Hey there and welcome to the NAVI Dota2 channel.
I'm here with someone you know really well.
You've been asking for an interview with Solo and we're delivering!
- Hey, Lyosha. - Hi. Hey, everyone.
Welcome to NAVI. This is your first interview here and I wanted to ask you about your personal life, your past and of course the new roster.
How did you end up NAVI anyway? Was there a point in your career where you were close to coming here before now?
- You want to know what brought me here? - Uh-huh.
Well, after parting ways with VP, No[o]ne and I considered sticking together,
and we did try to play together with Suma1L and RAMZES, but it didn't work out.
We thought about coming to NAVI but they had an active roster at the time, and by the looks of it, they didn't have a spot for us.
I wanted to get on NAVI back in 2014 after TI when Puppey was leaving,
and I was on good terms with the guys, especially with XBOCT, and keeping in touch with Dendi.
They had Vanskor as position 4 at the time, I think.
It nearly worked out - we had a good talk at TI and decided to try to play together but I ended up not making the team.
Bad for them. But you're here now, playing under our banner.
Tell us a bit about your personal life outside of Dota, LANs, bootcamps,
and everything you'd been doing for years as a pro player before the pandemic got in the way.
Where do you live now? What are you up to? And what have you been doing these past 18 months?
I still live in Novorossiysk, though I had a chance to move to Moscow since we'd been on VP for over 4 years.
Moscow is a great city but not for me because my family and friends are in in Novorossiysk, so I never got around to actually moving.
I've mainly been at home for the past 18 months, quarantining and spending time with my friends, family, wife, and our doggie.
What kind of doggie?
Shiba Inu.
- Oh, right, I've seen a picture of him. Great! - Thanks.
What have you been doing while self-quarantined? Playing Dota?
- Yes. - Or spiraling like everybody else stuck at home and doing nothing?
We've been playing a lot but yeah, it's been a tough year for everybody, especially Dota-wise.
It's been... quite a bumpy ride.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I have lots of friends, so I hang out with them or we go out to chill or do some activities.
- Just like anybody. - Yeah, nothing special.
I've been playing Dota a lot, maybe even more than I did when things going well in terms of competitive results,
so I hope I've managed to maintain my form.
Has changing your routine and way of life been stressful for you?
Absolutely. It took us a lot of effort to win the ESL LA qualifier, which was supposed to be a Major, I believe.
Yeah, it was prior to the pandemic.
Anyway, we were putting in a lot of preparation and had made a change with iLTW replacing Cooman for certain reasons.
It was our goal to qualify for that tournament so we had a lengthy bootcamp with lots of scrims and had managed to grab that spot.
We had secured our visas - I had to go to Yekaterinburg to get the US visa - and we really wanted to go there,
but the pandemic hit and it was announced that the competition was gonna move online,
which was a bummer but we still managed to win that one because we had put in a lot of preparation.
That's how the past year has been pretty much - playing online, and I hate that.
Yeah, there's barely anyone who likes that, especially those who are used to competing on stage at big LAN events.
Let's talk a bit more about this period, can you go over how the NoTechies team came to be?
What was it about? What goals did you set for yourself and the team?
Well, the thing is that Valve had decided to change the DPC system -
I reckon they were just trying things out, and hopefully, they can make it more viable.
The announcement of two DPC leagues came as a surprise to everyone and you had to qualify to be able to play there.
I got a qualifier spot, and put together everyone who could and wanted to play.
We won the qualifier and made it to Division 1 but I can't say it was a full commitment since it was online and there were ping differences.
It's important to me to be able to play and practice together in person to post results, and nothing was working out for us.
So the attitude wasn't really... Anyway, I was just going with the flow.
- You just had to do something to keep going, right? - Yeah. - So you wouldn't drown.
How did you manage to stay motivated to play Dota following a series of setbacks, including the VP turmoil and NoTechies?
It's easy as long as you love playing Dota.
Even still?
I have an unachieved dream and goal and I got the energy as well as time to try and reach it. So we're still in play.
What was it like mentally to realize that your success with VP was over,
and even though you could still achieve greater heights, things were exactly looking up at first? How did you get through that?
It was okay. It was our own fault we didn't manage to stick around after leaving VP, and even had a falling out.
We had a chance to try and make it work, which we talked about -
we had an offer from a big European organization that wanted to sign our roster with Suma1L.
We all, especially myself, realized that online wasn't the real deal,
and the only way was to get together to talk it over if we wanted in for the long haul and think of how to build everything from scratch.
Unfortunately, we had a fight online and didn't manage to stick around, which has eventually led to none of us coming to TI this year.
What are the 3 takeaways you got from your time with VP?
- In terms of the game? - Not necessarily. - Relationship then?
Interpersonal relationship, Dota, building a team.
I think the main takeaway is that hard work pays off.
The second one is that you have to respect each other and always compromise.
This is the only way to build a good team for the long run.
The third thing is to be appreciative of what you have, I think.
It all might disappear really fast once you stop putting in the effort or compromising.
What are the 3 things you'd never want your new team to do?
Maybe some mistakes that you learned from while you were on VP?
As a captain, I have to take responsibility and do a better job at it than I did towards the end.
You didn't take charge?
- I did but not as much... - As you wanted? - As I used to during my prime. Yeah.
I think a lot depends on me, my mindset and my attitude.
I shouldn't shift responsibility to others.
And I shouldn't play as position 4.
I tried to, but it's not my cup of tea.
I don't know, it's harder to recall the mistakes.
Okay, let's move on.
Coaching sounds like a good idea of what to do after retiring as a player, especially being a captain.
Have you ever thought about it?
Has there ever been a point where you thought about dropping everything and taking on a coaching role?
I have considered that as well as a lot of other options for continuing my career.
