SLTV Season V. Ascension of forgotten Article: oo_Wonderful_oo August 13th, 2015 13:50 GMT



In esports CIS lands, which had seen dozens of champions in very different games, League of Legends was always like poor orphan. "Little brother" to "Superior MOBA" was born during region's peak success in DotA and despite original Empire/M5 efforts few years later, whole region never caught up and now, in 2015, it has finally got some attention due to HR beating some fan favourites at International Wildcard Invitational preceding MSI. But it's just start of tough path ahead.





Fifth season of Starladder's premier league finished in Moscow and finished with great success. Despite lacking viewership, English coverage, variety in champion picks (42 champions picked/banned in 14 games) and cutthroat competition like in Asian leagues, grandfinals between defending champions Hard Random and contenders in Dolphins of Wall Street showed a reel of highlights and comebacks and 5th game delivering a treat to watch - especially live.







Following the conclusion of event, I was able to speak with leading characters of scene.



+ Show Spoiler [Mykhailo "Kira" Harmash] +

HR's midlaner Kira turned many heads at IWCI, slaining nerds left and right. Not really a lot changed since and CIS.LoL posterboy is still wrecking havoc on Summoner's Rift.







Almost whole Western community had seen midlaner Kira in action for only few days. Who is Kira?

Hello! I'm Mikhail "Kirrra" Garmash, midlaner for Hard Random. Famous in our region for ultra-aggressive playstyle. Also I'm 22, married, have daughter named Kira and live in Mariupol, Ukraine.



What was in your head during 5th game of finals? Did you think that it's over or you were only focused on dragons and potential victory?

I never think about result during any game and only stay focused on what can I do in game and how should I play to beat people. *laughs*. Otherwise I'm relying on my team to shotcall, etc. Even though, if I see good opportunity, I will make a move even if it's not in plans.



What is Starladder for you? Have you ever considered going higher into LCS or Europe in general?

SLTV is best league in CIS right now, so I'm kinda happy that it exists. Of course, it's not as cool as LCS but I don't really want to move to Europe, especially considering that I have family and moving is very hard. Plus it's not 100% that I'm going to show really high level of play and it will be even harder to return to CIS after. So I will just wait for development of esports in CIS and become a happy man. *laughs*



At last IWCI you showcased a handful of mixed results such as losing to Chile and beating Brazil/Turkey/Australia in same day. Even though you lost in semifinals to to INTZ, it was really impressive. Considering that Riot have decided to change the format of Wildcards again, what do you think about HR's chances of getting to World Championship?

So, uh, looking back to Starladder finals, if we want to go to Worlds, we need to tryhard and improve as soon as possible. However, we need to beat only 2 teams this time and not 6, so it's easier by default.



Also, what happened in that game vs DetFM where you almost solo-carried a game? Was it all planned like in famous anime?

*laughs* So it was all random honestly, I almost wasn't playing Diana at all before that game but we just picked her due to setup and then I lasthitted everything. After that game I actually had bunch of bad games but then came back into my own. Speaking about notebook, won't open all cards but can say only one thing - I have one.



DetFM should be happy that they're not in same Wildcard with you now. How did team react after hearing you'll travel to Chile instead of Turkey? From logistics perspective CIS team playing in Chile instead of Oceania/Japan is looking strange.

Chile instead of Turkey? Great opportunity to see other part of world, fly on plane for more than 2 hours. Team thinks that it's cool chance to explore the globe, in comparison with Turkey, which is a bit tad boring. Even though, Turkey is good place as well. *laughs*



Beautiful. You're known for being almost insane in midlane, when you just were starting, were you looking up to someone? Favourite midlaners? Or did it just come naturally?

So, in the beginning I came to LoL from BLC which has 7-11 skills and you're starting to fight since 1st second, everything is very fast even if it's not WoW. So when I transitioned to LoL, I was laning with ease, landing/dodging skills and winning against other midlaners. Also I played with great confidence due to past experience so that's story of my style development. *laughs*. Also due to starting in end of Season 2, of course I was looking at M5.AlexIch because they were best team in CIS and one of best in the world. I learned a lot from him but learned even more by myself. Right now I enjoy Faker, CoCo, PawN and Keane.



Do you follow other regions? Probably, there are some teams you'd like to face at world Championship?

