Esportal On Monday, Hellraisers became the first team to qualify for the Esportal Dota 2 League LAN finals.

And the CIS-team celebrates the league’s format where they and the other qualifying teams will face the absolute elite.

– It’s great. After all, you can only learn something by playing against stronger opponents and in such a format everyone has a chance, team manager Valentin «valentiNich» Kravchenko says.

The CIS based organisation Hellraisers Dota2 team is basically as fresh as it could be, since they picked up the Kompas.Gaming roster only a month ago. But Andrey ”Dread” Golubev remained from the former lineup that consisted of Relax players picked up in august. Now, the team has qualified for one of the more exiting tournaments this season after crushing their way through the playoffs the past weekend.

– Obviously it feels amazing. We are a pretty young and motivated team so such results give us even more emotional boost, the manager Valentin «valentiNich» Kravchenko says.

”Caused a lot of confusion for us”

During the weekend the semifinal opponents Balkan Bears Corleone proved to be the toughest obstacle on Hellraisers road towards the LAN finals, since they were the only team to win a game against Dreads crew. But according to Kravchenko, the result was unnecessarily close due to an error made by them during the pick phase.

– Even before the match we knew that they regularly use Broodmother and Tidehunter but we decided that Tidehunter would be a bigger problem for us and that was a mistake. Many teams do not have enough experience playing against Broodmother since it was opened for Captain’s Mode only weeks ago. In the end, it created a lot of space for Balkan Bears and a lot of confusion for us. The rest of the maps were played in a more usual style.

”You can only learn by playing stronger opponents”

The ”usual style” meaning that Dread and his team plowed through the playoffs only losing a single game and presenting a 10-1 record, winning 2500 Euro and the first spot in the LAN finals of Esportal Dota2 League. In the finals, the relatively untried team will face the top teams in the world, something he is looking forward to.

– It’s great. After all, you can only learn something by playing against stronger opponents and in such a format everyone has a chance. Just practice and don’t be afraid to make a mistake, just get more experience from losses.

”Priceless experience”

As every other competitive Dota2 team out there, Hellraisers schedule is packed with tournaments almost daily. Right now they’re playing, besides Esportal, Starladder, Yard Festival Red, Hyper X Trilogy, BOCE and a slew of other competitions. Kravchenko says that every league is important but that he would love to get some more practice time for the squad.

– On one hand it’s cool to face serious opponents and the experience is priceless, but on the other hand there is too little time for practice. We cannot afford to experiment in official matches, to play with new heroes and try out combos. It would be great to have a little more free time.

”We fight to the end in every game”

But the young squad keeps grinding and are looking forward to measuring up against the World elite next year.

– We are still hungry so we just play and fight to the end in every game, trying to please ourselves and our fans. We want to send a shoutout to our fans and everyone who enjoys our plays, we love you guys!

How will you prepare for the finals and how do you think you’ll perform there?

– We have a training plan and we follow it, so nothing special. And there’s too much time ahead so we don’t want to guess results.

Between 10-14 December, the first Invite qualifier of Esportal Dota 2 League will be played. For a list of all the invited teams and more details about the tournament, visit the official Esportal site here.