Q: Okay, now to user's questions. Do you feel more nervous as the TI3 comes closer, just about a week now?
A: Always. If you come and think that you are a winner, you will always lose as I can judge from my own experience. But if you come with a smart approach, rationally judging your strengths and strengths of the enemies, thinking about how it would go, then it becomes easy as the game starts and you do not feel nervous anymore. Right before the game though you always have some weird thoughts in your head.

Q: I am trying to follow Na`Vi's games, watched you at TI2 and maybe this is my personal opinion, but you have some kind of feature that when the game is going the wrong way, even if you are losing still you are not getting lost, trying to maintain an initiative unlike many teams, who goes into full defensive mode. If it's true, who can be given credit for this - if it's Puppey who's encouraging you or..?
A: No, everybody is playing aggressive. The only thing you can do in a situation like this is to create some chaos on the map, then gather as 5 in smoke, kill 2-3 heroes and try to turn back the advantage. If the enemy's team are idiots, they will give away even more and if not complete idiots, they will lessen the pressure even having an advantage and won't react properly to a split push. As a team, we are not accustomed to split push ourselves and what to do in this situation, so we've been losing a lot of games. Our strength is in our teamfight and we use it all the time, but how to force an enemy to fight when he's having an advantage, so you can be in a favorable position - that is where you have to think. For now we manage to do it rather well.

Q: So, in the case of difficult situation you just playing your game. Have you had some moments, when you wanted to throw away your mice, stand and go away?
A: Every second game (laughing).

Q: How do you resist it? Give me an advice because I too am having moments like this, different caliber of course, but give some advice to a players on what to do in this situation.
A: It depends on motivation, what awaits you in the case of victory. If it's a pub...Well, I am trying more in pubs than in official (laughing).

Q: I guess Puppey gave you an angry gaze right now.
A: No, trust me - they know everything. Everything. So they got used to how I play and because we are still playing together, they like it or at least it suits them. Yea, of course sometimes I'm having some kind of relaxation spree, but I'm trying to cope with it. Why these sprees you ask - because you're not always can...Well, what tourney do we play? If it's some kind of 2000$ Cup, what is the point of me playing this tournament if my monthly salary is higher, while I'll have to spend 2 months to play this tourney. So, especially when there is a Losers, you are just running around dying once, twice or thrice and everyone can die like this and then the game is already lost. You cannot force yourself to be collected for every game, and if you will, then you will burn out in the end and will sit and think on why is enemy winning you.

Q: Back to the difficult game situation, when the decision on conceding is made? What's more in your character - fight till the end or?
A: No, we had many situations when we left the game at 10-11 mins, when we understood that comeback is possible, but almost unrealistic. So if the game is not too worthy of efforts or is lost, then we would leave immediately to not waste ours and their nerves. Why finish a game like this, especially when you are losing to such extent that even if you do everything perfectly, an enemy can finish the fight by pressing 1 button and killing you. When it comes to this, when all 5 of you do everything great and then 1 does something on his own, even if it wasn't wrong it can lead to some big quarrels and nuisances. Then it's better to leave, start a new game, do everything right from the get go and not let the situation slip up to a desperate status, then you will win.

Q: You said there is different tourneys with different prize pools and everything else, but there is also a fun tournaments, like ATOD. What is your attitude towards them, do you not need them, not interested?
A: We do not play them. I don't attend them because there is no point to play these tourneys. The guys think the same, we have our own occupations and it's not even a training, not you nor enemy will play seriously, so why do we need them?

Q: But what about a show?
A: There is a showmatches for that. Arrange a BO3 showmatch  for some kind of money and we will come play and make a show, most likely win this match and everyone will be happy.

Q: So, a fun games are not interesting anymore?
A: (starting to get impatient) A tournaments with 2k$ prize pool lasting 2 months is a total idiocy and does not have a sense anymore.

Q: Ok i got it as a matter of priorities. Why I mentioned it is that in comments was written about your style of play, that you often start to joke around, do some weird things, so from a distance it looks like you want to put up a show. Is it true or is it a matter of circumstances, when you wanted to do something serious but it ended up in a disaster?
A: I often do some weird things, but weird for who - I understand what I am doing, but it could go wrong. It could go wrong 10 times, but then it goes right once and we win the game. I must know for myself how far in stupidity,  or not stupidity but risky decision, I can go. This kind of tournaments is where I learn it from, so when it comes to a good tourneys I am prepared to make a move. Everything is very debatable, sometimes I go full retard and I know about it, but I do not care and the guys don't care either. We laugh about this, then go and win. But sometimes there is a situations when I underestimate an enemy or overestimate my strength.