EDG from China, they're incredibly strong even if you're not following Chinese scene 24/7. SKT T1 and Faker, can't ignore them. Gravity from NA LCS, I'm enjoying Keane random picks when they're working. Fnatic from EU LCS, best team in Europe, they're insane. Also, Dark Passage from Turkey, last time we lost them at 6th minute, so time to get revenge. *laughs*



What are pespectives in close future, let's say, in Season 6? Can CIS, as a region overcome Turkey, Brazil or SEA to become the strongest Wildcard region?

As people were saying in their interviews before, noone wants to work for free when people around are getting paid, that's why CIS as region has bunch of strong players but there is almost no incentive to tryhard because you can't make a living from wins in Russia. Also only few teams have their players salaried. So I think, if we can get our LCS in Season 6, CIS will rise because there are more nolife-gamers here than almost anywhere. *laughs*



What if CIS LCS is created, will organisations like Na'Vi/VP/Empire return to the scene?

Pretty sure that orgs will come back which will force even faster development because everyone at some point dreamed to play in them. So motivation will rise, teams will rival each other, game/strategy level will grow as well as coaching staffs.



Speaking about coaching staff, how big of a role does your analyst play? What about expanding staff?

Pretty sure that right now we don't need to expand. He's doing great job of analysing games and making pick/bans. Plus he always has last word in post-game discussions so I think, that our development was heavily influenced by him.



What's your take on foreign players on Starladder? Are they developing region or they're just coming here because they can't get anywhere in Europe?

They're not developing region if they're not stable. Take a look at Zvene for example, guy is stable, playing decent, has big champion pool, he even has Russian spirit. *laughs*. But other players, I don't think they're important. I don't know, are they really needed in Europe but everyone plays in region he wants/can, pretty sure that bunch of CIS players had offers from other regions as well but they declined. Everything depends on desire/awareness where they want to play. So I'm not against foreigners but I'm not 100% for.



Do you have enough time for both family and training? How do those things disturb each other because despite guys like AlexIch, people still think that any personal life priorities affects gameplay.

I think if family fully supports you in what you're doing, you won't have any problems. Even though, considering that most successful esports players are those who don't have personal life, this statistic is somewhat true as well.



Cool. So, any final words/shoutouts?

Thanks to everyone for your support, especially my wife and daughter, love you, thanks to my organisation and our sponsor, Cougar. We will try to do our best at Wildcard tournament. I still want to play at World Championship so I will do everything I can.





+ Show Spoiler [Yuri "CarrotMan" Markov] +

Some owners are like Andy "Reginald" Dinh, controlling whole organisation and doing their best to help everywhere. Some are like George "HotshotGG" Georgalidis, failing here and there but finally finding some groove. Some like Yuri "CarrotMan" Markov are trying to grow flowers in desert, believing that at some point desert will become oasis.







Where did you find your start in esports?

So, I was playing games years ago, played DotA for 4 years on semi-pro level. Everything was online, without random ASUSes *laughs*. But then due to active personal life and working obligations, I just started working full time and everything just faded away. However, after moving to Moscow 2 years ago and getting decent job, I started to actively follow esports again like TI, MLG and decided to organise Hearthstone tournaments soon after. It was beginning, friends created site, wife made design for it and soon after, Good Team Multigaming owner came to me and offered his both HS and LoL rosters. In the end, Hearthstone roster moved to Team Empire and League of Legends roster stayed with us.



Beautiful. Did you ever consider selling them as well?

Not really, I wanted to help people plus I started playing game actively. Also it was great opportunity to enter esports scene.



What is your relationship with the team?

I'm trying to be on same level but I'm not spending as much time with them as my manager, for example, who sits 24/7 with them. *laughs*. Sometimes it's hard, especially when they're trolling me but community knows me well at this point.



Cool. Do you have an influence on management? Or possibly, their roster swaps?

Only in exceptional situations, like what happened with Ansva last season when guy who was supposed to carry team, just didn't live up to expectations. After all, I always have last word, however I trust my players and manager on 300%, so usually they're doing it by themselves.



Pretty rare situation nowdays, especially considering what happened with SK Gaming or how the CIS scene works in general.

I don't think that it works at this point. Look, last team in Starladder is team which was built in such fashion, that 3 of them are playing forever and despite declining, can't change. We're trying to make everything professional.



How do you feel as one of League of Legends pioneers within our region, essentially building it from the ground up?

It's interesting. Even though, I wish we could be heard more by players, managers of other teams and Riot Games. Even though, I think that we're doing good job and in year, we can be on Brazil level and in 2-3 years, LCS.



