Fishman on salaries at PARIVISION: “I’ve heard that some members of that team make 30,000 dollars or more there”

First of all, they came to The International and the previous tournament, including as favorites—as the best team. Their team looks very strong, and I don’t see any reason to reshuffle. 9Class will remain with PARIVISION. I think this was just hot air meant to generate hype. Otherwise, at least some information about the 9Class roster would have leaked out. But there’s no such roster. Plus, the players have already sort of been distributed among different teams, and it’s unlikely that he’ll, so to speak, go anywhere else.

Why is this happening in the first place? Funding issues, yeah, and so on? Because these players have huge salaries. I’ve heard that some members of this team are making 30,000 dollars or more. Or maybe all of them, for that matter. But these contracts were signed before the bookmakers’ revenues in Russia were cut back a bit. As far as I understand, taxes on bookmakers’ revenues in Russia were raised by almost two or three times. And because of this, obviously, funding for esports and other sports in general—specifically from esports organizations—will decrease. Because of this, as you can see, there’s less activity in Dota 2 right now—fewer transfers, less of everything. It’s all a consequence of the fact that bookmakers have taken a bit of a hit in Russia at the moment.

I’d guess it’ll be tOfu and Boxi. Well, let’s say Wisper. Oh, and Malr1ne and MiCKe.

[Do you think this lineup will actually work?]

Well, MiCKe is a very strong carry. Although not everyone is hyping him up. And they’re not hyping him up because he’s never been ranked number one, so to speak—most likely. Anyway. Stas is one of the strongest mid laners. tOfu is one of the strongest supports. Boxi depends on whether he’s in top form or not. So, can they pull it off? They can. Will they? Well, I wouldn’t exactly count them among the favorites. But the roster is definitely strong. Of course, anything is possible. It all depends on the players’ motivation, you know, like, well, say MiCKe has been playing Dota 2 professionally for 10 years now, and he’s gotten tired of working hard, so he’s going to ease up a bit—but he won’t tell anyone he’s going to ease up, you know. He still wants to play; he doesn’t care either way.