XBOCT interview to Grind.fm June 27 2013


Q: Hi, how are you?
A: Not bad, training.

Q: Training to TI3?
A: Of course to TI3, what else? Dota today is like this - you do nothing whole year, play here and there and then you have a month till TI3 and you try to reach best form and win this tournament. Anything else doesn't matter.

Q: Ok, first of all talk about yourself. Many of your fans and people who play Dota, knows about you only from your Dota career. So tell us where have you been born, where did you study, your hobbies besides Dota and how do you manage to combine them.
A: I have been born in Yalta, I am 22 year old, turning 23 this year. I have been living in Yalta until 17 years old, studied in school and so on. Started to play Dota in 8th class, before that I have played WC3, CS, Lineage, everything that I could get money from. Then I have gone to Kiev and everything started from some obscure tourneys from 1v1 to 3v3. I went to Trade and Economics University, studied so so because I'm lazy and Dota interfered as well. I was at 3rd grade in Uni when it raised to a normal level, when Na`Vi have been created and my interests went in completely different direction.

Q: Nobody has seen you in Uni i guess.
A: No, I've been going there and passed all exams without paying for anything. Passed everything myself, using tricks and so on - helped here and there, or the girls in my class have been helping me. I have finished Uni and Master's degree a year ago.

Q: Do you have any interests besides computer games? Because it's a common impression about cyber athletes, that they sit behind their PC at home or in training house, or they travel to tournaments.
A: Well, now my life have gone to the stereotype you've described, but before I've been doing sports up till 2nd grade, then stopped because Dota takes too much time, and besides that you want to relax, go to some barbecue, spend evening at some restaurant or night club.

Q: So, the friends can still see you.
A: Yea, I spend much time in Dota and besides scrims I play on my own to maintain form, but all my spare time, all free days and evenings i spend with my friends. I often travel to Yalta where I have unplugged Internet and everything. My mom doesn't use it, so I'm unreachable for 7 days or so.

Q: Do you feel like a caveman in those moments?
A: Oh no, I'm feeling great. It's the best time it could be. First of all, all of my childhood friends have gone back, some finished studies, some working there and it's a summer, so there's plenty to do and secondly - we have shared memories and places, friendly atmosphere all around.

Q: What your friends think about your hobby, are they supportive and positive, or have they been calling and screaming at you?
A: Like 60-70% of my male friends have been playing themselves, the ones who didn't, knew that I've been playing and everything felt ok, because almost all of young people are playing some computer games. Of course I spent more time on this, but seems it paid off.

Q: About payback. You mentioned before, that when you have been playing not only Dota but in general, you searched for a ways to make some money. So, you took gaming serious from the get go, not only as a sport but as a way to make money, or was it just for fun and money was just a side effect?
A: It was a free money, why not especially when you have fun playing the game? Be it CS, Lineage, Quake or Dota, i have fun playing them all.

Q: Do you have some achievements besides Dota?
A: Some time ago at WCG 2004 or 2005 I took 4th place in WC3 in Ukraine. Then we had some tourneys in Crimea and I have been going and winning them, CS included. As for Dota, we had a hometown team before Na`Vi  and we had been going to the tournaments and it was the most memorable time. There was no sponsor, nobody knows about you, you are a "darkhorse" among Dota stars and you watching them play. Now you are going to the tournaments as heavy favorite and the feeling is not the same.

Q: Don't you feel relaxed going as a favorite, where everybody is fearing you?
A: No, it's the opposite. You come to a tournament and everybody wants to play their best strats against you, play at 180000% and it can very well lead to your defeat. If the enemy is bad or if you are in the best form, then yea - there is no chance. But if people have been preparing, like for TI3 for example...We'll go right now and I fear to imagine what will be thrown at us.

Q: There is also a groupstage, so i can imagine it will be hard from the day 1.
A: We will see how it goes.

Q: Talking about Na`Vi. It is not a secret, that you are with your team atm.
A: Yea, we have been scrimming and took a break for this interview. They are all sitting here doing their own stuff, 2 playing pubs, 1 watching SC2 and 1 watching some German stuff. Don't know what he's seeing (laughing).

Q: About a team, first question - Dota is a team game as we can learn from pub chat, and I want to ask on how it's difficult because you said you've been playing WC3. How it's difficult to play in a team, remember your role and not try to take other's. How difficult it is, how do you cope with your personal role and how did you come to it?
A: To be honest I didn't want to play Dota at the beginning. It was around 8 years ago when it was downloaded in our local LAN cafe, and I was playing WC3. I went there and there was 15 PC's and 14 of them were playing Dota, while I came to play WC3. All of my LAN friends started to tell me to come play with them, but I didn't want to, because there is 5 people and any one of them can ruin your game. I hated it. In WC3 I was on my own, and if I had to lose I knew it was my own fault. But later I understood that WC3 had no perspectives in my city, so I switched to Dota, but played for fun only and only after a 1.5-2 years there was held some tourney in Simferopol, so we went there and won.

