Astini on PlayTime: “In my opinion, the language barrier really ruined everything.”

That’s why Slark is so highly valued—because of the Vessel meta. As for Largo, he can remove item effects, which is very significant.

Abed’s and fcr’s computers were lagging really badly. In that match, both PCs were overheating because, apparently, a patch had been released that messed with the graphics card or motherboard. The next day, I figured out that I needed to reduce the number of threads. You have to play at 100 FPS, otherwise there will be freezes. <...>

I’d give the draft [for the first map] a 6.5; Nyx didn’t work out. I’d give the draft [for the second map] a 2; I didn’t figure out Io. <...> Plus, we weren’t playing team-oriented Dota. <...>

[After the third map] I said I wouldn’t pick Dark Willow again. We tried, switched lanes, KJ picked that hero, but there wasn’t enough synergy between fcr and Elmisho, even though fcr tried his best—he spoke to Elmisho in Spanish and tried to translate for the rest of us.

That was the only game where, in my opinion, Abed really played very poorly. In the other games, he played very well. Here, he bought Aghanim’s Scepter as his first item against Bloodseeker and Slardar. I think he just needed to get a Lotus Orb to push the ball. Linken’s Sphere would’ve worked, too. In the end, he bought Linken’s at the 32-minute mark. I really didn’t get it, to be honest. The Lotus wasn’t a bad choice—it would’ve even provided armor against Slardar.

Io’s timing was excellent; by level 15, he had BKB and Aghanim’s—by the 20-minute mark. And in that situation, when they attacked and used up everything, he didn’t die precisely because of the BKB. That’s truly insane timing. In my opinion, the only team capable of something like that is Yandex with Watson, who’s good on Io.

“It looks like a ranked match—is this the coach’s mistake?” We weren’t able to build a team or get everyone on the same page. We just couldn’t turn the stack into a team; there was no team spirit. In my opinion, the language barrier really ruined everything. <...>

Throughout the championship, Abed was losing faith in the team. <...> I think we could have done a lot more, but I’m not sure. In my opinion, Abed is very good; I just didn’t see him having much synergy with this roster.

In this case, fcr, KJ, and bottega were picked at my request. I just think fcr needs support—someone needs to play on the lane with him. <...> I think we didn’t play as a team. I was very disappointed with the limitations of my role; I wasn’t able to do many things.