A team interview with the Team Dignitas DotA 2 squad

As announced yesterday, Team Dignitas has picked up Potm Bottom as its new DotA 2 squad. This all-North American lineup has been competing at the top of the scene lately and we are confident they'll represent us to the best of their abilities.

We've gathered the team for an interview so you can get to know them a bit better and learn about their history. On top of that we've also discussed recent competitions and asked them about their opinion on the current meta-game. Enjoy reading!

Hey all and welcome to the team. Can you tell our fans how your team started out? What was it like before you came in contact with Team Dignitas?

Monolith: Thanks, its great to be part of Team Dignitas and I as well as the rest of the team really look forward to being part of this family. When the glory years of gaming that is the American undergraduate education ended, I went to law school and stopped taking the game as seriously. But this last summer, Kurtis "Aui_2000" asked me if I would be interested in managing Potm Bottom, at the time, a little known North American team that began as an unstable collection of 5+ individuals that played in open tournaments. Overtime, with practice, experimentation and a lot of work, we found a roster that fit us and a name we liked.

As for what it's been like before Dignitas, being an unsponsored team that plays a high volume of tournaments can be rough. We've had hardware issues like poor mic's, broken mice and computers just failing completely. Having the support of an organization like Dignitas is a huge boon for us and just the knowledge that we have a group of dedicated staff behind us is very reassuring.

Aui_2000: Thanks, glad to be part of the team. One hundred and ninety six days ago—March 12th 2012—the current five players that will be on this dignitas team were specifically brought together by an interested party to form a DotA2 team. I won’t lie and say that the team was immediately stable and that everything was all sunshine and rainbows—after all we all came from a mix of backgrounds and different games such as DotA1, HoN, and SC2—but at the end of the day we all saw potential in each other and wanted to play together, so six months later here we are.

Contact with dignitas actually solved a plethora of problems and/or worries that we had in the past. The main one was that we wanted a sponsor that we felt we could work with as a team rather than under. It’s actually really nice to know that due to the dignitas’ management’s background as former pro-gamers, they are more readily able to understand some of the problems that we face as players. Moreover our entire team faced at least some hardware/accessory problems, and dignitas has been great in helping us solve that.

 

You have great results but still you were on the search for an organanisation for quite a while. Why was that?

Monolith: We were never in a huge rush to find a sponsor partly because there were no huge upcoming LANs that we were going to play in (thankfully ESWC paid for our trip to PAX so a huge shoutout to them). We also wanted to find the right sponsor, one that would understand our needs, schedule and whatever else might come up.

Team Dignitas is an organization where management is largely made up of professional gamers and so whatever we go through or could go through in the future, it would be something that they could understand. We got a lot of offers from other organizations, many of which have great names and people behind them, but they didn't have the assurance that the longevity of Team Dignitas brought to the table. Other than that, contracts and budgets take a long time, we wanted to make sure we did it right.

 

You probably got more than one offer along the way, what made you decide to join the Team Dignitas family over the others?

TidesofTime: Not only did they have everything we were asking for, they are extremely dedicated to esports, and incredibly experienced... but they are legitimately really good, nice people.

Aui_2000: As previously mentioned, one of the bigger impetuses we had for joining the Team dignitas family was the fact that their management is able to relate to what we go through as players. While this may seem somewhat small, it is nice to know that we’re on a team that understands that sometimes players cannot always play their super perfect A game—although we will definitely try to play our best in every tournament. Moreover, out of all the sponsors that we talked to, Team Dignitas not only had the best reputation as a whole, but were easily the most organized during our talks.

 

What do you hope to contribute to Team Dignitas?

Monolith: We want to be part of Team Dignitas for a long time, we want to be part of eSports for a long time. We want to bring consistency and stability to Team Dignitas Dota 2 and show the rest of the world that this is an exciting game that more people should watch. We want to win games under the Team Dignitas brand and become a long lasting part of the history that attracted us to the team in the first place.

TidesofTime: My goal and hope is to make Team Dignitas the biggest name in DOTA!

Aui_2000: DotA teams in general have a stereotypical reputation for being unstable, disorganized and unprofessional amongst other negative traits. We hope that together with Team Dignitas we can create a team that will shatter those negative stereotypes and help promote the Team Dignitas brand as a family of strong stable gamers; we want to leave a legacy befitting the Team Dignitas name.

Seeing how you have a background from Heroes of Newerth, how different do you feel DotA2 is in comparison and what can Valve do to improve the game?

Sneyking: I believe that the heroes of newerth matchmaking system is something Dota 2 should look at and learn from. The matchmaking system enables players to pick between faster games or equal skill which is a cute option that people should be able to get. I personally get 5-15 minute ques at times and it isn't fun waiting that long.

Then I also feel the report a player system is very flawed in Dota 2. I believe that RAP in Dota 2 needs some form of supervising from Valve as currently it’s a automatic system where a player with enough reports will get banned. There are so many trolls out there who just abuse the system and get perfectly fine players onto low priority.

 

You are currently participating in the first season of D2L, how do you feel about your chances against the top European and North American teams?

Waytosexy: As long as no one rages and goes ape we will place top three.

TidesofTime: Depends on how much time we get to practice, if we get 3+ days of practice in a week there is no excuse for us to lose to any of them, if we do end up losing you should expect us to learn from it and only come back stronger. So, in short, I feel like we have a good chance against the other teams.

