are getting heavily attacked and chased, you will figure out where to run or escape."-"Surprisingly when the interview was published, I was actually on Skype with my new teammates. After a quick read, I discussed it with them and I'm quite surprised that a person with a few minor achievements in some leagues dares to say such things."-"I'm not playing in any league at the moment so I have nothing to say about them. I'm mostly just playing public games for now."-"The stream will begin very soon. Yes, I do collaborate closely with Darer. The owner of the project is one of the most trustworthy guy I can find on the Internet. I think there will be a lot of news about Darer soon."-"In 2011, I was playing under Na'Vi the whole time. I can say that it is was a good year in terms of development and finance for the team and also Dota as an Esports in general.Dota strategies-"This story dates back to our times in DTS where the team has a complete breakdown and we were on the verge of disbandment. I honestly don't remember who was the captain at that time and then I was suggested as the captain. At that time, V1lat wanted somebody else to be the captain but it turned out that I started taking charge and led my team. I have to note that NS helped me out a lot while we were in DTS in terms of movement on the map. I supervised the team and also helped in cultivating young star, Dendi. Everyone put in a piece of themselves in the team, it was not just me."-"Well, I agree with everyone, because there are no bad decisions. Sure it is hard to understand some decisions from your teammates at times, but once you think about it they all make sense. For example, when a teammate wants to go on a six-slotted Medusa along with a Crystal Maiden, you have to understand that Maiden plays a key role in the game even if she just sits at the back and not let Medusa TP out. Worse comes to worse, you'll just trade a support hero for a carry hero. This shows that you can be very smart and XXXX at playing DotA, but somehow people just wait for the carry Spectre to get six-slotted to win."-"I always do. This to ensure that everyone gets heard and they don't feel left out. We always try to do what everyone said. Though there is an exception to Dread, no one will understand his ideas even after ten years.-"Yes, I sitll think so. You can't outpick people, rather you outplay people. In general, there are certain heroes that combined with a great player can be a very stong matchup. For example. a Furion in good hands along with some good heroes is very imba and can control the game 100%."-"As you know I’m inactive now, so I don’t think about strategies. And it’s really hard to call them “strategies” really, you just choose some heroes with great potential and pressure them with the right execution. About someone’s ideas or setups – I don’t know what to answer, when it comes to drafting, it’s really way more simple than people think."-"Of course, everything changes during the drafting stage. But during the game a lot depends on the player’s level. If they are able to do something extraordinary, then I don’t even have to intervene – they already know what to do to allow us to win the game."-"'Push' or 'Counter-Push'. I find those terms funny. It is really hard to answer the question without at least knowing what the heroes are, because a counter push line up is suppose to counter a push line up. Anyway, it really depends on the players and how they think - you can always trick your opponents. For example, you can do a 'suicide barracks', dying with cooldown. But in doing so, you take a large chunk of the building's health down, while at the same time you use Necronomicons to push all three lanes."-"Well generally, just let your enemies leave their base and let them attack you. While they are fighting you, you go for one of their important buildings.-"Maybe. You have to give some credit to DTS and Na’Vi as well. However the biggest influence is the level of Chinese players, they always play very well and smart. I have noticed that even two years ago they could kill everything within 20 min, but their playstyle was really strange."