Team Liquid’s press conference in China at the Supermajor was held on the day off. Liquid were just ahead of their upper bracket finals versus PSG.LGD Gaming, the team who defeated them in the grand finals at EPICENTER last month. With that being a highly anticipated re-match for all the Chinese fans, the press representatives present at the media day focused their questions around Liquid’s opponents but also targeted their questions on how the ever-changing metas impacted Team Liquid’s game.

Q: What are your general thoughts about the Supermajor so far, do you feel additional stress about winning this one as it’s the very last tournament in the DPC system?

KuroKy: No, we don’t feel any extra pressure, and since this is a Supermajor, not a Major, we think we have higher chances to win it.

Q: Team Liquid had a bit of ups and downs through the entire season and ESL One Birmingham was a bit of a slump for you. So, could you tell us what kind of adjustments did you do to regain your champions form?

KuroKy: At some point we basically felt burned out from all the tournament schedule and all the traveling involved. We had a couple of tournaments played back to back, constant travel, we didn’t play scrims that much so we had to play our old strategies and all. For this tournament we were just able to pick ourselves up, that’s all.

Q: Miracle, you had some extraordinary games on Tinker in this tournament, but I believe that the general assumption of the audience is that compared with your Invoker, your Tinker might be on the same level in terms of how efficient you are with it. So my question is, do you feel any sort of extra pressure to perform well with the hero?

Miracle: Invoker and Tinker are very different heroes and you can say that they are comparable to how flashy they can be, but not really at the same time. But, no, regardless of what hero I’m playing I don’t feel extra pressure, I’m just trying to do my best in the game.

Q: Your next series is against the ones we call in China, The Invincible, PSG LGD Gaming. Do you have something special prepared for them or you will use the same strats we saw throughout the event so far from Liquid?

KuroKy: Overall, we feel pretty confident going up against LGD. We faced them recently at EPICENTER in the grand finals, so we are kind of looking for revenge here and we will play or best Dota.

Q: Kuro, you said at TI7 after Liquid won the Aegis that your goal is to achieve what never has done before in Dota, win two consecutive TIs. Since then, we had a very long DPC season and considering with how tired everyone feels now at the end of it, do you still think your goal is doable?

KuroKy: Yes, definitely. The season was indeed extremely hard for everyone but after the Supermajor we will have a long competitive break so we will have time to rest and come back ready to win our second TI. Our team is not superstitious at all and we don’t look at all these curses, second Aegis, even year and so on.

Q: Miracle, do you think that in the current meta it is a higher skill requirement for mid laners, did the mid-lane change with the latest patches? Towers being moved, roamers being nerfed etc?

Miracle: I feel like every patch changed the mid lane a little bit. Right now, yes the mid lane is more about individual skill because is mostly 1 vs 1, where a couple of weeks ago it was 2 vs 2. And to answer your question, yeah, I think the mid-lane is purely skill based right now.

Q: To continue on this trail of thoughts, is this why we didn’t see MATUMBAMAN and Miracle swapping lanes anymore? It’s because the meta doesn’t give you too much room for Matumba’s heroes to go mid?

MATUMBAMAN: The current meta favors for sure these strong 1 vs 1 matchups and winning that lane really matters now. I used to play mid only on heroes that I feel super comfortable with, but the game has changed and I’ll be sticking in the safe lane for now.

Q: GH, as a position 4 support yourself, can you share with us some thoughts on Fy’s play style which is a bit different than yours and most of the other pro supports in this position. He is extremely greedy, sometimes even taking farm from his offlaner, things we don’t see at other teams.

GH: There is no surprise to me to see that LGD allows Fy to play so greedy, as you say. He is one of the best players in this position and I’m sure every time he gets to take Chalice’s farm is because the team recognizes his hero potential in the game and they prioritize his farm and levels in certain situations. Every team and every support have their own styles but all that Fy does is really, really good.

Q: We saw a lot of Mirana played lately and every team uses her in different roles. LGD’s Maybe for example, plays her mid lane, some will even go with her in the safe lane while you give the hero to Mind_ControL in the offlane. Could you tell us why do you play it in the offlane?

Mind_ContRoL: First of all, I don’t think there is a “best” position for Mirana, she is very flexible in that regard and usually she is played by the player who feels the most comfortable on it. The reason we saw her that much is because of her talents. They are extremely powerful and of course, the Maelstrom buff just adds to how good the hero can be.

Q: Miracle, if you, let’s say, would re-calibrate today and by some unknown reason you would get a way too low Medal, let’s say, Herald, would you take the time to climb back to Immortal or now it’s just whatever, MMR doesn’t matter anymore?

Miracle: I would definitely grind to get a higher rank but jokes aside, I think Herald is exactly what I would get right now.

Q: You guys played a lot of Necrophos in the previous patches but, now the hero seems like it disappeared entirely from the meta, could you tell why do you think he is not played nowadays?

MATUMBAMAN: He simply got nerfed like three times in a row. If you ask me, I think they overnerfed the hero. I understand that TI winning heroes get nerfed, but Necro got his first buff just very recently and it’s still a pretty bad hero. But, we will see when the TI8 time comes how he can fit, if he can fit in the meta. I mean Team Secret have already tried it with Fata so maybe I’ll get some tips from him and try to make it work again myself.

Q: Matumba, you are one of the pioneers of mid-Broodmother. You might not be the first player to have done that but you are definitely one of the most successful with that strategy. What do you think of the changes made to the webs and free pathing?

MATUMBAMAN: I think they changed the nature of the hero. They made it less skilled, it feels like you can do whatever with the spiders. From the nerfs and buffs point of views I guess they just made a trade, they made the web stronger but, she lost the invis. So, yeah, overall I think the hero is way easier to play and doesn’t require that much skill now.

More from the Supermajor:

– Jeremy Lin at the Supermajor: “There’s plenty esports can learn from traditional sports”

– PSG.LGD Supermajor Media Day in a Nutshell: “Everyone is doing exceptionally well except QQQ”

– OpTic Gaming: ”We are very confident that we can make it to TI8 through the NA qualifiers”