Misha: “Nightfall is bad at calculating hero damage and hero spells”

I’m curious about what exactly constitutes this habit of his, this behavior, this trait. I don’t know why, but in the end, he always loses and can never make it through an entire tournament, while a million players who started their careers after him have already gone through the entire esports journey: they were inexperienced, they lost, then they started winning Tier 2 tournaments, and then Tier 1. Many careers have begun and ended, but Nightfall is still in the same place. And it’s funny that one thing says a lot about Nightfall’s career: his best result at The International throughout his entire career was the very first one he attended, and after that, it was always worse or the same. So, literally, he might have peaked in his first year on the pro scene. Get it? It might remind you of Arteezy.

Nightfall isn’t farming well yet, doesn’t know the patterns to stay close to the team, and only knows how to play on GPM. Nightfall doesn’t really know how to control the map in the Tier 1 scene, makes pointless TP runs, and can’t find his footing. Third—Nightfall is bad at calculating hero damage and hero spells. Well, by the way, this third point is like a problem that means no matter how many chances you’re given to win a tournament, you’ll never win it. Because if you literally can’t calculate hero abilities properly in your head—meaning you don’t know how much damage they deal in Dota, right? If you don’t know roughly where the enemy’s spells will land, you don’t know how much damage they’ll deal or how much your spells will deal, or what the chain stuns look like or how many seconds they last, then in fact, yeah, I see this as an insurmountable obstacle that drives you crazy.

What if Nightfall is no longer a young genius, but has long since ceased to be one? What if he’s some kind of, you know, pure XBOCT, an old-school carry who’s already forgotten? And an XBOCT on the decline in, say, 2016—you know: an elderly carry who’s gotten tangled up in macro and isn’t that great at micro anymore. Because it’s like, when I think of Nightfall, I think that Nightfall is modern Dota—yes, it’s the heart of modern Dota. But in reality, the heart of modern Dota is Satanic, it’s TaiLung, it’s even Yatoro. And maybe not even Yatoro entirely. And in reality, Nightfall is a relic of ancient Dota. 2021 is a slightly different Dota, when it was shining. Maybe this is the 2021 of Dota, when we were just playing with Diman in VP.P and whoever else was there—with Albert eine, with gpk, with Nightfall, and Save-.

I’ll just say this now, and you’ll see I’m right. Look, here’s the thing: why can’t Nightfall do it? Nightfall has no instincts. That’s it, just like that. Nightfall has no instincts. Three words, just like that. What do you think? He just doesn’t have them. Oh, he didn’t let them develop. They’re not there. Not balls, but specifically instincts. He didn’t let them develop because he overanalyzes every game mathematically. And he doesn’t gain any experience. Every game is like a new one for him. And every game is similar for him, because “like a new one” means you start thinking logically from scratch again.