Q: What was your role in that team?
A: I was mid.

Q: How it's happened that you started to play carry? Also, wouldn't you want to be Na`Vi's captain?
A: No. I don't like captain's role because I don't like to take responsibility. Not in the way that I would not perform, I will do my part of the job done, but to dictate others and then there will be quarrels about what you have told other player to do or what he did on his own. And there is a choice - either he should listen to you or to himself, and I don't want to argue because I understand that every player are an individual and he will think on his own. But Puppey can manage it. Of course he have his own default problems, but overall we do fine as you can see. We have a rule that we all listen to each other, but when captain speaks, we all go quite and do what he said. This is the only way to win anything.

Q: Was it easy for you to get used to that system?
A: When you are winning...Trust me, we had such quarrels that you wouldn't ever want to see or take part of it, sometimes just on the edge of a man fight. But overall, when taking reasonable route and lessening emotions, we do fine. We had a slump and when you are losing - you think that you must do this but you've been told to do that, and you did as you wanted and it went good. But in the end, if everyone would do this, it would be just around 20-30% of good actions and 70% - bad ones. In the end you still lose and go back to that default obeyance.

Q: In the case of success and victories, is there a situation when all the glory goes to one player?
A: It happens, but not for me (laughing).

Q: That's exactly what I wanted to ask - someone says "Oh Dendi won that game!", but if the team is losing its "XBOCT hasn't farmed and carried!" Have you got used to it, getting offended or not and is there any discussion within a team about it?
A: We laugh about it. All of them do understand it is not true because all of them are participating in the game, and if we lost then it's because all of us did something wrong. It is possible to lose a game by yourself, but it's hard. Of course I have managed to do even that (laughing), but...There is a steady crowd opinion and you can do nothing with it. I don't care but take approach to every game, and especially an important one, that if we win then it's a team effort and if we lose - it is my fault. That's how it was for some time and everybody were repeatedly saying this and of course it was obnoxious, but I understood that 80% of people that sit on forums and post comments are idiots. Their opinion is like storm - one direction and they love you, other one and you ruined their lives and should have been kicked to begin with.

Q: About kicks, how do you treat that after each loss everybody is screaming - kick, kick, kick XBOCT! As I can see you are cool about it.
A: As you can see I've not been kicked. Actually, I want to see how a team would function with the change of a particular player.

Q: Are you a conceited person?
A: No, not much.

Q: So, all the talks about - this one carried or that one carried, do not affect you that much.
A: No, of course I'd like to see that people love me as well, but I have enough glory and respect from my fans, many of whom I know in person or through Internet, and they would say objective things to me.

Q: What do you think about roster changes. Team is a very closed society of friends and concerning the last roster change, can you say in all honesty if it was hard?
A: It's hard to talk about, is always displeasant to lose a people and change something, but when you understand that there is a need of changes, you have to accept it and move to something new, live a new hopes and try to fulfill them. To be honest, we interacted with Lost only about the game. When we were on a bootcamp, we've talked a bit about some personal stuff, but can't say that we were a good friends. On the other hand, we were the best friends with Smile and we still are.

Q: There were some pictures...
A: Yea, exactly these pictures (laughing). He is a good guy and as a person in real life I wouldn't want any other in a team, but in the recent time he had some disciplinary problems. But it wasn't from my part, so I feel no guilt or anything.

Q: So, do you separate a work and personal relations?
A: Yea sorry, when there is a few tournament winnings on the line so I can do my own stuff further on and think of nothing, I see no problems. Of course I will not earn that much to ensure for the rest of my life, but I can give myself a very good start. Or I can just sit...Well, first of all when you are winning, you are in a good mood and everything is fine in life and you are not lazy and not having depression. But when you lose, then it can cause other problems, including personal and so on. That's why we had to change. But I say once again - it was a global decision and not dependent on my opinion.

Q: Then a related question - how easy was to get along with the new squad, to get used to a new people and what is the atmosphere right now within a team?
A: It was hard to get used to, first of all because it was a language change, it's unpleasant on its own and it was unusual because the last 2 years we were playing and communicating in Russian. Puppey was learning Russian for 2 years and then we went back to English. I can't say that anybody on the team doesn't know English, we can speak well enough to communicate in Dota and in real life we speak English when we refer to him (Kuroky), and we try to make him interested in our company. But sometimes, you first instinct when you see a hero and need something to do quick, you will shout it in Russian. But he can already understand the majority of what we say, such as - focus Lanaya!, he will understand it in Russian or English or any other language. So, right now it's a much better. And about forming a team, I and many others wanted for Funn1k to come, I was hanging with him for a long time and wanted it to be him, if it was to replace either Smile or Lost. He was getting used at first because we have a very different from Empire style of play, and we gave him somewhat different role. It was around 1.5-2 months until he got used, but now he has improved a lot and are playing on par with any other.

