Noticed on his dream outside of Dota 2: “I’d like a nice house, a nice farm, and a vegetable garden.”

He’ll hang around there for a couple of seconds and then leave. Given the current meta, he’s playing a more classic pool of heroes rather than anything unique. I’d say he sees the gameplay a little differently than other players, but overall, he doesn’t do anything on the lane that’s extraordinary or that I haven’t seen before. He has some tricks, but you get used to them quickly.

The EWC has a slightly different format. I think The International is better for us, simply because we don’t have to travel for practice, at the very least. But there’s a situation there that made it necessary to do it that way—everyone understands it—so I’m not sure. All tournaments are usually held just like at The International, so there’s nothing unique about it.

Time with loved ones. You barely see your loved ones at all. That’s it. You call and text them. It’s hard to cope with, I think—maybe it affects your mood, too. Overall, if I were living a normal life—that is, if I were in school or something like that—I wouldn’t see my loved ones all that often either, just because of the distance, but obviously more often. It takes up a lot of time: Dota 2, some minimal sleep, and eating.

[How did you balance school and your career?] I didn’t really balance them in the end. I mean, I took one course and then dropped out. You just try it; you don’t really have a choice. That’s why I decided not to try to balance them, because it’s hard. My wife helped me, too—she explained that it’s better, of course, to try focusing on just one thing, because I was in that position myself: I’ll probably give it a shot, but there are examples of people who seemed to manage to juggle both—who kept playing—but it looks pretty much impossible.

It’s more about just having a house, a place of my own. Not necessarily a farm—I don’t think I’d really want to deal with all that—but maybe, over time, I’d want something like that. Obviously, you’d want it somewhere in the woods, with a view of the mountains, a lake of some kind—just everything together. The sea is nearby, too, and there are no people around. I’d just like a nice house, a nice property, a vegetable garden—maybe some peace of mind, tranquility, and sleep.