Aui_2000: I think that we’re a strong team and that we have the potential to do very well. Of course this won’t happen without time and practice so we’ll do our best in that regard.

Sneyking: I feel that we will have a good chance at winning the competition not only have we been practicing but we have came up a few strats to surprise our enemies and everyone knows the suprise factor is always a key element in overcoming your opponents.

 

Recently you beat Complexity and qualified for the ESWC Grand Finals which takes place in Paris, France, later on this year. Was that an important win for you as you pretty much beat the top North American team?

TidesofTime: Yeah it was an important win to us, as we now get to go to paris to compete at an international LAN tournament which we are looking forward to. After facing col many many times, it's safe for me to say that they did not play at their full strength those games, though I am looking forward to facing them in the future when they recover and are full strength once again.

Waytosexy: Prior to the matches coL had already lost interest; we just went into the game wanting to really win. We are now going to play in france with solace.

Sneyking: Unfortunately I will not be attending ESWC with my team due to the fact that I am underage and they do not allow underaged players in the competition. But the victory against Complexity to me didn't mean much as they used a new player during that game.

 

Going back to ESWC, this is your first big international event which you are attending. Do you think this will be adding pressure on the fact that you are playing in a very prestigeous tournament?

Aui_2000: Not only is ESWC our first big international event that we’re attending, it is our first anything that we are attending, so there actually is a lot of pressure. However, we also know that this pressure is only artificially created by ourselves and that we can get past it with hard work and practice, so hopefully the pressure will not affect us too much.

TidesofTime: The fact that it's international doesn't personally affect me, but our first LAN together will be a very valuable experience for us (unfortunately we will not be with sneyking because he will not be old enough to participate in ESWC until next year).

 

The metagame changes constantly, however for a while now we have been seeing the same bans (Dark Seer, Lycan, Morphling etc) and picks (Naga Siren, Rubick, Leshrac etc) in nearly every tournament. Do you think we will see any new strategies soon, and maybe even teams picking heroes that are mostly used in public games?

TidesofTime: Only time will tell, but I expect the metagame to have shifted somewhere around 4 times by the time TI3 comes around.

Aui_2000: I think that we’ll definitely see new strategies. I know that even in tourneys, a lot of teams have been letting naga siren through for example. Risks that force innovation and innovation will lead to different ways of looking/playing the game. I actually find the current state of the game quite exciting in that regard.

As for teams picking heroes that were formerly limited to public games, I think that there are a lot of heroes with hidden potential in the “public hero pool.” An example of this was how luna started to be ran at TI2 (and a bit during prodota2 by us). Other heroes like luna that are often reserved for pubs, but I think could come back competitively are viper, PA, dirge, and visage amongst many others—all these heroes sort of have a special factor about them that no other hero can do, which imo may at least make them a situational pick.

Sneyking: I feel that there are many unrealized hero compositions out there. This is caused by the fact that it's always the same team in the top 15-20 and no new blood directly causing the issue of no meta-change. But in dota 2 it seems to me that a lot more new teams are able to make splashes, and with this new ideas will come! I personally feel that KotL is underrated.

 

Na'Vi's "Anti DS+Naga" strategy during TI2 seemed to work really well for them. Do you have any "special tactics" against certain heroes up your sleeves?

TidesofTime: We always have new heroes and strategies we want to try, it's just a matter of how much time we are able to dedicate into practicing and refining the strategies.

Waytosexy: I dont think the chinese teams run naga to its fullest potential. We don't really have any special tactics other than kill the enemies ancient.

Sneyking: We certainly do have special tactics against certain heroes up in our sleeves but that is not to be discussed here ; ).

 

Right, lets round this up. Where can our fans expect to see you in action next?

Monolith: We'll be playing in the D2L this Sunday (today for when this interview is out) against EG and WhA. Look for us in the upcoming D2L matches, Alienware North American Battlegrounds, ESWC Paris and other tournaments that haven't been announced yet.

 

Any shoutouts?

Monolith: I want to give a big thanks to Team Dignitas for taking us in an all our new sponsors for making it possible including Alienware, Killer, QPAD, twitch, Initial Games, Multiplay, Creative Labs, Western Digital, SCAN, iiyama, Gamerbase and Antec. I also want to shoutout NA Dota and all our fans that have watched and supported us along the way.

Waytosexy: Shoutout to mario, mini, red, alexander martinez and for my irl friends, febby's sister julia kim, solara, and all of Team Dignitas’ sponsors.

Aui_2000: First and foremost, I want to thank our new team, Dignitas, for accepting us into their family and their sponsors for making that possible: Alienware, QPAD, twitch, initial games, creative labs, SCAN, Killer, Gamerbase, Antec, Iiyama, Western digital, and last but definitely not least, Creative Labs. I’d also like to go a shoutout to victor wingman yin (desperately requested by him) as well as all of our fans who have supported us thus far—we will do our best to not only provide great games but to make you proud to support Team Dignitas.

Sneyking: Shoutout #dopeheadgaming, all our new sponsors and my sugar daddy kebap

TidesofTime: Shoutout to my princess, our sponsors, my team (seriously they own), my brother Nate and his girlfriend Lizzie for always supporting me, special shoutout to everyone I met at TI2 for being awesome, enjoyable people... and last but certainly not least shoutout to valve for doing such an amazing job on dota2.