Q: Are you being forgiven for this, because it is your style of play or?
A: Sometimes (laughing). Most of the time everything is fine, but I can remind some moments when we play the winning game, then I go die once, twice, thrice and everything is being destroyed and we lose. Then I look upon them, they get up, nobody says a word, some goes to smoke, some - anywhere else, and I sit there upset. Of course I apologize when I do something totally wrong - guys, everything will be alright! So, that how it goes.

Q: Ok, let's move on.  We are getting many questions about Na`Vi's female team, how familiar are you with them and what is your position towards female Dota? Have you played with any of them?
A: I have, but this is very retarded and will lead to nothing. If I was in charge of female squad, oh how I would recruit (laughing). They maybe wouldn't win anything, but would at least be useful.

Q: Maybe there is at least some good female players?
A: There is none.

Q:  A pity. Well, not only for Dota, girls are striving for cyber sports and trying to display themselves. Do you think there is no point, or is there some Dota-like games, LoL for example, where they can go?
A: No. You have to be engaged for a long time, you can't just come to Dota and start winning, you need a lot of experience. The girls, even if they played it for a long time, never has shown any professionalism, it was just for fun. Maybe there is one, I don't play with every one of them, but I see how they play and don't understand because their overall level is lower than ours, and their movements - one did everything great, another did everything bad and the one who did bad killed the one who did great and what is going on with them, you just sit and think that it would be better to go walk on a street.

Q: The fact is, that the girls are much more emotional. Is it affecting their play?
A: (getting impatient again) I don't know, I don't follow them. What I can remind is that there was a showmatch in StarLadder and in the middle of the game one of them made rampage. Then they paused because they were so happy about rampage, that the game couldn't go on. It's like in football - Messi scored a goal, timeout with Messi going to drink a bottle of bear with his team, everybody is happily kissing, hugging and so on. This is analogue and a heart of female Dota.

Q: Now let's talk serious and get back to Dota. I want to ask you as a professional player about industry itself. You have experience in different cyber sport games, do you not feel irritated that cyber sports is some kind of elitist space, that new games are rare?
A:  I do not need new games, there was already a new game called League of Legends and it screwed up the half of my life. This is our biggest rival, but to be honest there is not much of a rivalry atm. Dota 2 is nothing, every single online LoL tourney have 250k+ viewers, we had 300k+ for AWC but it was pre-TI3 tournament that broke all online records. They have regular streams with 40-50k viewers, we have the same for StarLadder finals. That game is simpler, so when Dota 1 has died and as it had a lot of players all over the world, there was a choice between hardly accessible Dota 2 with charged keys, free HoN and LoL was also free. That is all, but LoL was also much simpler, you had much less variations on what you can do. They've been running tournaments with 20 heroes for 3 years, some innovations once in a 6 months. You can't say the same about Dota, one fix and the whole game changes, or some Goblak comes, pick 5 heroes that nobody is considering and win you in 20 mins. Then you sit and think - I picked 5 firstpick heroes and lost, what shall I do? This is the difference, but for people it's much simpler to play LoL, where after 10 games you will understand everything, while in Dota - how, what, where did he port, what did he cast, how did he transform. So for people not familiar with these games Dota is much harder to get in touch with.

Q: Have you played it yourself?
A: I did play around 150 games and liked it up until certain moment. The moment when you understand, that everything is the same, you can't even deny creeps so all that you can do is to push or not push the lane. You push the lane and go gank, if you don't need to gank then you just stay and hold the lane. They can have 2 kills in the finals, one team gets the buffs and win the game. Everything is fine and there is a lot of opportunities (sarcastic).

Q: Speaking about 20 LoL heroes, do you not get irritated that Dota have some stable hero pool too?
A: Not at all!

Q:  Do you not want to see some Riki or Ursa get picked?
A: Lol, but they are getting picked, that's the cool thing that Dota has much larger pool of heroes. There is always some unknown teams like Quantic, recently we've scrimmed against them and they had Lich, Viper, Treant, some other weird shit and Weaver was the only hero, considered mainstream. They had this lineup and we had everything we wanted, like Batrider and Wisp, and they won us.

Q: So you want to say that Techies will get picked as well?
A: It will. Everything depends on how much you are willing to risk and how broad is your imagination in how to use this hero and what role to assign. If you just pick some Riki mid against Akasha, the outcome would be obvious. If you have some idea behind your picks, then you can win.

