Interview with compLexity’s Stand-in monkeys-forever

The offlaner for compLexity’s DOTA 2 team had some time before The Boston Major 2016 to sit down for a short interview.

Courtesy of compLexity Gaming

Jaron ‘monkeys-forever’ Clinton is a professional DOTA 2 player from the United States, currently playing position 3 for compLexity Gaming as a stand-in.

I was fortunate enough to work in a team with monkeys-forever several months back, and wanted to get the chance to interview him first.

“Jaron, thanks for taking a few moments out of your busy day to sit down with me. How’ve you been man?”

I’ve been doing well, traveling a lot and all.

“In a couple sentences, explain to the people that might not know you, who monkeys-forever is.”

My names Jaron, I’ve been playing dota for around 13 years and I just simply really enjoy the game. I got into the competitive scene seriously maybe about 2 years ago.

“I know you played mid for a very long time, and now you’re playing the offlane — Are you enjoying it, and why or why not?”

Yeah I have been enjoying offlane quite a lot, it fits my playstyle a lot more than mid. I really enjoy initiating heroes and those heroes fell off of mid quite a while ago, so overall I think offlane suits me.

“Who’s your favorite offlaner to play at the moment?”

Without a doubt, Batrider.

“I’ve heard the compLexity teams have always seemed to be close friends, how has it been initially playing with the team, and just being around them in general over the past few weeks?”

It’s been great. Very intense, but in a good way. I have learned a lot already from them and really enjoy hanging out after scrims and such. Overall I like the atmosphere. All of us take the game very seriously, and we all criticize each other a lot to make sure everyone continues to improve.

“What about specifically Moo? I know you guys played together on Team Archon during the Shanghai Major.”

Moo and I have always been friends, and I’m happy to be playing with him again. We both know each other’s heroes and playstyles very well so that helps with the team dynamic.

“How excited are you personally to be playing in The Boston Major?”

I am ecstatic! It’s difficult to not be excited to be playing at such an event.

“Can you give a little bit of insight to how you guys are preparing for it?”

As a team we are scrimming as much as possible, and talking to each other about what needs to be improved and what we’re happy with. We watch replays together and make sure we understand how we want to win games. Personally, I’ve just been watching a lot of offlaners that share similar hero pools to me, so I can understand their decisions and how they work with their team.

“Well I’ll keep it rather short and leave it at that. Thanks again for joining me. I look forward to seeing you play on the big stage and wish you guys the best of luck.”

Thanks! I look forward to playing :)

Be sure to watch Jaron and compLexity play at The Boston Major 2016 from December 3rd-10th.

You can follow monkeys-forever and compLexity Gaming on Twitter below.