OpTic Gaming are coming to StarLadder ImbaTV Minor straight from DAC where they made it to top 8. We’ve talked to Ludwig “zai” Wåhlberg on the media day in Kiev and he shared his opinion on the Dota Pro Circuit schedule, the tournament formats and the Techies waiting room.

Hello Zai, how do you feel on this lovely sunny spring day in Kiev?

I feel pretty good, thanks for asking. We came here straight from Shanghai where we played a lot of Dota. We’ve been there for about two weeks, we didn’t get super far in the tournament but we are still pretty happy with our placement there. So, coming from DAC here, at StarLadder we feel pretty good.

You just said that you’ve played a lot of Dota in Shanghai and I’d like to talk to you a little bit about the tournament formats. A lot of players voiced their complaints about some of the Majors having too few games. What would you say would be a perfect balance between, let’s say, the bo1 round robin leading into single elimination playoffs from Bucharest and the DAC bo1 into breakout round into double elimination playoffs?

I think DAC had the best format from all the events this year, apart from the fact that the lower bracket was best-of-one. That was the only negative side of DAC but the group stage was pretty long and we all got to play a bunch of games. That’s always good for the teams because if you are not good enough to win a tournament at least you get to play a lot of games and improve as a team.

Right, this leads me to the next question. The large audience tends to assume that the teams get to scrim and practice a lot before coming to a tournament, so it shouldn’t matter if you have to play a bo1 elimination match or a bo3 series because you are theoretically prepared, you are ready for anything. Is it really like that?

No, not really. Nowadays it is really hard to find time to practice in between tournaments. The way it’s been throughout this entire year is you go to a tournament, then you have one or two days of travel to go back home, right after you get home you have to play qualifiers for another event and immediately after you have to travel to another tournament, sometimes you even finish the last games in some qualifiers while you are in an event and so on.

The schedule has been very busy and very hectic and it hasn’t been easy at all to find time to practice. Most of the time you have to come up with stuff outside the practice, and you end up testing things out in the actual events.

I see, and on top of all what you just said, sometimes you have to deal with a new hero addition to the Captain’s Mode on the first or second day of a tournament. What are your thoughts on how things happened with the latest patches?

I like that we have more patches, it’s very good for the game, but yeah, the fact that they come during tournaments, like it happened in Romania and at DAC, and now, most probably it will happen at StarLadder as well, it’s kind of weird. Especially that in the last two patches we had new heroes added to CM which switched things up a bit. But at the same time, I think it makes it really fun for the viewers and sometimes for players too. So, I’m a bit so and so, I kinda like it but it’s pretty strange.

Ok, so Dark Willow was first, Pangolier second and the one only one missing is Techies, what do you think, will he be added this Thursday?



I don’t know, I’m not sure, to be honest, but we all kind of assuming that Techies is coming. If not this week, maybe next patch.

Do you think he is ready for CM?



Yes, I think so. He is not as game-changing as he used to be. He still has a few elements that are pretty crazy but I think he is quite balanced now. I think he will be a nice addition actually.





I take from your answer that you like Techies?

Yes, I like it.

Ok, through your career you’ve switched from offlane to support a few times, which one do you prefer the most to play?

When I used to play offlane, the game was a bit different, the offlane was more free as a whole, the team wasn’t so dependent on the offlane hero. Most of the times you would just drop a hero there and hoped for the best while nowadays you have to make sure that your offlane hero is doing great. It’s a lot different than when I was playing in the offlane. I’m playing position 4 for a while now and I kinda like it. It’s also the best for our team. For me personally, it’s like whatever, I can play 3 or 4, but I want to play what’s the best for us as a team.



OpTic had a slow start but you guys improved with every tournament you attended. Your results improved from 9-12 in Katowice to top 8 in Bucharest, then again top 8 at DAC, do you feel ready to finally break into the top 4, where the DPC points are?

Yeah, I think so. We progressed a lot through the last 2-3 months. We learnt a lot from all the tournaments we played in and especially from DAC.

Do you have a team here at StarLadder that you really want to play against?

The two best teams that we had in our mind coming here were VGJ Thunder and Fnatic but Fnatic are playing now with a stand-in so I’m not too sure anymore about how strong they are, but still, these two teams are the ones we look forward to play against.

Ok, VGJ Thunder are in your group so you have a chance tomorrow to play versus them. Thanks a lot for taking the time to talk to me and good luck in the tournament. Any shout outs?

Shout to OpTic and to the Kiev fans. It’s been a couple of years since I last played in the Kiev Cybersports Arena, I’m super excited to come back there, it’s a nice arena.