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Divine Interviewtion

For the past month or so, you heard them when you woke up, and it is to the sound of their collective voices that you fell asleep. You watched them take you through a month of Asian Dota, play by play, and you can now read what it was like to be on the other end of the mic.

Team Liquid is proud to present to you an exclusive interview with BeyondTheSummit casters David "LD" Gorman and David "Godz" Parker. TL writer kupon3ss takes them through TI2, G-1 and more. Read on to hear what the dynamic duo have to say.

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G-1 on Liquipedia · English Stream

Divine Interviewtion

By Kupon3ss

LD and Godz in their natural habitat.

International Dota2

What do you enjoy watching more, Western or Chinese Dota?

LD: Both scenes have produced some absolutely amazing / epic games, series, and tournaments, but on average I'd have to say Chinese dota has the better overall quality. Even when the metagame was all about farming, I still always found it fascinating to examine all the small nuances that Chinese teams used to maximize their advantage in game.

Godz: It's a trap! I started watching competitive WC3 DotA because of the Chinese teams when I followed SMM 2009 and then some other major Chinese tournaments and watched commentaries by Luminous of the games or found replays on GosuGamers. Only since Dota 2 and the end of EU/NA WC3 DotA did I follow the Western scene. I'm drawn to the more chess-like approach of Chinese Dota where you really notice small intricate details that the teams and players use. Over the last year though, I have really been enjoying some of the European teams especially Empire and Dignitas, and CoL were my favorite western team, can't wait to see their new lineup!

What would you say are the top 3 differences between the top European teams and the top Asian ones?

LD: The top Western *team*, Na'vi, is actually very similar to the top Asian teams (Orange, DK, iG, LGD). They play fearlessly, have unique styles but always find a way to adapt them to the strategies/tempo that best suits the current map version, and produce consistent results at major offline events. However, outside of Na'Vi, there are three main differences I see between the other top Western teams and the top teams from Asia:

1. Asian teams train longer and harder -- It's very common for Chinese/Asian teams to spend 8+ hours a day scrimmaging, studying replays, and practicing as a 5 man squad. Many Western pros are lucky to find 3-4 hours a day to scrim, and it's even rarer for them to do so with a full 5 man roster.

2. Asian players play to win (always) -- 1437 talked about this in our interview with him, but even the SEA/Chinese pubs are far more serious or 'tryhard' than those in the West. This phenomenon is just a microcosm of the generally more serious attitude Chinese/Asian players take towards the game. You won't see players like Burning, xiao8, or Mushi stacking 6 battlefuries on Kunkka, rushing naked divine rapiers, or trying to play carry Earthshaker in pubs. They experiment with items and builds, but it's always with the goal of finding new viable competitive builds.

Can't think of a 3rd.

Godz: Training methods, attitude, and support from organizations. European teams don't train or practice properly, they over-play, some play too many pubs, some play too many scrims, they don't analyze replays enough or do 1v1 training amongst themselves, or 1v3 type training in side lanes by themselves. This is stuff all Chinese teams do and largely reflects upon the attitude of a lot of the players. Finally, top Chinese teams have amazing conditions to ensure they are prepared: living and practicing together gives them a big advantage over European teams.

If Asian teams could learn one thing from European teams, what would it be?

LD: How to laugh, smile & relax! I love their dedication to training and treating competitive Dota as a full time vocation, but you need good mental health to perform at major events. Having a laugh / some fun every now and then is crucial to keeping yourself in a good state of mind. Just look at Dendi!

Godz: To enjoy playing Dota. If you aren't enjoying yourself, you won't be able to stick it out in the long run even if you are a part of the best team in China. You have to still love the game.

If Europeans could learn one thing from their Asian counterparts, what would it be?

LD: How to train. China since 2010 is to Western Dota what Korea has been to Western BW (and now SC2) for the past 6+ years. I haven't followed SC2 that closely in recent months, but it seems that generally most of the top foreigners (with a few exceptions like Stephano) are the ones who have spent time living in team houses and training full-time in Korea. Because Dota is a team game, living and training together with your team full-time is an even bigger advantage than it is in Starcraft (and it's already an incredibly huge advantage in Starcraft).