So, despite us rivaling the other Wildcard regions in strength, we still lack the viewership numbers. Do you think they'll continue to grow?

Viewership drop this season is a bit sad but it's more on Riot/Starladder, honestly. Our quest is getting to World Championship and we're doing everything we can to reach this goal. Of course, viewership can grow but I guess, Russian server needs to develop more, especially considering that even streamers program just slowly died out despite all our help. Probably, it was just flawed.



Will Russian server become the core for Starladder teams at some point?

Europe West will be surely core, Russian server is almost like Turkish at this point where all top players are playing on EUW but of course, you can find good players on our server as well. Even though, you can't play with guys like Forg1ven here, so even our academy team is mostly based on EUW Master-Challenger tier.



Do you think you need an Academy roster in the current landscape of CIS LoL?

Look, this season competition was literally 2 teams. Everyone predicted this final more than month ago and both HR and Dolphins just wiped the floor with everyone on their path, despite our level heavily dropping this season. We see players who can help scene grow so we're trying to help them, make them more professional, give them work ethics and other useful things.



Are there plans on HRA going up to the premier Starladder league?

Yeah, surely. Hope they can make it out next season, so even if we can't find proper sponsors for them, they will play there just in their own squad. They're good enough to do it.



Let's speak about previous IWCI a bit. What did you expect initially?

Initially I just expected good performance. Somewhere, there was an idea that we can actually take it all because team was in optimal conditions, had a lot of strategies, some developments. But after coming there, we were shown that we have Kira but every other team there has its own Kira.



Jokes aside, we weren't expecting any spectacular results, but you showed some in the end anyway.

It was great experience, especially when team was beating all favourites in group stages. Funniest part was that they were losing first match to Japanese squad while I was in taxi from Istanbul airport but after coming to office itself, they won.



After winning against INTZ in group stage, what were your expectations heading into playoffs?

Well, I thought that we don't have a lot of chances, especially after our pocket double ad with Morgana top strat got murdered by single Kog'Maw pick. *laughs*. But welp, happens.



This time around, can HR make it to World Championship?

So my manager, who brought me 3 championship rosters, is telling me that we're going to make it. However, I think that if we're going to play like at SLTV finals, we're going to lose to Chile. But if they can unite and perform to their strength, I think, they can beat Brazil.



If your guys make it to the finals but lose to Brazilian seed, will it be considered as failure?

No, it definitely won't be a failure, because our infrastructure/training/scrim partners quality is still way behind. But if we're going to qualify to World Championship, it's going to be jump over head for sure, considering that we don't have conditions currently and only talented players.



Who you'd like to face if you qualify? What about winning a map or two?

One thing I want is Kira performing to his standards. And of course, I want him against Faker. And of course, we'll beat TSM. *laughs*



Like GG.EU?

Yea. Even though, there is a big problem that we can't properly evaluate our strength. Scrimming EU LCS teams is unreal because they have their own club, teams from TCL don't wanna scrim us, scrimming Turkish Challenger teams is just not fair for them so we're only limited to some games against EU CS teams in tournaments, like we beat mouz convincingly in LBA, we'll play vs G2 but Wickd's team destroyed us, for example.



Let's hope, I guess. How does it feel to be biggest organisation in CIS.LoL despite being relatively unknown organisation in general?

Honestly, very nice. But it tells a lot about region development in general. Fans in general are following players and not orgs plus we still lack professional league here. Create professional league, pay salaries and everything will rise.



Interesting.

One thing I kinda dislike - Riot ain't trying aggressive advertising which was proven time and time again as very impressive for our region. Like, try to poke some known figures like CIS PewDiePies, tell them to play LoL for a month, he has fanbase, constant viewership. So part of this fanbase will come to watch league as well. But of course, create professional league, players will see that there is incentive to tryhard and be set up in life, players from other games will come, their fans will follow, and everything can snowball. I think, we deserve our LCS next year. And sponsors will take closer look at region. *laughs*



Are you the only sponsor for HR?

Yeah, whole organisation is built and working on my money. Even though, right now we got our first partner, Cougar, they found us by themselves and also we're trying to get more and more sponsors/investors.



What about big companies associated with esports like Razer, Steelseries, Logitech?

Razer and Steelseries don't wanna work in this region and I don't really think we need Logitech when we have Cougar. They're great partners and they covered whole organsation which has 22 people in it with devices, so I'm very happy. Even though, I hope we will get some good news for community and ourselves soon.



Wow, I hope everything works out. If team could play in LCS and Riot's interregional rules didn't exist, which would you choose? The LCS or Starladder?

