Straight From Seoul: MVP.Heen

"I'm a sore loser and that's probably when I wanted to become the best player in Korea."



Chances are you've run in to Heen around TL! Chances are you've run in to Heen around TL!

First of all, congratulations on your impressive run in the TI4 SEA qualifiers, and for winning a trip to Seattle for one last chance to get into the tournament. You've actually been a member of TeamLiquid.net for over a decade, with a modest number of blogs. Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your gaming history so far?

I loved playing games since I was in elementary school. I think it all started when I ran into a video game shop in town that had a few computers on LAN setup and kids would pay to play games of their selection there so in a way it was like the first PC bang even before Starcraft hit Korea. I remember C&C Red Alert and Diablo 1 being the popular games back then. I was too afraid to play Diablo 1 by myself though



Then Starcraft came out and PC bangs started appearing everywhere and that was the game to play for everybody. My friends and I would always try to stop by PC bangs after school and sneak a few games in. I think that's where my competitiveness started. As laughably bad as everyone was back then, it was cool to be considered a good player by your peers and given titles like 'the best player in class #3.' (Korean schools have a system where classes are divided and given numbers. Even individuals have their own number for roll calling purposes etc.)



Years passed and Warcraft 3 came out when I was in high school and that was the first game where I truly tried to be competitive. This was when I first got introduced to DotA by clanmates and built 3 void stones on Skeleton King and dismissed the game as fun but too easy.



Then came college and meeting new friends + dorms = LAN environment. So I remember playing all kinds of different games in my freshmen year with my friends: Starcraft, Counterstrike, Kartrider, a handful of bad Korean MMORPGs etc and eventually we stumbled on to DotA and it was fun. A lot fun. We would be shameless and host US pub games on Korean internet without ping enhancing 3rd party programs and crush noobs who were either complaining about lag or too noob to notice there was something wrong about the ping they were getting. Thinking back on it, the reason I'm still playing DotA all started from one day when my friends and I went to a PC bang to play because of the lack of PCs in our dorms or something and USEast was blocked for some reason so we created accounts on USWest and lo and behold there was a Korean game hosted. We were like 'Koreans play DotA?' We joined the game and got absolutely crushed. To make matters worse we got called noobs because back then it was customary to add 'PROS' to the game name and apparently we weren't PRO enough to join the next game.



I'm a sore loser and that's probably when I wanted to become the best player in Korea.

Going into the TI4 SEA qualifiers, most people wrote off the Korean teams in their predictions, especially in the face of some strong and established teams such as Scythe, Arrow, and Mineski. What were your own expectations, and did you see yourself sitting joint top with Arrow at the conclusion of the group stages?

We knew for a fact that we could beat any team if we were on a good day. But to answer the question, we did indeed exceed our own expectations since making the playoffs was our initial goal and to that we aimed for 6-3 to be safe. We were really disappointed with how Day 1 went but the first win vs Scythe in Game 2 boosted our confidence a lot and from there on we were able to play our games to our best ability without worrying about our record.

There were a couple of big misplays in your qualifier finals matches against Mith and Arrow, most notably two Fails of the Week worthy Song & Ravage disasters. Were they down to miscommunication and panic, or simply a lack of experience with running a Naga in your draft?



Miscommunication, or I should say the lack of communication amidst the chaos of teamfights. Naga doesn't really fit QO's playstyle individually but the reason we use it is because it fits the rest of the team's. I don't think we took the time in-game to really go over what the key points were in winning the teamfights like if X uses his BKB early, let's use song and focus him into chain Ravage. I think our coordination is much more composed when we're running a slow sieging strat.



Actually the biggest reason for our inconsistency I feel lies in the organization of thoughts on how we want to approach the game. In some games we'll all be playing in our comfort zone, fully aware of what everyone's capable of so we can make the calls easily.

Could you describe each of your teammates with a sentence each?



March: Nerdy and likes dumb heroes.



Forev: Passionate in matches but full of rage in pubs.



QO: A skilled caveman.



Reisen: Goofy kid with lots of heart and talent.

What do your family think of your gaming career? How much do they know about Dota and gaming in general?





My parents are more ok with it than they've ever been but I think that's only because I'm winning some money in Korea. The first time they knew about DotA was when I went to Singapore for WCG and I remember my dad scoffing at me when I tried to tell him that it was important to me and that I'd represent our country. I had to find and link posts that described me as one of the best players in Korea at the time to convince them that it was more than a time killing hobby for me.



As for right now, they'll support me as in hope that I win everything I participate in and become content so I can move on leading a normal life. I'm 27, pretty old for a gamer. They call me Old Man or Grandpa Heen in the Korean DotA community. Which reminds me of when I was playing WC3 and everyone used to make fun of Tillerman for being old. Now that's me basically lol, time flies.



You play quite a lot of Invoker and Ember Spirit in pubs. Is it a refreshing change from playing support for MVP? Will we ever see a position 2 mid Heen in an official match?

I've always been a core player at heart. I try to make the most out of my pubs but at the same time I like to enjoy my time in doing so which is why I play those heroes. I feel like playing support in pubs is the least helpful among all the roles. The nature of supports is that the cores have to be on the same page when you do stuff but that's really asking too much in pubs. If I'm playing a core, it's easy to treat my teammates as bots and meatshields. I'll play a hero to become more comfortable with it but I doubt playing support all the time in pubs will help that much.