Q: I don't know if you can or want to answer this question, but do you think if a level of the team has raised or not?
A: No, the level are still the same, but the motivation has changed and people started to play and wants to play. So, you can see that even in their spare time many play pubs or practice their heroes. As it was - when we haven't had someone online, the one would refuse to play without 5, the other would say - ok then, i gotta go and don't wait me for a 3 days, so we never trained.

Q: So you can say that the level of discipline has raised.
A: As we are winning last tournaments, I can say it's not going too bad.

Q: About the last tournaments - lets talk about trip to China, how the decision was made to go and play there and what was your opinion on that?
A: I don't know, I take part in their discussions only when I'm in Kiev, but I was in Yalta for a week, so they called me and asked to come Skype. I had no Internet there, so I either had to go to a friend or to a LAN cafe or to connect via mobile phone. I don't take tabletPC anywhere, so I didn't came and didn't know about this decision until came back. Well, I knew we will be going some time in the future, but no dates or what we will do there or anything.

Q: So, you was put before the fact that we are going to China and then we will see how it goes.
A: No, I was asked before if I want to go to China and I answered that no more than for a 2 weeks, because I was 3 times in China before and I was about to die the first 2, and the 3rd one was about the same. So I didn't want to linger there for a while and even 2 weeks was a bit too long for me, but when they said there will be a tourney and not just scrimming, I agreed with pleasure. This tournament gave us a lot, we came up with the new strats, new "old" strats, we became more solid in our play. When we came, it was kind of disaster in a group and we were like those Euros - hahaha lets play, it does not work, you are an idiot, you can't play, you are not right, bye bye! But then we gathered and talked about the situation and it led us to a victory.

Q: Post factum, can you say if this trip was necessary or not? Was it a new experience or what?
A: Of course it was necessary. It was another acquaintance with China, what they can and how they position themselves and so on.

Q: We are getting closer to TI3, so if you remember the last year China were favorites and it was regarded, that they will be champions.
A: I wouldn't say so.

Q: Interesting, and what was your opinion?
A: Before the tournament - yes, China, fear and so on. But during the tournament you understand, that they aren't doing anything supernatural and that they are very immobile. All in all, they had their weaknesses which we didn't punish, because we were afraid even more and because of that we lost.

Q: I remember that one of you said, when you went to TI 2011 and saw the level of play, you already knew that the victory will be yours. In 2012 it was different, if I'm correct?
A: Yeahh, you saw how they play and thought that everything would be very difficult. We had problems in a groupstage and we had a hard time recovering and shaping ourselves. But we managed to do it to the end of the group, ended up in Winners bracket and went in the Winners till the end.

Q: Can you say that this Alienware was some kind of repetition before TI3, something to help at the actual event and can you make any predictions, based on its results?
A: No you cannot. What do you mean by repetition? It's an online tourney in China, you came to see how they play, they saw how you play. Yes we won, we understood that we are capable and can win, but not us nor them has shown anything extraordinary, as how we won 3-2 they could have won too.

Q: Just before you Alliance went to China and won, you went there and won too, but the whole community are still afraid of Chinese. There is no logic behind this, so the question is - why?
A: You will see at TI3. I hope that Alliance will go through and accompany us, but when you'll see 6 of 8 Chinese teams in Winner bracket, then you will get why they are afraid. They are not fools, yes they lost but when Alliance came and if by that time TI3 happened, Alliance would have won it without a sweat because nobody was ready for their picks, mobility and their style of play. Chinese didn't know how to ban and what to pick against them. When we came, only through rough defeats and thorn path we understood what to pick, how to play and where to go and we managed to get to the finals. It was already much more difficult. And at TI3 itself it will be 3x more difficult because they took into account everything and will be fighting to death.

Q: So the caliber of TI3 and AWC is incomparable and the teams will play more serious and the preparation itself...
A: Of course (laughing).

Q:  Then I want to ask about preparations for regular tourney and preparations for TI3 - what's the difference, do you watch other teams play and how?
A: I don't. Kuroky and Puppey are watching, Dendi and Funn1k too, but I'm watching only sometimes when there is something interesting or I have nothing to do. To me it's not much fun to even play when there's nothing interesting, but to watch is even worse, because you see what teams are doing and sometimes they are doing totally retarded stuff, and then you lose to them and realize how bad or stupid can you be to lose to these guys.

Q: There is many predictions for TI3, I don't think you can give concrete answer but who will be strong, who should be feared the most?
A: LGD, iG, TongFu. I don't know about Alliance, we don't train with them and what do I see in officials is that they don't understand at all what is going on in this game, so I can't say anything about Alliance. But I can say about Chinese for sure, that they will play very good, very very good. That's all my predictions.

Q: I see. The next question is about CIS Dota - as I know VP are having some problems with Visas...
A: They will go (laughing).

Q: What can you say about them? I want to know your opinion because I've read lot of stuff on forums.
A:  I don't know. I didn't watch their games, when I was in China I've watched only Chinese, no StarLadder or anything, and when I came back there was no decent tournaments, and when there were games I haven't seen them because I took rest for 2 days and then we started to train, and nobody plays right now.