LCS for sure. Even if I'm patrotic but I'm not enemy for my players. I probably could have academy roster here but players/manager should have everything to rise in gameplay level/moneywise/fanbasewise. But if we played in LCS, I would try to get as many CIS players as I possibly could, not foreigners.



Right now you've won your 3rd championship in CIS, and second in a row. Ever thought about becoming a dynasty?

It will be bad, I think.



But everyone will try to dethrone you, so they will improve.

This is what very disappointing for me. Noone is trying to improve right now, so we're like big fish in small pond. Pretty sure that if Dolphins tried hardcore bootcamps this time, they would have wiped us with floor, but nay.



Did you believe that you were going to win that final game?

No, was already trying to prepare excuses to sponsors. *laughs* But then one of my academy players just told me that they're winning, so I ran to scene and there it is. What you can't take from my team is that killer's instinct, if they see an opportunity, they will take 101% of it.



Do you like Riot's vision of game with their constant changes? What about relationships with Riot in general?

Relationships are very warm, but clearly they won't listen to you if they have everything already planned. But we're helping each other in some areas like visa issues. And yep, I like constant changing of game, feels great.



Do you follow LoL-scene outside of CIS?

A bit. Watching EU, a bit of NA, in the mornings China/Korea. Also fantasy, of course. *laughs*



Cool! Have you thought about expanding into other esports discplines?

Yea, into Hearthstone and CS:GO. We'll try to just sign top Russian/CIS players in HS and after looking at budget, if we can sign top CIS roster, we'll just go for it. But first of all, I will spend 2-3 months to learn how to shoot in game, how scene works and everything else game-related.



Okay, perfect. Any final words/shoutouts?

Hi, CIS-community, our sponsors - Cougar, thanks to all our partners for helping and aloha to my wife. *laughs*



Thanks!





+ Show Spoiler [Mikhail "Olsior" Zverev] +

What Starladder surely provides is opportunity to sometimes enjoy shoutcasting. When Mikhail "Olsior" Zverev casts a game, I'm surely tuning in. When LoL will finally ascend like Azir did, this kid is truly going to become another posterboy of CIS esports like v1lat has done before.







Long time no see! Let's run down last season, what are your thoughts on teams performance, and the region in general?

Hey, impressions are different. On one hand I think that this season was worst in terms of improvement because only team which actually improved was DWS. CD and Tornado.ROX are using subpar foreigners and their CIS players ain't playing to top form. Solar Wind, YE and Dragon at some point lost all confidence and seemingly didn't care that much about games by the end of season, and HR/Just.MSI just struggled with staffing problems. However, this problem for Just is already old, so result of not making LAN-finals is pretty logical. On other hand, organisation was very solid in my opinion, some can say that LAN was boring and not tense but grandfinal and 5th game saved everything for sure. Also, gonna say that ROX in second day were looking good as well which was nice to see.



Speaking about LAN itself. Were you really impressed by fans? Did you ever doubt that Hard Random could take the win?

So, I like fans everywhere we were - Kiev/St.Petersburg/Moscow/Ekaterinburg/Minsk, can't really separate them. Next, I missed Dairuin/Stejos roster on LAN, without their explosive matches, LAN surely lost quite a bit. Speaking about 5th map of grandfinal, it was truly an incredible coincidence that HR were able to take it out, despite failing their draft and not realising any of strategies.



Cool. Let's speak about all-star roster of season because knowing you, I assume that you have quite a different roster from Genes1s's one

Haha, I disagreed with him instantly after reading article but everyone has right for his own opinion so he just picked very strong players. But anyway:

Toplane - Stejos

Jungle - Lasagna

Mid - Kira

ADC - VincentVega

Support - Likkrit

SUB: Smurf



Even though, I hope that it was last season where sololaners dominated Starladder and next season will give us some improvements in jungle/support level because both Likkrit and Lasagna are in this list not because they played insane but only because there is barely any competition.



Nicely done. Let's move to upcoming Wildcard tournament, I guess. On one hand, HR won title, but, on the other, they had almost no right to win. How will they do in South America?

They can win, without doubt. Most important thing will be groupstage, because dropping there will be big hit on both team and CIS scene in general, but I don't wanna discuss it. *laughs*



However, speaking about possible showdown versus Brazil in grandfinals, in my opinion, chances aren't very good because of lack of time to prepare plus HR's strategies are very one-dimensional right now but when they're trying something new, it doesn't work that well.