The hardest part about transitioning to support was the lack of textbook knowledge. In Starcraft, build orders and timings are discussed more in detail and articulately. In DotA, you have to adapt to the situation and matchup you're playing against. So basically a lot of the research I had to do on my own. As for whether I'll ever play anything other than the 5 position in an official match I have no clue. If we're feeling particularly confident on some day it's up to the team to decide whether they want a feeding Heen or to throw QO at mid.

Many followers of Korean Dota have pointed to MVP's participation in Starladder 9 as a factor in its recent success. How much has the exposure to the Western Dota scene, both through Starladder and also playing with Demon, helped you to develop your playstyle? What level of Chinese and SEA teams do you scrim against?

Going to Starladder helped us tremendously. We only played 4 games but a LAN experience is something special. I still think we played poorly but it boosted our confidence just simply being able to play out games vs top tier teams that weren't absolute stomps. We also got some tips from players. Just listening to how those players thought about the game opened our eyes completely. Shoutout to Na`Vi, Alliance, Empire and iceiceice for giving us advice and being awesome people in general.



DeMoN's stay here also helped us too but more so on how to shape a team and its style depending on the individuals in it. I wouldn't say DeMoN has had any influence on how we're playing now but there were lots of things he said about composition and space creating that surely helped us grow.



We scrim against all kinds of SEA teams from the very prominent to small time ones. In fact, we scrimmed Arrow two days before the qualifiers. We rarely play Chinese teams because of ping issues but we tried scrimming DK a few days before the SEA quals on the Chinese server and got stomped.

Although the SEA qualifiers are over, KDL Season 2 is still underway. Pokerface (ex-Bird Gang) is another top Korean team with some very talented players. In your last encounter, they defeated you 2-1. You're due to face them again next month - how do you see the match going this time?

Pokerface is also a team that's improving fast. We try to maintain a healthy balance of staying confident while respecting our opponents at the same time so it's hard to say how the next match will play out, but I want Korean DotA to get big and in order to do that, we need to play high quality games. Let's tone down the Game of Throws.

What are your thoughts on the state of the Korean Dota scene? Do you think having a Korean team in Seattle will provide much exposure for the game in Korea? What more needs to be done to help grow the scene?

I'm not sure if simply going to Seattle will do enough for Korea. If I'm not mistaken the Korean viewership during our road to top 2 in the SEA division almost doubled, but I suspect most of them were already DotA players. To really drive the scene it needs newcomers and personally I think just thriving for a higher quality of play within Korea is enough to do that. Going to Starladder and the International etc are a means to an end. If KDL featured such good DotA that even the foreign top teams thought it was worth buying a ticket to maybe learn a thing or two I'm sure it would be enough to open up the possibility of DotA being a game worth playing for non DotA players in Korea.



I also attribute DotA not being as attractive as LoL for Koreans to DotA having an inferior reward system. I've played about 500 games of LoL and I can see the appeal of it to Koreans. You start with nothing and eventually get full slotted on an account much like an RPG. In DotA, you play a thousand games and get 1 mythical item on a hero you don't even play.



Also there needs to be a better incentive to play DotA at PC bangs. Until recently the battle point bonus for playing in a PC bang was 15% or something trivial. If you think about it, PC bangs are the perfect place for games to be exposed and tried out by friends. Even if every single person in Korea had a perfectly good PC at home but PC bangs were non existent, eSports wouldn't be nearly as big as it is now and LoL would have never become the true successor to BW it is today.

You do occasionally stream . Do you think your recent success will boost your viewer numbers to greater heights from its current average of 12?

I mainly stream because I think it helps me play somewhat seriously instead of just going yolo to impress viewers. I guess it should give me a slight boost so that March can no longer laugh at my midnight 5 viewer stream with his smug ass face.



I've been criticized for being a really quiet streamer so I've been thinking about how to make my stream more special. Maybe think out loud more. Also I'm targeting both non-Korean and Korean viewers so that puts me in an awkward position

Will you perform a ceremony if you win a game at TI4?

If we manage to qualify for TI4 I'll do a duo performance with our coach.

I think that about wraps it up. Any final words and shoutouts?

I'm proud of my team for making it this far and confident we have it in us to become a much better team. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of support we were getting during the SEA qualifiers considering that our team and scene as a whole are the laughing stock of DotA. Thanks to everyone who rooted for us. I hope there comes a day when people look back at when Korean DotA was a joke and get surprised by how little time ago that was lol.



Shoutout to Generation 1 TL DOTA squad and Clan Pein, the best group of friends that we built in DotA 1.

Many thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. Best of luck to you and your team in your upcoming matches as well as preparation for your games in Seattle!

Credits:

Interviewer: ahswtini

Editors: Firebolt145

Photo via: Interviewer: ahswtiniEditors: Firebolt145Photo via: gk99

If you've been following the KDL , then you've known about Heen for a while, but if you haven't, he suddenly appeared on your radar in the TI4 SEA Quals , where he helped his team, MVP Phoenix run through a stacked tournament and finish second, securing a place in the TI4 wild card matches. If you watched the SEA quals, you may remember him as being the guy who was always given Treant Protector , and always managed to make plays on the hero.A long time TLer, Heen has been around our community for years. Today, ahswtini has a chat with him about the SEA quals, Dota in general, and what he makes of the Korean scene.