Xcalibur: «I faced motivation issues»

First of all, what do you think about your new team?

They are very experienced and we cope very well. I like my new team!

Okay, can you give some information about how the roster was created? Who did invite each other?

I don’t know how it had been before I joined. I was not really involved. I had played with Double Dimension before. And one day, I guess it was after ESL One Genting, MiLAN asked me if I wanted to join. I didn’t know the details back then but I wanted to continue with my team. So I said: “No”. And after the qualifiers, we had some sort of issues in my team. We were not talking and not giving a permission, so it made the game a bit hard to play. The atmosphere was not that good, so I decided that I wanted to try something new.

How did you get in contact with them?

Let’s start with that I knew two roster’s players very well. I knew Rajjix and Aleksandr (Flow). And then they asked me if I wanted to try playing with them and I agreed. The second team basically died.

When you started your career, you played in Fnatic.EU and Team Tinker. You had played there few months, left the roster and been looking for a normal team for about two years before you joined Horde. How did you find so much motivation to play on such level?

So finally, I faced motivation issues. I thought that no one was interested in me anymore. I actually stopped playing for a really long time. I played 3 games in 3 months or something like that. I was very inactive. And then I played in various rosters but was not able to land in any good team for a very long time. Basically, I started playing again because I like competing and not competing was a wasted time. Dota 2 takes 90% of my day or something like that apart from sleeping and monitoring Dota. It is just natural for me to want to compete and stay on top or, at least, try to reach it.

Can you say something about your team Horde?

At first, it was a WESG team, which included Akke and Pablo and I was a teammate with Pablo back then. We had a Swedish team. So Pablo liked me, I guess, and he asked me if I wanted to stand in because the main roster of WESG had some issues like one player had school obligations. So they asked me and I said: “Yes”. I started playing with them and things went pretty well. We held the second place at World Electronic Sports Games 2016 Europe & CIS Finals, we beat The Alliance and then we lost to The Imperial. Back then Akke didn’t play full-time, he didn’t want to play. So we came back playing with the team me and Pablo had. And after a month or two, we supposed to team up with Akke. Maybe I can get a bit confusing. Basically, we just replaced our support Akke.

After that, you had six months without playing at the tier-1 level and then you joined Fnatic. Can you tell about your experience in Fnatic? You had joined right before ESL One Hamburg started, where you lost to EG.

The experience of playing there was kinda amazing. I learned so much from the team. I think that without that I would have never been who I am right now. The issue at ESL One Hamburg was that we had not practiced before the tournament because we had been on a great distance back then. To begin with, we had one week break after the qualifiers because we didn’t qualify to anything. And when we started playing again, we were playing maybe ten days. Then we made a pause for four or five days because we had to sort out visas and other things.

EternaLEnVy said in his blog that you had learned more than he had learned from you. What do you think about that?

Oh, I don’t know what he means. There are some ideas. But I actually don’t know if it’s true. Because I feel that I have learned so much from EternaLEnVy. I understood matchups pretty well and it made understanding of matches simple. I don’t know what he meant but I liked that team.

You have been playing for four years. Did you have invites from China or SEA?

No, I didn’t have invites from SEA but I don’t want to go back there. It’s a combination of reasons. I don’t want to leave Europe, my home but SEA is very strong. SEA doesn’t give me invites and there are such very strong teams as TNC Pro Gaming, Mineski. They are invite level teams and maybe only one of them is going to qualify. So mostly because I don’t want to leave Europe.

Is it more comfortable for you to play from your home?

Yes, just living away was comfortless. You just don’t have a comfort of your home. It was not that bad tho. Back then I didn’t seal that I was stressed. But when I flew back to Sweden I didn’t want to leave it. I still want to go on a bootcamp but I am feeling comfortable at home right now.

As you have said about a bootcamp, where will you go for it? Maybe Russia or somewhere else?

Actually, I don’t know. I will but I don’t know where and when. I don’t know the details.

Let’s speak about the communication in your team. You have three players from CIS, you are from Sweden and MiLAN is from Bosnia. Are you speaking English all the time?

Yes, it’s always English. All my team is good at English, so that’s not a problem. They are expressing their thoughts easily all the time. I understand them easily and they understand what I say too.

On your opinion, is it easier to play with CIS players than with players from Europe or SEA?

It is hard for me to answer.

Okay, tell me please, teams from which region are more difficult for you to play against?

I am not sure. But what I have heard from pieliedie that he thinks that SEA players are more serious because they are bootcamping all the time. The majority of SEA teams have their team houses and they live there. They are very organized. They are drafting more compared to Europeans and North Americans. That’s all I have heard. I guess it makes sense.

Ten days ago, IceFrog wrote on Twitter that we will have small updates instead of big ones every two weeks on Thursday. What do you think about it? What is better for you?

I guess it’s nice. Because they make changes slowly and adjust it by patching it. So I like it. I really want to see the new heroes nerfed because some people are abusing their rank on them. And I don’t want to see Dark Willow.

What is your opinion about the last reshuffles? For example, Na’Vi and VP swapped with players.

I don’t know their players well enough to comment that. I can only say that you can’t see all issues that teams have with players as an outsider. You have to be inside of the team to know for sure.

You said that 90% of your time you are playing Dota 2. Do you have other hobbies, maybe sports?

I don’t have any other hobbies. I spend my spare time watching replays and anime.

What is your top 3 anime?

Boku no Hero Academia and Hunter x Hunter. I don’t know about the third one but those are my favorites.

We are coming to the end. Do you have any last words or shoutouts?

I give a shoutout to my team and anyone who is supporting me. This means a lot to me.

Photo credit: ESL Bart Oerbekke