Back to Black^

Going into the quals, how confident were you that CIS would make the playoffs?

Many people, including myself did not think we could get top 4. In the groupstage, let alone in the whole qualifier. However I did not give up hope and tried to encourage my teammates, who were really nervous, because they played on a stage like this for the first time that day. The first day was really shaky, but then they managed to focus and bring their A-game when it was needed. Whenever I go to a tournament, I think it's important to tell yourself that you're going to win, even if its unrealistic or hard to imagine, otherwise you will already feel a disadvantaged at the start of the match. Before the qualifiers, we also had a really up and down performance, beating many good teams but losing out to many of the *weaker* teams. We lost at WPC and did not make it into the playoffs, so this was all out for us.

What was your mentality going into the final day of play? How did you guys choose to prepare when faced with both Dream Time and LGD on the same day, and what was the thinking behind your approach to each series?

We knew how DT like to play. They always play the same style, so our plan was to play their style, but try to do it better than them. The series went to a third game, but in all honesty I think we lost the second game only because of the nerves, we made many uncharacteristic mistakes that ended up costing us the game. In the end we managed to beat them 2-1 and it was a very big relief. Then the game vs LGD, I am not sure why, but we completely let go of the way we played and were successful with in the rest of the qualifiers. We tried out things we didn't try out before and overall just played much worse than before. It was almost like we did not give 100% anymore after having ensured our way to Seattle and I was very upset about it. I want to apologize for this, because we did not put up a good fight. I believe the best way to beat LGD right now, is with splitpush. The ONLY game they lost in the entire tournament was to splitpush and that's where many people thought their weakness lies. So that should have been our gameplan.

If you could go back and play your series vs LGD again, would you draft or play any differently? Why? Why not?

Definitely! We should have played our original style which got us so far in the first place and with which we beat LGD during the groupstage. Yao even came to me after the game and asked what happened and why we let go of that and in all honesty.... I really can't explain it either. I'm really sorry for that and I cannot promise that we will win the playing match in Seattle, because the competition will be fierce. However, I can promise you that we will practice very hard and give it our all to obtain the chance to play in the main tournament.

What is the biggest lesson you learnt from this tournament?

The biggest lesson I learned from this tournament was to always keep fighting, no matter how bad a situation might look. We had our bad games, but we stayed strong as a team and managed to overcome many obstacles. Not many people expected them to be able to play as well as they did and they should be proud of themselves!

You played some Puck and Axe in the finals vs LGD, but your most played heroes in the tournament were carries like Morphling and Antimage. Do you prefer playing the harder carries or is it also your goal to get more experience on mid heroes and other carry/semi-carry picks?

I would definitely like to expand my hero pool as well as the experience I have with those heroes. I like playing mid as well as carry and we have about a month to prepare for the TI. I'm not sure what the future brings, but I like both roles just as much! Also, dunking people with Axe is a really good feeling, only the second best though, as a good old AM ultimate beats everything. The sound effect itself is amazing!

How do you feel about how teams drafted during the tournament in general? Anything unexpected that turned up a lot?

Not really unexpected. Teams went for safe drafts and tried to play as safe as possible. I really liked the draft of LGD.CDEC though, they put Morphling middle and let Puck farm a fast blink dagger on the safelane, which really turned the early game around for them!

What do you make of Brewmaster at the moment? He seems to be showing up a lot, but his WR is pretty low as well (6-11 in the CN quals). Why do you think this is?

I consider Brewmaster as a little bit overrated right now. He is INCREDIBLE in the right lineup, but people try to pick him into almost all lineups now and that just doesn't work. I think LGD is a good example of how to pick and utilize him really well!

You guys and many other teams have been playing a lot of Antimage and Morphling and it's starting to feel like TI2 again! Do you think we'll continue to see these heroes picked at TI4 proper as well?