I hope though, that two weeks will be enough to fix their problems. If it happens, I'm betting on 3:2 or 3:1 HR in grandfinals, if they're going to have same form as during Starladder LAN, then they're going to win one map at best.



Gotcha. Do you actually think that this HR roster has peaked?

Honestly, I think if they make World Championship, everything should be fine. But right now it looks like that HR peaked during grandfinals in Minsk when Smurf was improving from game to game, Kira and Lex were in prime conditions while Symphony and Dimonko were able to build groundwork for team. However, I don't want to put an end for this roster, I made bunch of similar mistakes in past. *laughs*



If they advance to World Championship, can they sneak a map there?

Considering that even wildcard regions underestimate us a lot, some team can get its own KaBOOM. But outside of this, I don't think so.



Cool. Let's move on to other scene. Last time we spoke, people were on TSM hypetrain, now Fnatic just swept EU LCS. How can possible World Championship go for both?

I think TSM snowballed their problems out of control, that's pretty much what happens when you don't wanna solve neither roster or staff problems. We'll see how it goes for them right now, even though I'm sure that if they get group at Worlds without both Korean and Chinese team, they should advance. Speaking about Fnatic, they're really strong right now and if you want to beat Chinese/Korean teams you better roflstomp your own region. I'm going to throw prediction that if teams in playoffs prepare against Fnatic and can give them run for money, Fnatic will have good chances at Worlds. But if 3:0, 3:0 happens, there is possibility that Fnatic will just come to Worlds without knowing anything about their problems and not having chance of fixing mistakes.



What about North American in general? A lot of people seem to agree that this split was pretty low-level, will they completely collapse on the international stage?

I actually think that there is pretty decent chance for it to happen, region in general looks weak to point that it's not completely out of realm of possibilities for top 1-2 CIS to beat bot-5 NA LCS in bo3/5 *laughs*. Even though, C9 had just disastrous split, I wasn't expecting them to flop that bad without one single player. But Incarnati0n's performance makes me even more eager to watch Apdo on proscene.



Do you really believe in him going pro?

Who knows. But I'm not expecting anything insane from him either if he goes pro.



I see. So, Gambit are on the verge of getting relegated second year in a row. Will they get relegated this time?

Wow. *laughs* I think no, Cabochard is too strong right now plus Diamondprox is tryharding again.



On topic of Diamondprox, do you think that him and Gosu Pepper in Starladder would've been undisputably #1?

Diamondprox would have make any team stronger without doubt. With Pepper it's kinda harder because CIS have average stable supports and sometimes it's more reliable than Pepper who can play tonight as #1 in EU and tomorrow he will perform like he's top-10.



Yea, selling sightstone and starting boots isn't good idea. What is your worldwide dreamteam to face our Starladder allstars?

*laughs* Youngbuck, Diamondprox, Fox, CandyPanda, nRated.



And this is your #1 jungler in CIS. What about real worldwide team?

Huni/Clearlove/PawN/Bang/Yellowstar



That's too hipster.

Look, I'm pissed because of Faker's hype. CoCo is making supermove: "Good job, CoCo, well done". Faker is making supermove: "GOD IS AT IT AGAIN, LOOK AT HIM". That's why he's picking random trash, team is picking midgame skirmish setups and somehow it works.



Any Asian teams you'd like to see at Worlds? Well, besides T1, of course.

*laughs* So, I want Najin as cool tradition, I want CJ Entus because they weren't there since Season 2 and I always liked Savior, Effort, Horangi, Snow and Leta. Also I'd like to see classic Chinese team like OMG but they're more like carnival right now.



What are SKT T1 chances at Worlds actually?

So, let's see. Pretty sure that they have 50 or more % agianst any team, so it's more than enough to get semifinals by default and then we'll see.



One of the final questions I have. What the hell happened with viewership during SLTV finals? Why do we have less than 8-9k during glorious 5 games final?

I swear, if we win Wildcard, it's going to be doubled. *laughs* If not - 1,5x.



You better be right because I want to listen more. Final words/shoutouts?

Hi all, love everyone. A lot of people said that Lasagna came to LAN fatter than usually, however as people say, you can't feed bad jungler enough, he will lose game for you anyway.



Is that it or Lasagna is fat enough to have second part?

Is that it? Lasagna asks this question after 4th Big Tasty. Now that's it, I'm done.





Staff FPL 25 #1 | tfw I cast games on-air | back-to-back Liquibet winner