Resolut1on interview: “I can’t say that I’m feeling all cool with the offlane role, but I feel much more confident”

Roman “Resolut1on” Fominok sat down with Taras Bortnik, our special reporter at WePlay! Tug of War: Mad Moon, and discussed all the difficulties he faced upon returning to the CIS region and joining Virtus.pro. He also gave a bit of insight on what didn’t work with the two pub stars at the beginning of the season and why the team felt the need to replace them ahead of the Leipzig Major.

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Everyone likes to spend their Friday nights in their own way.  What is your mood?

Peaceful. I began to meditate again and now everything comes together. Well, at least it’s in the process.

You didn’t mention meditating before.

I have been practicing this for a long time, on and off, but now I began to do that again regularly. It helps.

How did you come to this?

Where does the thirst for meditation come from? Stress, anxiety…

Did someone advise you?

For the first time, Evany, the former manager of OG, told me about this. She advised me on the application, I got involved, I liked it and I immediately began to feel the benefits of this thing.

Why have you interrupted it?

I do not know. At some point, it became a chore, I stopped noticing the benefits. But when you throw it away, you understand that you need to return. This time I will try to do this for as long as possible.

How do you enjoy your return to Kyiv, you haven’t played here in a long time.

It’s very nice. It’s nice to play for your audience, for your guys who support you because, well, you’re a fellow countryman.

Do you feel like you are in the middle of attention?

I feel support from the people. And it fuels me.

Throughout almost your entire career, the community had your back. First as a promising mid-player, then as an established one. The CIS fans called you the  “CIS last hope”. Coming to Virtus.pro you faced a huge wave of hate. How do you deal with it?

Joining Virtus.pro brought some difficulties, yes. It really is very difficult for me to experience such moments lately. Firstly I changed the role. The role is more sacrificial. You need to give more than you take. It’s a particularly ungrateful role. People don’t notice what you are doing.

Generally speaking, when I played in NA, I looked more like a foreigner among strangers and I felt a lot of support from the CIS community. When I came back and I’m basically among my people, for some reason, people began to sling mud at me.

Maybe you just didn’t notice it before?

It just hasn’t been there. Not as much as it is now. It’s tough.

You need to ignore it. And as you already mentioned meditation, I understand that the fact that you started to do it again just now must be connected to all the negative comments from the community

Most likely.

Some are trying to de-stress in the gym, some dive hard in Dota. How about you?

I almost completely stopped reading any comments. There is no point in this. These are mostly biased reviews, so why once again experience this negativity? I began to worry more about my moral state, to think more about how to relax after a busy day. 

Who supports you, except for your teammates?

There were conversations with a couple of friends with whom I sat down and discussed this topic and they helped me with advice. They are not people involved in esports.

In a Cooman interview, when speaking about your transition from carry to offlane, he said that he feels like you are not used to the new role, that you have difficulties to adapt. What do you think about his words?

I think Zaur exaggerated a little. It all depends on the hero. To some extent, he is right that I still do not have enough confidence in this role, not to mention making calls. But still, I try to do it more and more with each game and I get better. I try to analyze my actions and improve. There are a lot of people on the team right now who are very vocal. Zayac just joined and he also likes to talk a lot in the game. Solo talks a lot and if No[o]ne has a good game, he also talks a lot. With all of them extremely used at making calls, it’s very difficult for me to make my words heard.

Also, if I say something in clutch moments, then there is complete chaos on teamspeak and no one would hear anyone. We are working on it and discussing it outside the game. I can’t even say that there is too much information, but when many people speak, someone needs to remain silent, otherwise, there’s a mess. If someone sees the game, then why should I interrupt him if he’s already good.

At the beginning of the season you said the following phrase: “I definitely need to restructure my view on the game, but I don’t  think it will be a problem – the guys will help me a lot.” Did you have troubles with this?

It wasn’t easy, but I did it. I changed my perspective on what are the priorities in the game, etc. I’m still learning and adapting, I can’t say that I’m feeling all cool with the offlane role, but I feel much more confident.

photo credits: WePlay! Esports

In the same interview I mentioned earlier, Cooman said that you are constantly working on your game, watching replays of other players. Who are you watching?