Godz: Proper training as a team - Chinese teams would immediately go watch their replays following a match as a team, after every official match leading up to The International, win or lose. They'd test 1v1 matchups, test suicide solo vs trilane matchups and all kinds of small things which is more important than playing 8-10 scrims in one day.

Do you have any information about how LGD.int is doing? When will their debut be and will you be casting it?

LD: They are winning a sizable percentage of their scrimmages versus the other Chinese teams (ranging from around 40-60%). Of course, scrim results don't mean anything, but the players I've spoken to seem quite confident about the team's potential. Overall, I've been very impressed by their players' attitude and mindset; they recognize that the key to achieving success like the other top Asian teams is to train as hard as they do, and they are practicing 8+ hours a day with their full 5 man roster pretty much every day. They have a nice mixture of players, with established talents like Pajkatt / G and a young, potential breakout star in Brax. All that being said, the biggest thing is that they are hungry. You don't move to China to form LGD's international division on a whim; you have to want to be a top team very, very badly. We'll know more once they start playing, but personally I'm very encouraged by what I've been hearing.

Their debut will be the G-League qualifier matches happening later this week (October 22-23 I believe). It doesn't look like there will be an English livestream of any kind, so no, I don't expect to be casting it. Besides G-League, I just received word they have agreed to play in a special GEST Dota 2 invitational tournament, which will feature the top 2 teams from SEA (Orange & MUFC) and the newly crowned G-1 League champions, LGD.cn. Dates haven't been finalized yet, but if all goes well it should happen sometime in the next 2-3 weeks. Originally, It's Gosu Asia Madness was going to be their official tournament debut, but it has been postponed and probably won't start until sometime after the New Year.

Godz: Only rumors, a few screenshots, and one or two watched scrims of theirs. Scrim results aren't telling, I can list countless teams who did well vs top teams in scrims leading up to big tournaments and then disappointed or crumbled. Their debut will be in the G-league qualifier on Nov. 22 I believe. I think they have Flash as the main contender in their group, which will be an exciting game. At this point I'm not sure of any casting arrangements.

What needs to happen for more Chinese tournaments to become accessible for the western public?

LD: This past season of G-1 League was a huge step in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go. The obvious thing that needs to happen is that the tournaments need to agree to allow English broadcasters inside the games in the first place. As a rule, they are very protective of their brand and their product (case in point: G-1 asking Demon to take down his stream).

It took dozens of conversations between myself/Godz and the Chinese administrators, not to mention countless hours of negotiations between the G-1 League and Valve, before they agreed to have a tournament ticket. And that's G-1! They're a pipsqueak next to the juggernauts that are ACE and the G-League, which are nationally televised in China.

Companies PAY G-League for the rights to broadcast their games on Chinese television (just like the NFL/MLB/etc in the US!) Compare that to Western Dota, where many tournaments actually pay the commentators to cast their events. It's just a totally different ballgame.

For the most part, the Chinese tournaments don't feel they need the Western viewing audience right now, and somehow we've got to help them understand that it's in their own best interest to make their content available to the west. Our viewership is a drop in the bucket compared to theirs *right now*, but over time I expect it will grow substantially.

Even in the case of G-1, for the most part, the English broadcast was an afterthought for the tournament's admins. You know, it's on a variety of levels. Things like starting a few games when my co-caster wasn't in the lobby, or not informing us of the schedule for the LAN finals until 2-3 days before it was to begin, or (most hilariously) just slapping two random white dudes' pictures into the trailer to represent myself & Godz.

I completely understand why this is the case right now (again, our viewership is a drop in the bucket compared to theirs, and they aren't earning a profit from the English broadcast), but ultimately it will have to change if we want the Western broadcast to be able to provide a top-notch experience for the viewers.

