eSdom.eu: Hey Ryze, please introduce yourself to our community:

Ryze: Hello. I am Ryze and I play for the all-danish team monkeybusiness (ex-nevo). Thanks for making this interview.

eSdom.eu: How did it all start for you. When and where did you first time play Dota?

Ryze: It started last year in 2010. I played Dota Pride with link and got noticed by Maelk. He trusted in me and I got to play practice/standin games with MYM and later attended my first LAN tournament with a danish mix team (maelk, mania, pusher, me & misery). Maelk & co are legends. Playing with MYM was a dream come true. Maelks trust in me made me trust myself and it helped me grow as a player. After winning DSrack I planned on going inactive and parted ways with link. link then joined NE.PENTIA.

eSdom.eu: Could you ever imagine on the beginning you would go so far? I mean most of the players start playing just for fun. Did you expect to play in one of the best European teams one day?

Ryze: No, this was never my intentions. A couple of weeks after Nirvana.my had defeated EHOME in 2010, I faced them with a mix-team at the Razer Global Challenge and we took a game against them with my 30mins-full item sniper. From then on I knew I had the potential to go far.

Shortly after going inactive, I got contacted by syndereN about making a team with him, miGGel and AngeL - simply to play a couple of casual games from time to time. Half a year later we participate at the biggest tournament in the history of eSports, The International. Hardly casual ;)

eSdom.eu: Recently you managed to place in top2 on the ESWC DotA qualifiers. How was the qualifier in your opinion?

Ryze: Na`Vi is always a challenge.

eSdom.eu: So, now you have paid travel expenses on ESWC. Will you practice DotA2 as a team for it, cause we all heard ESWC will be a DotA 2 tournament.

Ryze: We have tournaments in both DotA1 and DotA2 - so we'll practice both.

eSdom.eu: Most of the community was not satisfied with your result on Gamescom. What about you? Were you satisfied with it?

Ryze: No, not at all. We couldn't communicate during our matches, so we decided to play farm-based games. In hindsight it would have been a better decision to play the ganking strategies that we'd prepared for the event. It didn't help that we were to face Na`Vi (#1) and Scythe (#3) already in the groupstages.
We will gather as much LAN experience as possible and be ready for 2012.

eSdom.eu: Even though you didn't have the chance to play against Chinese on that tournament, you played against Scythe.SG (now MYM) and MUFC. Do you think that there is still a gap skill-wise between the Asians (mainly Chinese) and Europeans in DotA. We all saw that Na'Vi won the tournament, but in a new game where many reasons could come in my mind, like Chinese training less, or not having proper PC's to play the Game.

Ryze: It depends on version, stability of the team, amount of practice and luck. If the International were to be played in DotA1 instead of DotA2, MYM(Maelk, Misery, Playmate, DeMoN, MaNia- & Pusher coach) would've been the team to 20mins rofl-stomp every team including Na`Vi, EHOME, IG and so on. 2 months earlier tyloo would probably have been the #1 team. We, the DotA community, need to take the next step towards professionalism; Cheer and be loyal to the team and players you love.

eSdom.eu: Was it easily for you to move on Dota 2?

Ryze: Yes

eSdom.eu: Which game you prefer currently? The good old one or Valve's Dota?

Ryze: It's the same

eSdom.eu: How much you scrim every day? Do you play DotA or Dota2 while scrimming?

Ryze: It's impossible to answer. We play both DotA and DotA2.

eSdom.eu: What about your team? It had some changes recently, and you lost the sponsor.

Ryze: We added CalculuS and link to our roster. miGGel, Calc, link and AngeL will switch around roles and it makes us very flexible. I am our core and fundament, since I'm playing main support every game. eatenfish has been busy lately. He is playing support aswell.

The Nevo organisation disbanded 2 months ago. We are searching for a loyal and long-term sponsor.

eSdom.eu: How do you manage to combine everyday life, like studying etc. with professional DotA? Is your everyday life suffering because of Gaming?

Ryze: It's part of my life. Denying it makes your everyday life suffer, accepting it makes everything solve.

eSdom.eu: Any last words?

Ryze: "Troll or monkey?"