Well, overall those 2 carries are just the safest choices DotA 2 offers and I think many of the inexperienced teams just wanted to have as little risk as possible. The heroes are definitely viable and strong, however you can't rely on them all the time. I think TI4 will feature the two heroes, but I don't think it will be like at TI2 where they were permanently picked.

Which as yet underpicked hero(es) will we see during TI4?

I think a hero that's really underpicked for what's it worth is Io. Let's say you have a Lifestealer, Io, Furion and any other two heroes. no matter who gets ganked, you can instantly be 5 people at the place you want to be. Every hero has to be scared constantly if you have a good setup stun. Other than that I think Bloodseeker as well as Kunkka will see a lot of play. Bloodseeker, with the right lineup I think he can be very very strong and it shouldn't be hard to build a lineup around him. Kunkka has, in my eyes at least, one of the strongest ultimates in the whole game, it makes your entire team take 50% less damage and it's not unlikely that a fight is over after 10 seconds. On top of that he has one of the best repositioning spells in the whole game and pretty good burst damage as well.

How do you rate your chances in the TI4 Play-Ins?

It's hard to predict, 4 different regions, so mostly four different styles will emerge from it. It's going to a battle of who can adapt better. We have about one month to train and I hope we can get a lot more versatile till then! All the teams in the play-in are strong and have strategies made up for this one chance, so I would say our chance to qualify is 25%. :D

Speaking of training, how is that going? Run us through an average day in the life of a CIS player!

In the morning I go to the gym and work out and play Badminton for about two hours. When I get to our base I take a shower and then I practice till about midnight (not necessarily with the team, just playing DotA or watching replays etc) and then I go sleep. We have 2 food breaks 30 minutes each.

Let's talk about communication. In his recent interview with Sgamer , June spoke about some communication gaps you guys have been having, like your AM dying to an urn charge. Do you feel there is a lapse in communication? How have you guys been working on this overall?

Mmmm, we do not really have big problems to communicate most of the time. That time was just very unfortunate, because I was talking very very fast I kind of ate my own words so they didn't understand me, haha. That was the first time I died because of it though! As to how am I working on it, I can't afford a Chinese teacher, because that's very expensive. So I'm learning online!

What do you feel is the biggest difference between Chinese and Western teams at the moment?

The biggest difference I feel like is that Chinese teams just try to approach the game in a much safer way. That's also the reason why a lot of people call Chinese DotA very boring compared to the Western DotA. Possibly the average skill level in China might be a bit higher too, but I'm not too sure about that one!



Where would you place yourself in comparison to other Chinese carries at the moment? What areas of your play do you feel you have to improve the most in the run up to TI4?



That's a tough one! When it comes to farming and efficiency I would place myself relatively high amongst the Chinese carries. When it comes to teamfight execution however I am still far behind most of the Chinese Tier 1 carries. However in that department I improved a lot ever since I got to China. I try to interact with my team more and I've gotten a better feeling as to when they need me and when they don't.



You are one the only Western player at the moment to gel and play successfully with a Chinese team. How has the experience been? Would you recommend it to other Western players?

The experience wasn't all that great, because LGD.int wasn't really successful and broke up after a short time and then i was basically teamless for about 4-5 months... however I believe that was just an unfortunate turn of events and I would definitely recommend others to come to China! They will need to bring their will to learn another language though, because if they don't it will be really difficult for them.

Credits:

Interviewer: riptide

Editors: riptide, Nights

Photo via: Interviewer: riptideEditors: riptide, NightsPhoto via: gk99

For the longest time, Black^ was a Western carry with a lot of unrealised potential. An excellent farmer, he was once criticised for being too passive, and for some reason never seemed to find a break in the West. His move to China last year to play with LGD.int was met with mixed responses from the community, and the fact that the team disbanded soon after meant that he wound up thousands of miles from home, with no team in sight.But Dominik persisted. After being picked up by CIS , he began the long process of building a great team from the ground up. One milestone in that process, of course, was CIS qualifying for TI4 . Today, he talks to TL about his journey so far, and the road that lies ahead of him.