As a final example, the Chinese players aren't exactly forthcoming when it comes to interviews. You may have noticed we didn't have an interview with any members of LGD.cn, DK, or iG. It's not for lack of trying; it's because they weren't willing to consent to them. The biggest reason Western teams / dota have a much larger Western fanbase right now is that the players themselves are much more accessible to the public. They clearly have a ton of personality, but most Westerners don't realize that because they don't get to see that side of the players.

Godz: I need to learn to speak Chinese, haha. Liaising and explaining the importance of coverage to a Western audience and communicating with some of these Chinese organizations is so difficult! Even when I get people to assist in translating or liaising on my behalf I don't feel comfortable being so uninvolved from it all!

How do you feel about the state of SEA scene after G-1?

LD: SEA dota has been in flux for quite awhile now. MUFC overhauled their roster (and is probably about to do so again), Orange has been using iceiceice as their new 5th, Winter/fzfz have been playing consistently with Natural 9, and who knows what the hell is going on with Zenith nowadays. I'd like to see all the teams find a roster and stick with it, but that's easier said than done. The good news is that the inconsistency/turmoil in the rosters of the top teams has created space for upstarts like 1st Departure, For Love, Flash Esports, and Armageddon to make some inroads into the scene!

It's growing. It's much younger than the EU/NA scene for Dota 2, but I believe there are some incredibly talented players, the standard of public games is so much higher and more serious and this will lead to a very strong scene in the future. As for G-1 League, I think the representatives from SEA performed very well.

What are the plans for the future in terms of casting and tournament coverage, G League broadcasting chances seem a bit bleak, what happened there?

LD: G-League's a rather complex beast. They were in negotiations with one of the more prominent English broadcasters, but those broke down when the broadcaster asked for payment in exchange for providing coverage. (Again, remember that in China, TV companies pay G-League for rights, not the other way around).
We've been in talks with them, but G-League isn't just Dota 2; they also run competitions for Starcraft 2, League of Legends, and Warcraft 3, just to name a few. Right now, it seems like they would only be interested in partnering with an organization who could provide top-flight coverage of every single title under their banner-name, which just isn't feasible for Beyond the Summit. (Godz LOVES Warcraft 3 and would cast it in a heartbeat).

Frankly, I'm not sure ANYONE can provide what they are looking for in an English coverage partner right now, so the only two ways I see English coverage happening in the near future is (a) if they lower their expectations OR (b) if they decide to invest a huge amount of money into building their own inhouse English studio coverage.

That being said, we're still in talks, and I believe some others are as well, so for all I know, it's entirely possible there will be an English broadcast in some way, shape, or form.

Godz: I can't go into too much detail here and only know from mostly rumors, but from talks I've had, chances of an English broadcast is very unlikely due to a bad experience from G-League's organizers with the Western coverage scene. I'm working to try repair this bridge between them and the Western scene.

As for BeyondTheSummit, we'll be doing some tournament coverage of the GEST, The Asia, and possibly some other non-Asian tournaments as well.

G-1 League

Spoiler alert: LGD won G-1!

The production on the finals were very good. Can we expect it to become a standard for the future coverages?

LD: Our goal with this tournament was to create an experience that nobody has ever done before for online coverage of a Dota tournament. Obviously, there's only so much we can do without a proper studio setup and without access to live video / professional equipment at the venue, but as far as I'm concerned we've set a new standard and raised the bar for what viewers should expect from Dota streams.

How often do you turn on a stream to watch a Dota cast and have no idea what the stakes or storylines are? For me, the answer to that question has been "almost every time I turn one on." Even with a very limited budget, there is so much more we broadcasters can be doing to put matches in a proper context, generate hype, and craft a narrative that hooks the viewers.

The extent of production for most streamers right now is maybe showing a camera shot of themselves in a studio at the beginning of a cast, running a basic prerendered intro sequence, and using an overlay with sponsors logos during their casts. If we want sponsors to take competitive Dota seriously or invest major money into events, we need to be doing a lot more than just that. Sponsors want a proper eSports production that gives them real exposure!