I watch Ceb’s games a lot, I watch his games at The International – I get a lot from how he coordinates the team, how he moves and acts. I often watch Zai and 33. I respect these players, I consider them some of the best in their roles. They act differently in different situations, they don’t have any particular patterns, but they are very intelligent players. 

At one time you praised MinD_ControL, saying that it makes you tilt when you are against him in the lane. Is it still true?

It was like that a while back, but in the meantime MC faded a bit, to be honest. I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t have enough motivation to play. Maybe the team is still in a state of rest after a TI9. I do not know. From this sideline, it is clear that he is struggling a bit.

How is the chemistry between all of the current Virtus.pro members,  is it different from what you had with the previous line-up?

Now we are five adults with basically similar interests. Because of this, it is very easy for us to interact with each other. When you have a 10 years distance between the captain and one of his players it becomes a bit more difficult for them to find a common language. This leads to unnecessary misunderstandings and difficulties. Even outside the game, it’s hard to spend time together and just chat.

Wasn’t  it obvious from the very beginning that they might not be on the same page, that the age difference might be a problem? 

It was obvious, but we decided to try because there were so many cases when young pub players joined the pro scene and played super well right away. Miracle-, Nisha, etc. However, the difference is that these people already had a lot of competitive experience before they got on a tier 1 team, while in our case the two guys were completely inexperienced. Dota 2 in pubs is a different game than what you have to play in competitive, and it was very difficult for them to change their mindset and understand how it all works.

It was rumored recently that Virtus.pro plans to open a secondary team with Save and epileptick1d. Of course, you might not be able to make an official statement about it, if it’s true or not, but  I can ask what you think about such an initiative.

I think it is a very good idea to nurture the young generation and give them the opportunity to prove themselves, to gain the basic competitive experience that they lack. I find an initiative like this extremely positive.

We discussed with Universe about the importance of how you set for yourself certain goals. While for the young players it might look very simple,  you join a team, play well, qualify for TI, for the old school players like yourself, the drive might disappear after a few TIs. Have you ever felt like stopping or taking a break?

At some point, you definitely get lost, you lose the vision, the focus. Sometimes everything just seems impossible, and all these negative thoughts are constantly knocking you down. But it’s very important to remind yourself what you are playing for. Now I play for us to become the best team in the world. I want us to really interact very cool with each other so that we have a good, trusting relationship. For me, it is very important to establish chemistry in a team.

How does it happen that one day you qualify for the Major and the next day,  in the Parimatch league you lose to the same team that you defeated in the qualifiers finals so hard that some people start talking about 322?

First off,  we had Ramzes666 as stand-in. And at that moment it was fun enough for us to play together. I wouldn’t say that we didn’t care about how we played, but at some point, something did not work out. Also, we somehow thought it’s a two-game series and we almost scattered after the second game, when in fact we had to play one more game. We were that relaxed after the qualifiers, let’s just say we weren’t in the mood and fully focused for those games. 

Many say that the CIS is now the weakest among all regions, including South America. Do you agree?

Right now, yes, I think it’s possible that CIS is weaker than SA. That’s because of all the reshuffles and the fact that we didn’t have success at the beginning of the season. But I think this will change soon.

Do you have an idol in regular sports?

I can’t say that I have an idol in the true sense of the word, but, you know, I admire Lebron James a lot. He is a very good teammate. He is always empowering his teammates, somehow inspiring them, and this is a very good quality, something that would be cool to have myself. I know for sure that at some point in my life, with my hard work, I can set an example for other teammates. Back in the Digital Chaos days, I thought I was giving people some kind of motivation, of incentive to push hard, and I think when they saw that I have a certain schedule, it helped a bit with a lot of other things.

When you look back at the DC times and think that that was your career peak, do you get something close to a panic attack?

That was my first thought after The International 2016. I thought I missed my only chance. I do not know why. Now I think that everything is in my hands.

At the end of our interview, I’d like to talk to you about your photo session for Louis Vuitton. How was it?

source: Buro

It’s fun to work and see how this all happens on a professional level. All these shootings, etc. It was very interesting to work with these people. To be honest, everything is very similar to our media days (laughs).

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More interviews from WePlay! Tug of War: Mad Moon

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