DM on Team Yandex: “It’s a great opportunity because both the organization and the players here are excellent.”

I think we were very well prepared for the tournament because we spent ten days at boot camp. That’s exactly why we went into the matches fully prepared. And yeah, we just played our own style of Dota 2, and that’s what led us to victory in the championship.

This is a great opportunity because both the organization itself and the players here are excellent. I also really like the vibe here—everyone on the team is as calm as possible, and that makes me feel super comfortable. [How does that calmness help you as a player?] I think that when you’re on edge, or when everyone around you is panicking and letting their emotions get the best of them, it only does more harm than good. People start getting angry at each other and taking it out on their teammates. And since we don’t have that here, it really helps. That’s how I’d put it.

Obviously, we have a shared understanding of the meta on this team, and I try to adapt my hero pool to fit it. But to be honest, in the current meta, most of my favorite heroes are already strong in the offlane anyway. The only exception is Venomancer—at least as a hardlaner. So he’s out of the question.

Venomancer’s main problem is that he’s now a pure support. On top of that, Lycan is popular in the current meta, and Venomancer as a support can’t do anything against him at all. I’d say the hero is frankly weak right now. If the developers want to rework him and return him to the core position, they definitely need to do something about Aghanim’s Scepter. Right now, Aghanim’s Scepter looks like an item exclusively for supports.