Astini: «We'll be better, we didn't have much time to prepare»

We’re fine. We'll be better; we didn't have much time to prepare. And we knew both outcomes would be possible — so more time to work towards where we want to be.

When we were in Brazil, we decided to come to Europe, and we were considering options. We had basically three options that we believed could work. One was a bootcamp in Germany, but it was extremely expensive, something like eight times what we are paying here to rent our house and rent PCs. We also had an option in Poland. That was something around the price we pay here or just a bit more expensive. But with far less comfort: everyone would have been living in the same room. Six people sleeping, same room. And then we had Ukraine. And, at first, we were in contact with WePlay, maybe they could help us. And when we decided to come to Europe, and we were looking for a midlaner, I posted in a group chat, “Hey guys, I'm looking for a midlaner in Europe.” And then one guy said, “Hey, I can help you find midlaners. But why in Europe?” And then I told him that we would go to Europe, either Poland, Germany, or Ukraine. And he said, “Oh, I can help you guys settling in Kharkiv.” And then this guy, JoJo [John Tomczyk, Dota manager from the UK], suggested us the city because, here, he knew the guys from Zeus Arena. So you need two things, right? A house with an internet connection and PCs. So here we knew we could get PCs, and we had already looked at some houses on the internet. And, “Okay. It's doable,” you know? So that's how we ended up here.

We landed on October 27. So two months, yeah. After a month and a half, we kind of started talking with him and practicing with him to see if it would work out.

We were trying midlaners from Europe: Adzantik, SymmetricaL. We liked playing with the guys. It was good, but we still weren't really feeling like a team. We couldn't be on the same page. Even the guys are really great to other players. But we still had so much trouble playing as a team. There are many reasons for that. The guys are new in competitive, and we speak a lot of Portuguese between us because we have a routine here between us. So I think it's actually most on our side that we couldn't feel like a team. We would finish a match, and we all discussed between us and the other guys were kind of lost. So I guess it was a mistake from our side that we couldn't really feel like a team with anyone. We tried out. And so all the time we were looking if it might work better with someone else. 

And then Dendi and B8 announced that two players were out. And when we saw this announcement, we had a chat like, “Hey, imagine playing with Dendi.” You know, everyone imagined it; this comes through all. It would be so fun. “Oh, Holy sh*t; imagine we play with a TI winner. Yeah. I can't believe it. This would stop the entirety of Brazil to look at us. We would win everything. So why we don't send him a message? You're kidding, right? No, let's send, let's see what he says.” And then I sent him a message, and he was very open to try out and see if it would work. And then we started playing scrims together, and it was fitting well. I guess he has; besides being a really good player, he has so much knowledge of competitive Dota. From the beginning, we could already feel that we were playing like a team, you know. Not like we grabbed five players and played matchmaking. Because that was the feeling when we were testing players before, and then, with Dendi, it was the first time we felt how competitive Dota is like: the communication was very sharpened. “Oh, this is the guy we would like to play with.”

He has so much knowledge, and we have so much of a defined playstyle that we played. Like, we were, let's say, stuck in our region for so long. You know, we played just South America for so long. So we need to match those styles. We need to discuss more Dota and find out what's best for us. To really, really be on the same page. We already feel that we can discuss things together and improve together.