Tavo interview: “EU Dota is way more aggressive than what we do in SA”

Taras Bortnik, our special reporterStarladder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor, had the chance to chat with  Otávio “Tavo” Gabriel about his new team, NoPing e-sports, about the South American scene and how it might develop with the introduction of regional leagues in the next season.

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Hi Tavo, good to see you again. How do you find Ukraine, did you get rid of the jetlag, did you adapt to weather and all?

Yes, we arrived here four days before the tournament, we did it especially to make sure we can get rid of the jetlag and to get a few days of practice with the team here. We, of course, practiced at home as well, but SA Dota is definitely different than what you are going to play in Europe or CIS, for example.

Any useful findings during your practice days here?

Yes, definitely. Drafting wise we learned some stuff that’s happening here and that’s not happening in SA. The teams at this Minor give you less room for mistakes, and I also found out that teams here are a lot about constant fighting around the map. All teams just want to fight, all the time. It’s crazy but I like it. 

It’s actually weird to hear that a SA team discovers that there are other teams that want to fight more than them. 

Yeah, yeah, it’s actually surprising, but right now I truly believe that the EU Dota is way more aggressive than what we do in SA.

You’re with a new team at the Minor, and because this is the first Dota Pro Circuit tournament for NoPing e-sports, I’d like to start the interview by asking how did the beastcoast story influence the SA players mentality?

I’m personally really happy when I see a SA team doing so well in international tournaments. The stronger our region gets, the better scrim partners we get, we draw the attention of possible sponsors, we are slowly but steadily moving forward, in a good direction. However, with beastcoast being the only team to stay there in the top 8 worldwide, I think our region still has a long way to go, but I think things will be different in the next season because of the regional leagues system.

How do you think the new DPC system will impact your region?

For example, I know a lot of players who were really, really good, but couldn’t commit 100% to a professional career because they had to make money to live. I’m pretty sure that with the regional leagues coming next season we will have at least 10 teams from South America able to make a living of their Dota 2 career. The players will earn enough to afford to be doing only this. They will be able to dedicate their lives to professional play without being worried anymore about the day by day expenses. 

From what I know, the NoPing e-sports current line-up was put together about two weeks before the qualifiers. Can you tell us more about how you guys formed this team?

What basically happened is that I and Costabile wanted to form a team a long time ago. We tried out some players and all of a sudden two of who I consider really good SA players, 4dr and Thiolicor, became free agents. So we immediately went to talk to them and we became a team of four. We needed the fifth, which was a bit of a tricky situation because we don’t have many options in SA when it comes down to support 5 position. It’s not that we don’t have good players for support 5 in SA, we do, but they are just very few.

KJ, who is our support 5 now, used to play 4 with his former team. I played with him as 4 when we tried out players and I liked the guy very much. I think he has a huge potential to be the next big name from SA.

KJ at the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor

You and Costabile had the chance to play in North America. Is something that you learned during your time there that you brought to this team?

Of course, every time you get to play with more experienced or better organized teams you learn something, you gather some experience that will help you later on, no matter in which region you play. I’ll give you a very recent example, after a scrim session we had here at the Minor, Costabile did something with us that he was doing with his previous team. After a loss, instead of talking about problems, what went wrong, getting all depressed, etc, we focused on what can we learn from watching a replay.  So, we watched the replay and said ok, we lost the lanes, what should we have done after that? Adjust the item builds, contest Roshan at this point and that’s it. He explained to us that his former team didn’t complicate too much the post-game analysis. 

After playing with compLexity in NA, did you think of keep on trying other regions, perhaps find a team in Europe?

To be honest, I always wanted to play in Europe, but there was no decent opportunity for me.

It’s time for us to wrap up the interview here. I wish you best of luck with NoPing e-sports and I hope to see you more often on LAN tournaments. Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

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