Q: You mentioned some teams like Quantic. So the variety - is there any dependencies on your style of play, your mood, where do you play? Because I might be wrong, but in the TI2 iG has played same picks the whole tournament.
A: They played and won, that is all. We were picking and trying something, and won the games we needed only because of this. We needed some motivation because we couldn't play them with default picks, we didn't train it while they played it 500 billion times against each other, and they knew every second on what to do and where to go. We picked some chaos and started to win, then tried to play their Dota and went 1:1, then we were afraid to pick some heroes, but they gave us the heroes we wanted, so we took some old strat and won. In the finals the fatigue has caught upon us, because we played Winner finals then had 6 hours of rest, we were eating, sleeping but you must not do it. Then they wake me up and say - go play the finals! Ok!

Q: You mentioned about food and sleep, but what about regimen in such tournaments, what can you do and what not? Tell us about your regular International day before quarter-finals per say.
A: Wake up, eat some light food with coffee and go to the venue. You must be there 1-1.5 hours before your game, so you can not worry and stay with fresh mind. It would be good to know what awaits you, which picks your enemy do favor, how they play. Then you go play, get up after the game and do your own stuff, you do not need to watch anything, it's better to watch from hotel. We were watching from v1lat's room and it was ok, but with everybody in the hall you wanted to sleep, especially when Chinese were playing and they had like 2:1 score at 40 mins, bloody war all around the map, Sylar killed 700 creeps, BurNIng killed 900, the victory is near. That's how the day goes by. The most difficult part was when we had a lot of games, if they are going with some breaks, then the first game you play at 100%, the second one at 50% because you was already sitting and waiting, got tired, shaped up then got tired again, and went to play again after 8 hours. Everything was fine up until the finals, but then they played 5 hours with 2:1 map score, each lasting 60+ mins. Lost went to sleep, I've tried to sleep too, Smile slept too, only Dendi and Puppey were running. It was our fault, but it's not the best possible scenario from organizers.

Q: There was a question about number 4 in your nick. As I understand there was some top and you placed 4th...
A: Noo, it would be very commendable for me (laughing). If I was top4, it would be a real compliment from them, they would raise me up so high. In fact it was much worse, they had some list or rating of the carries, I wasn't even put in the list of European carries, that's how bad I am. But there at AWC they had some system of rating each team, each team was given 5 or 6 categories, such as teamplay, solomid, creativity and so on. We had something like 9-9-9-8-8 and carry - 4. So out of 10 I scored 4. That it, won 2 ESWC, TI2011, bunch of StarLadders...

Q: Wasn't you offended?
A: I was. This caster is a full idiot, I don't know how to deal with him. I had gone in confrontation with him a long time ago, so maybe he was taking his revenge. He was trying to adequately explain the reasoning behind that rating, but it was laughable. I was really offended because this tournament was high-ranked, there is a difference when forum people tell me something like this, and when it's an overall rating with 3 people behind it, who all agreed on this. But the life is hard.

Q: What is your personal opinion on your role and who would you give respect to, who do you consider the best farmer?
A: It's hard to say. With how people play atm, i would mention Hao, he is very strong. Everybody else is the same, nothing changed. Chinese have different understanding of Dota and teamplay, they have one guy who farms, farms, farms, then goes and kill everyone. While for us when something goes wrong or something goes right, they tell - come with us!, then we are running as 5. You will not have high GPM or many creeps if you running as 5, especially when not many fights are successful. So, when it comes to late game farm, I will lose to Chinese because they only play like this. I can't say that I fear anybody, but it's better if we play our game instead of adjusting to them.

Q: What is your favorite heroes, which ones do you like to play and which ones - don't, which ones do you wait? For example Puppey would pick you something, that you go - oh my..!
A: I don't like anything he's picking for me, except for Naix. Naix is a hero of that kind, that you can go and solo kill somebody, I like that. Alchemist is ok too, but the enemies might give Alche such start, that they will solo kill you at the end. I don't like Gyro, well no - he is on the same level, but he's also very team-dependent, so if you won't do some smart movements as a team, your Gyro will be totally useless.

Q: So, sometimes you want independence?
A: Always, I always want it, every second I must resist the temptation to go, because now teams are learned to play good, so they will react to your aggression. Before I could be doing whatever I wanted, jump under the towers and they reacted only after a minute that they must kill this wanderer. But now whenever you go somewhere, there's 5 instant TP's, smokes, invis and so on. They kill you, so you have to go with the guys and farm cautiously. Everything goes back to China.

Q: Ok, the last question - what are you awaiting from Dota, what would you want to change?
A: I like it as it is. I often talk to IceFrog and he speaks his thoughts on why he made this or that. There is some kind of balance, that they want to retain. I like or don't like some changes, but in general Dota is a great game as it is.

Q: Thank you.
A: Thank you for the invitation, thanks to everybody who listened, hope I didn't disappoint you much this time, thanks to our sponsors, thanks to our fans and haters, you make my life more fun.