Frankly, we have very limited resources since we rely entirely on ad revenue / subscribers to keep ourselves afloat, but in spite of that we're very happy with the level of production quality we were able to provide. But don't get me wrong, we're not resting on our laurels; we have a long list of stuff we'd like to improve on for future events, and, finances permitting, we'll cover all of it!

All that being said, the level of coverage we provided for G-1's LAN finals isn't something we can do for every tournament/game right now. The main issue is money. As a matter of principle, we believe in paying everyone that contributes content to our broadcasts that we feasibly can, from Chum (the guy who coded the flash countdown plugin we've been using), to the co-casters for G-1 League, to our video editor QoJ, to our logo animator Joakim, and of course to our graphic designer Chester.

Providing top-notch production costs serious money, and right now we don't have that kind of money. But there's still a lot you can do with very little (postgame interviews, showing brackets, studying the teams and keeping up to date on past results / roster changes so you can create a narrative during your casts, etc).

Godz: We'd love to have the same level of production, or ideally higher with us casting together in a studio, for all future events we cover. However, due to tournament formats and budgets it won't always be possible. For major event finals where they structure it over a weekend we can almost guarantee a similar level of production.

Both of you bet on iG to take the first place, but iG got the fourth. In your opinion, what happened with iG?

LD: I have a suspicion iG got complacent. LGD won this event because they carefully studied their opponents, pigeonholed their style, and prepared thoughtful strategies to counter them / punish their weaknesses. They were an open book to LGD in Game 1, and they didn't appear to make any major adjustments to their style in Game 2. Frankly, for me, the biggest issue was the hero selections for Ferrari. Nightstalker and even moreso Axe don't have a good plan B if they get shut down early. In comparison, heroes like TA/Invoker/QoP scale better into the mid-late game and give your team more options on how to go about securing a win.

Godz: Well, against LGD they gave away Batrider and a number of other heroes were picked up in tandem with this by LGD to counter the aggressive melee heroes of iG. I think iG needed a bit more versatility in Ferrari's hero range, and also to be a bit less predictable. Game 2 iG played very poorly. Faith jungled incredibly slow as Enigma, he and Chuan wasted a lot of time on failed ganks on the Mag, and it seemed iG dealt very poorly with this hero. The following game didn't seem to be a game iG had any passion for after losing.

What did you think about Orange's run?

LD: Clutch play from Mushi and iceiceice. Both players really rose to the occasion and made some exceptional individual plays. They looked dreadful and predictable on Day 1, but they really bounced back and showed some impressive resilience on Day 2.

Godz: I don't think Orange had much of a "run" at the LAN finals. They are the best team in SEA currently and defeated the teams they should have, including their main rival MUFC to qualify for the LAN finals. They fell fairly straight-forwardly to DK in the semi-final and the 3rd place decider vs iG didn't feel like a real victory to me.

Unfortunately, 3rd place deciders never seems to highlight teams at their peak of play and quality of matches and strategies suffered. Invictus Gaming especially didn't seem to put too much thought or passion into those games, while Orange really wanted to prove their worth in China (especially IceIceIce and Mushi who are rumored to want to join a Chinese team). In the end, Orange just wanted that victory so much more than iG, and even so, they scraped out a 2-1 victory against a thoughtless cheese strat that iG hatched for Game 3. Take nothing away from Orange, they are the best team in SEA and incredibly talented, but I don't believe they are better than iG.

LGD surprised a lot of people by taking the first place. In your opinion, what was the key element for LGD to become so strong in the finals?

LD: For me, it has to be xiao8. He outplayed both Ferrari and Super in his 1v1 matchups mid, set the tempo for the team, and completely out-strategized Zhou & Burning. I'm proud to say I've believed that he's the most complete captain in the world for a very long time now, and he finally vindicated my confidence in him yesterday. Director 8 fighting!

Godz: They drafted well and prepared for their opponents and came up with a reliable strategy they could execute throughout the tournament using the key trio of Mag, Jakiro, and Luna, moving on from their previous reliance on Yao's Invoker and Sylar's Lone Druid. Additionally, they played around with some strategies similar to iG but never seemed comfortable. The strategy used at the LAN finals they really executed and thought out well - 2 of the 4 games Sylar had an empty lane as Luna, and LGD just seemed to out-think and predict their opponents due to their preparation.

