Interview with Team Liquid coach, Blitz
Author: Hawk Live LLC
Last updated:
Analyst and translator Leon «Arthur» Lee interviewed Team Liquid coach William «Blitz» Lee, who talked about formation of the team, MATUMBAMAN and Zai, captain iNSaNiA and opponents on Dota Pro Circuit.
About Ludwig «zai» Wåhlberg
In the current DPC season, Team Liquid have gotten themselves one of the strongest rosters on paper. They not only welcomed their TI 7 winner – MATUMBAMAN, they also brought Zai to the team. Both players were previously with Team Secret.
When they changed roster, the team had some talks with a lot of players from the CIS region, even some from South East Asia as well. But when Zai became available, there was no reason for Team Liquid to pass on him.
In another podcast with Capitalist, Blitz mentioned that Zai gave him a list of players he would like to play with. Names like Sumail, Arteezy and MATUMBAMAN came up. However, for Blitz, some of them were just not possible to get on the team.
That being said though, Zai didn’t care much about how the roster would end up, said Blitz. Zai joining the team before the roster was completed is an indicator of the 24-year-old player’s confidence. It highlights his belief that he will be able to make the team work no matter the situation he goes into.
The first match of Team Liquid at WEU DPC was funny. Zai played on Pudge and Spirit Breaker. The analytics asked him if he has the highest priority when choosing heroes. He jokingly replied that in his contract he prescribed complete freedom of action and could take any heroes for himself.
Blitz shared that when Zai proposed the two heroes, the team agreed. Interestingly, however, Zai also asked MATUMBAMAN about this, to which he replied: «Yeah I don’t care.»
To Blitz, it is a win-win situation for the team if they’re able to have fun and also win at the same time. As it also demonstrates a high level of trust within the team.
Blitz:
If you have ideas, and if you want to lead, we’re going to give you space and room to be able to do so
About Lasse Aukusti «MATUMBAMAN» Urpalainen
Blitz was also asked if he’d noticed any differences or improvements in MATUMBAMAN compared to the last time they worked together in Team Liquid. That was 2016 where Blitz was coaching Team Liquid and the team comprised KuroKy, FATA-, MinD_ContRoL and JerAx.
Blitz describes the young MATUMBAMAN that he worked with before as never really a big talker. In fact, he has always been kind of quiet. Aside from being more serious and experienced now, MATUMBAMAN is very specific about what he wants out of the games now.
About Aydin «iNSaNiA» Sarkohi
One of the most important Blitz’ goals in Team Liquid is to make iNSaNiA more active. This is because the coach felt that he did not spend enough time with his captain last season.
Blitz:
I feel like along the way, I kind of forgot about him. And I have to remind myself that at the end of the day, he’s the glue that makes our team work, regardless of how good Zai and Matu are, like the person that I personally will believe in the most is iNSaNiA
According to the coach, iNSaNiA is in good form and has a healthy mindset and is able to think about Dota in the right ways, the team will click together. It is important to support and help him.
Problems and challenges for Team Liquid
According to Blitz, potential problems that the team could have are complacency and laziness. The team needs to focus on always having ideas of what they want to do and how they want to progress together instead of just mindlessly playing.
Which Teams are the biggest challenges for Liquid? Without hesitation, Blitz answered Team Secret. That’s because Puppey is an incredible captain and they have amazing players now. Besides Puppey, Blitz also said that Kuroky will always figure things out too, so Nigma Galaxy is a strong opponent as well. However, Nigma Galaxy isn’t looking too hot with their current score now; they are 1-3 at the time of writing.
When Blitz talked about Tundra Esports, he said that they’re definitely not a dark horse anymore, everyone knows how good they are at this point.
And finally, we come to OG. There are a bunch of zoomers in the team that have never been stomped or owned by Puppey in their career yet. So, they don’t have the fear that many others have and that could be really scary and dangerous. The results are definitely there for all to see, with OG beating Team Secret in a dominant fashion in their debut match.
At the moment Team Liquid are top 1 in WEU DPC Division I. Ahead of them are the matches against Alliance and Nigma Galaxy.
