kaffs on Topson: “He’s a genius in his own way: he sees things others don’t.”

With Topson, you just have to trust him. I think he’s a genius in his own way: he sees things others don’t.

He has two strong qualities. First, there are heroes he’s incredibly confident in and plays so well that he can pick them early in the draft and go up against anyone. Second, he has a huge variety of unconventional heroes he can pick if we give him priority in the draft.

We try both approaches: either we pick a hero he’s comfortable with early on, even if it’s a gamble, or we give him the freedom to choose from a large pool based on the specific situation. In the second case, when the time comes to make a choice, all I can do is trust him.

We practice a lot so we can get a chance to play all these heroes and get a feel for their true strength. And he draws his own conclusions too: if we pick a hero once or twice and the strategy doesn’t work, he’s able to recognize that and move on from it.

We don’t really have a single captain. In modern Dota, you still need people to lead the in-game actions—it’s impossible to play without that. But, in my opinion, players can contribute together and take the initiative at different moments.

Everyone on our team has moments when they step up and take charge. So far, this has been working very well for us.

It all depends on the stage of the game, and sometimes on the heroes. If someone’s hero is strong right now, they suggest actions centered around themselves. The player on the initiator role usually explains how we’re going to start a fight. The supports communicate with each other, discussing specific actions and plans at the right moments. But we don’t have a clearly designated captain.

First off, we need to qualify for all the tournaments we want to play in. That’s the absolute foundation. I don’t want to set expectations too high right away: there are very strong, already established teams out there. But personally, I’d like for us to start consistently competing for a top-8 finish at every tournament as soon as possible.

At our first Tier 1 tournament, BLAST SLAM VIII, we finished in 7th–8th place. To be honest, I’m quite satisfied with this result. That day, we could have beaten 1w Team, but we made some mistakes ourselves, so it didn’t work out. In a way, this is even encouraging: we can see that we could have gone further right from our very first tournament.

I want us to consistently compete for a top-8 spot and, whenever possible, make it to the playoffs every time. In today’s Dota scene, that’s no easy feat. There’s Team Spirit, PARIVISION, Team Yandex, Liquid, Aurora, BetBoom Team, and other strong teams that are constantly at the top. And that’s not even mentioning LGD, for example—there are plenty of competitive rosters out there.

If we start consistently competing for a top-8 spot, sooner or later we’ll be able to go further and compete for a top-4 spot. I need more time to figure out just how high our expectations can be this season. It’s too early to say whether we’re capable of more. But I’m confident that we can achieve it.