ATF: "Malr1ne and I are just two clowns, always messing around"

Joining Team Falcons has improved my career 100 times over. Playing with more experienced players who have big ambitions is great. They taught me what I now consider "real Dota."

I used to play in a very chaotic, almost random way, and they helped me understand the game on a deeper level and so I've become a much better player, both individually and as a teammate. The best part about this team is how well we complement each other.

The atmosphere is great to say the least. Malr1ne and I have a lot of heroes in common – it feels like we can really annoy other teams with this to our advantage. That's a big thing for me personally. Everyone is very accepting of our different cultural backgrounds.

It's a really random and funny mix, and we've all connected well over the past year. The biggest thing for me is that Malr1ne and I are just two clowns, always messing around.

I try to show the best version of myself to everyone because to me, fans and haters are both fans in a way. I appreciate the positive fans more, of course, but even the haters are paying attention, so I consider them fans too. It's kind of funny.

I just want to share the best, most fun, and most expressive image of myself. And as you said, I don't want to be overly humble and boring. I try to create a compelling persona. I understand not everyone will like it, but I want to earn respect, and that's what matters most to me.

I used to pay more attention to what people said, thinking it was all just for fun. I do it less now, but I still check sometimes. There might also be a valid point in the criticism, but that’s only one out of a thousand times. That said, it's entertainment anyway, and some of the stuff people say is, for the lack of a better word, stupid s***.

That throw [upper bracket final] in the first game was unbelievable; I've never seen a harder throw. It forced a second game, which, personally, I didn't mind. But I think we felt the pressure because we should have won the first game, and they wanted to win the second quickly. That affected our gameplay.

In the finals, the first two games went smoothly, but in the third, which we were also leading and should have won, we picked Slardar. I genuinely believe that the hero is unplayable, and I don't care who knows it or who doesn’t. I hope someone picks it against me sometime.

After that, we just didn't get to play our game. We lost from bounty runes as we didn’t pay much attention to it and that was very crucial for us. In the end, we lost, even though we should have won but it’s a learning experience and we made some rookie mistakes. So, yeah, that's how it went.

The BLAST Slam format is new for me, even though we’ve played it before, but this one feels particularly different. Personally, I don’t like the format because it's fast-paced which is something I don’t exactly like.

I like having more chances and playing more overall. This format is too fast, and while I'm not saying fast is inherently bad, it's fast with too few games. I'd prefer to play more games.

I’d like to play against Tundra Esports because of bzm. I always enjoy facing bzm but the one team I wouldn't want to play against is Nigma Galaxy. I just love them too much; I really don't want to win against them.

It's just the friendship I have with them. I would only want to play against them in a grand final situation or upper bracket finals. That's the only way I would want to play against Nigma Galaxy.