Mike on NA Dota:

"I’m pretty pleased with the growth of the competitive scene in North America."

After your departure from Liquid, you took a brief hiatus from the professional scene. What did you get up to, and what inspired you to come back?

I spent the months of September-January taking a break from competitive Dota and focused on improving IXDL, a program that I made. I had no will to play anything competitive for a long time despite receiving some offers, and focused solely on programming because I found it incredibly satisfying and enjoyable. However, after six months of programming, ranked matchmaking was announced which essentially was competition for IXDL and took the entire player base with it. With this, I lost my motivation to continue programming since IXDL was no longer active, and it had also killed the inhouse leagues that I enjoyed playing. I’ve always hated pubs and this had forced me to play them, so I decided I would rather scrim than play pubs. Then I found players that I could enjoy playing with and made a goal for a TI4 qualifiers invite since it was still pretty timely.

Whats it like playing with Fluff again? You two have quite a history playing together. Is the bromance strong?

The bromance is strong. Fluff is enjoyable to play with and fits into our team pretty well, and you won’t find a person more dedicated to the game than him. He also brings a lot more leadership and experience to the team; which is something we were lacking.

How did the team come together? A couple of the players don't have much of a history in Dota.

At first, I couldn't stand pubbing any longer and wanted to scrim with anyone, so I looked at my friends list for anyone with high MMR and asked them if they could commit a whole bunch of time to playing competitive Dota. I originally asked SNA after I saw him play really well in NEL, and then he suggested USH to me, with the others being WwD and xCoM at the time. Our original name was a play on WwD’s, the Wild Witch Doctors. However, with the additions of whiteBeard and Fluff, we decided to make a mockery of SNA’s name instead.

How is the team chemistry on SNA as a collection of friends?

I don’t believe in some magical term called chemistry that dictates if the team will be really coordinated or skilled or whatever. Playing together is fun, even if we lose, because we all enjoy each other’s company; which I think is the most important thing by far. Along with it, we’re not afraid to call each other out if we think someone should have done something differently. As far as in game goes, it just depends on whether or not we've drafted something we’re comfortable and confident in.

The team has kept a pretty hectic schedule recently, playing almost daily in a variety of tournaments. Does fatigue ever set in?

Playing too much can definitely yield negative results, but at the same time, I like having a match every day because it gives everyone something to look forward to as opposed to just a couple of “meaningless” scrims.

For the past two Internationals, you have been on a team with a direct invite. This year you are going to have to fight through an intense two day qualifier. Is the team more nervous or excited, and how has the team's preparation gone?

I think everyone’s pretty excited, it’s a new experience for most of the team and while we can say “we’re going to be invited to the American qualifier,” it’s just a fantasy until you actually receive the invite, which brings a lot of motivation and feeling of accomplishment. Team preparation is good I’d say. At first we played a ton of scrims every day, but found out that playing a ton of games each day was stagnating our progress more than helping it, so we took it slower and spent a lot more time reflecting and have felt a lot better about it.

In the Liquid Rising documentary you were quite vocal about liking Spirit Breaker as a hero, and we saw it from you guys recently in ADL. Can we expect any more space cow from SNA? Or are there some other unpopular heroes that we might see?

I can’t guarantee more space cow games I’m afraid! I try to stay as non-complacent as possible, always looking for more heroes that can do whatever job we need him to do. Unfortunately, most of my ideas end up resulting in mediocrity and I may have to stick with the popular heroes.

As a follow up, what is your favorite hero to play, and why?

I usually don’t get some emotional attachment to heroes, but I enjoy the ganking heroes such as Clockwerk or Nyx Assassin because they can control the early-mid game pretty well with little farm, and I hate farming.

What are your future plans for IXDL (and its Elite Leagues)?

Nothing right now, we have tried countless times to work with Valve to help us “revive” the leagues, but they are not too interested. Most of my focus this year has been with my team. NEL and EEL and the other elite leagues are always open, and they have received a resurgence of activity recently as people have slowly started to despise ranked matchmaking, but I’m not committing very much time to the administration or development of it at this moment.

How do you feel about the growth over the past year of the NA or Americas scene?

I’m pretty pleased with the growth of the competitive scene in North America. A year ago, you had to wake up at 9 AM to find European teams to scrim and were forced to play Luxembourg every game. This made it incredibly difficult to compete as an American because if you wanted to practice consistently, it meant that you couldn't be going to school or work at normal times, if ever. Now, the American scene has a ton of amateur tournaments for upcoming teams, and even the bigger events such as StarLadder; MLG; The Summit, WPC; etc. are becoming more and more regionalized, which lets you compete at a reasonable time with no drama over server issues.

Whats the best thing to order from Taco Bell?

I have always favored the Chicken Quesadillas but recently I have found the Cheesy Potato Burrito to be very good.

Credits:

Writer: Tephus

Editor: heyoka

Photo: Epoxide