What was the most exciting/best game of the whole tournament?

LD: DK vs LGD - Game 1 from their Round of 6 Online Playoffs match. A 90 minute Dota saga; truthfully, I think it's the single-best game of Dota I've ever seen, and I'm including all the Dota 1 epics when I say that (yes, even better than the Na'Vi vs MYM Farm4Fame game!)

Godz: The first game between LGD and DK for me. Watching the decision making from LGD in this game was amazing. Despite Sylar having an empty lane for the second time of the tournament, the two supports spent their time stacking neutrals and farming rather than aggressively ganking middle lane like they had done earlier vs iG (with VS/Lesh). This allowed xiao8 to rush a very important Aghs, the supports picked up the Urn/Mek utility items that were needed, and LGD just created a huge deathball hero composition very quickly.

Who's the MVP?

LD: xiao8 of course. After him, it would have to be Yao. The guy just wrote a bible on how to play Magnataur.

Godz: It's impossible not to say xiao8. He was the one who led the team to victory, but as far as actual play went, I don't think you could say he played better than Sylar did on Luna, or the Enigma of DD, the Mag of Yao, etc. But as the captain, when you dismantle both iG and DK 2-0, you definitely deserve the MVP.

How disappointed were you at the lack of suitcases of money

LD: SO. FUCKING. MAD.

The official Chinese G-1 introduction featured "your" portraits; do you think you guys were well represented?

The portraits used for LD and Godz in the G-1 opening credits.

LD: Naw, we're way more handsome!

Godz: I'm a tiger. GRRR.

Bonus Questions

What do you think is the most intriguing up-and-coming team in the world?

LD: The A-Team (Korok, Bulba, fluffnstuff, ixmike88, and TC). Fluff's a class act (and a fantastic jungle player), Korok's one of the highest impact carry players in the game today, and TC generally exhibits very strong decision-making. Bulba studies Chinese/Asian dota more than any other competitive player I know, and ixmike's got the 'stache. What's not to love?

If they train hard and maintain a stable roster, I'm pretty confident they have what it takes to finish top 3 at TI3.

Godz: Back to China fanboyism I guess :D? With G-league switching to Dota 2 I really hope to see ForLove qualify and focus their attention on Dota 2 as I think they could become a strong contender in the Asian scene. Also these rumors of ZSMJ returning with Chisbug/830God/Luo/Show make my body tremble with excitement! If only we could have the old LGD lineup with YYF as well!

What are your predictions for Dreamhack?

LD: Na'Vi wins, and 2GD drinks a lot of whisky.

Godz: Empire or NaVi. EG's drafting is too all over the place (giving up Bat, Jakiro, Ta vs Empire...). I'd love to see Dignitas do well but they don't seem to have the consistency. Maybe nth could cause some upsets, EternalEnvy seems like a great captain, reminds me a lot of Fluff.

Any final words?

LD: Thanks for supporting Asian/Chinese dota! It's truly an honor to get to bring such amazing games to you guys, and I hope to continue being able to do it for many years to come. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DAMN TWITCH CHANNEL OR EL GATO WILL RIP YOUR HAIR OUT (CASE IN POINT: GODZ).

Godz: Thanks to Mali, Felix, and Pikaxiu the people who helped arrange and allow the English broadcast of the G-1 League. Also to the amazingly hard-working LD, regardless of how many times he failed with Xsplit overlays! And to everyone else who helped BtS cover this event as extensively as we did.

This news update was brought to you by TL's G-1 Champions League coverage team - heyoka, riptide, HawaiianPig, shiroiusagi and kupon3ss. Thanks to Valve TI2 coverage for the banner images!

Last edit: 2012-11-23 22:06:32

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[G-1] LD / Godz Interview

Divine Interviewtion

By Kupon3ss

International Dota2

G-1 League

Bonus Questions