It's not that I'm holding onto this esports thing because I need a job and an income, it's not about that.
I think coaching is simply not my thing. Neither is streaming.
What about an analyst?
- Well, I can work on the desk if it's TI, especially since it's an anniversary one. - How sly! - But I'm not really a fan of it.
I don't think I could do it on a permanent basis.
Why not coaching?
I love playing and winning in Dota, I think becoming a coach would be a huge step backwards in terms of getting emotions from the game.
I don't know, I'm not ready to talk about it now.
But if I were to retire, I would probably quit for good, and I don't think I would want to become a coach.
That's interesting because when I was preparing for this interview, I noticed that people wanted to see you as a coach back when you were still on VP.
But I guess we'll have to wait a bit more, guys.
- Or a lot. - Yeah, right.
Speaking of age, you're one of the oldest active players.
We are used to seeing young stars around 20 playing position 1 while wiser and older players tend to be captains.
What do you think about it and how much of an impact does age have on your skill, game understanding and your role?
I think first and foremost it impacts how much time you can spend in the game
because the older you get, the more responsibilities and things to worry about outside of Dota you have.
And second, when you're playing a core position - midlane or carry - you have to devote more time to improving your mechanical skill in matchmaking,
and that's why youngsters play these roles.
Speaking of senior players, there are not that many of them in the scene: a couple of players in China. Is LaNm still playing or is he a coach?
I guess you don't know, and neither do I.
Puppey is also pretty old by the Dota standards.
I don't know, I'm fine. I'm guided by the opinion of those who are important to me in the game,
and once they tell me I'm not good enough anymore, I'll roll with it, but it's all good for now and I've still got it.
Who are those people?
The ones I've come a long way with in this game, who I respect, appreciate, and listen to.
Like who?
No[o]ne.
- Anyone else? - Yes.
Can a young player be a good captain?
I think they can. It depends on the team and their interpersonal relationship.
For example, VP whose average player age is 19, if I'm not wrong.
Vitaliy is very young, he's 18 or 19, and he's a captain on VP.
So it's all about an individual. I mean, why not?
Let's talk about current affairs. You have a great atmosphere within the team - at least it was the case when we touched on that in our previous vlog.
How did your first meetup at the bootcamp go?
It was okay. We were arriving at different times - Vova and I were first and we were waiting for the guys.
Vanya was the last one to arrive as always.
Everything is fine. They're all great guys, we're cracking jokes, talking about the game a lot, and... It's all good.
You've already played your first practice games, which we brought up earlier,
and I was wondering how you're doing in lanes. Are you comfortable playing with V-Tune? Are ALOHA and GeneRaL doing well?
Tell me about your team's chemistry in the game.
We haven't played much together, but the thing is, the three of them have played together for a while,
and Vova and I have been teammates for 6 years, so we know each other really well.
We're doing fine, I guess. You should ask Alik about how he feels, but I'm comfortable laning with him.
ALOHA had to regain his form following his nearly one-year break from Dota, how's his progress coming along? Do you help him in any way?
Ilya is highly motivated because he said in his interview that he was gonna quit his playing career and switch to streaming and poker,
but back in the VP days, he really wanted to play with us, and he respects us a lot as players, so he jumped at the idea to make a comeback.
We considered him because he was a proven position 4 player, and who GeneRaL also respects as a player, and they make a complete lane.
It went smoothly and he's really motivated and putting in the effort. We'll see what comes of it.
He's making progress, right?
Over 5 days?
Well, it's not 5 days - we talked to him about a month ago and he said he was grinding a lot.
He is playing a lot, that's correct, but matchmaking is a different ball game and not even close to pro Dota.
Okay, in his interview, Vanya mentioned that you prefer long bootcamps and this one is pretty lengthy, 20 days.
Looking at our previous Dota roster, they also bootcamped for a while because of the league format,
and they said it didn't have the best impact on their relationship.
What do you think about long bootcamps and why do you want to go with this format?
Well, I've had a pretty good experience with them, and I don't know why it didn't work out for the guys.
We bootcamped a lot at VP - 20 days was an average duration, and it could easily be longer than that prior to important events.
The league format forces you to adjust - if there's one game a week, you can't help but bootcamp for a long time.
I hope we don't get burned out because it's really up to us and how we build our relations.
- Would you like to provide some criticism of this season's format? - Rather some heavy criticism.
What do you like and dislike about it? What should be changed? What requirements should be imposed?
Well, we don't know what format is going to be this year as it hasn't been announced yet.
Yes, but what was wrong with the previous one?
Well, everything.
I think one game a week is the wrong way to go about it because it's hard to maintain your peak form and concentration for 7 weeks.
- That's a good point. - I think it's wrong.
The DPC point distribution was absolutely stupid -
if I'm not mistaken, winning your regional league would earn you 200 points, just like placing fourth at the Major, which is really odd.
Because the latter is a competition between the world's best teams and it has to have more impact on TI invites than winning your regional league.
I have a lot of complaints and I hope they will change the format.
It's already been announced that you're going to TI as an analyst.
Is it going to be a new experience for you? Are you looking forward to it?
Yeah, I guess. Well, I worked at TI in 2014, and yeah, the broadcast format is quite different now but I think I'll be comfortable and right in my element.
The tournament is going to be exciting and it's a chance to talk to the players and learn something for the future.
Besides, TI is hosted pretty close this year.
Yeah, it's just a quick flight away, which is good since you don't have to fly overseas to the US.
- Okay, good luck at the desk at TI. - Thank you.
I think it'll be a fun experience and you'll like it.
And good luck to the team and you personally as a player.
- Thank you for the interview. - Onward and upward.
Indeed. Thank you guys for watching the video and make sure to drop a like and post a comment. Cheers!