Stand-in: «LeBron about NAVI.Dota 2»

LeBron about NAVI.Dota 2.

Natus Vincere celebrate their triumph! The guys won the qualifiers of the Minor tournament GESC E-Series: Jakarta and are preparing to go to Indonesia this March to encounter other rosters over the share in the prize pool of $300.000 and 300 qualifying points in Dota Pro Circuit.

The qualifiers of this event was hard trial for NAVI since the team had to fight over the slot in the LAN without their captain Akbar «SoNNeikO» Butaev. Fortunately, one of the most experienced players of competitive scene Nikola «» Popović landed his helping hand to our team.

LeBron quickly fit in the working process and put every effort to help our team win the regional qualifiers. We can't help but estimating his contribution to the successful result! O behalf of NAVI eSports club we express our gratitude to Nikola for his professional assistance and his efforts.

We made a short interview with  LeBron who told us about the atmosphere in the team during the battles. He shared with us his experience of playing with Natus Vincere Dota 2 line-up and being the part of the team!

— Hi! We are sure many people are interested why NAVI asked you to be their stand-in when in need? Can you tell us who offered you to play in the roster?

— Hi! I have already played with NAVI couple of times before and I guess I showed some talent. RodjER asked me.

— Did you have experience in playing in teams? Was it hard to fit in the team that has already been formed?

— I have experience playing for t2-t3 teams , and 1 time I played as a standin for NAVI vs OG 2 years ago. It was not hard because NAVI players played amazing.

— You surely know the more experienced players of the team (since you played as a stand-in at NAVI previously). Have you ever played with any of the newcomers? What do you think of Crystallize and RodjER?

— Well it’s interesting that I have known RodjER for a long time. We played some party games about 5 years ago, so I know him for a while; a lot of changes happened since then and we both improved a lot. I am happy for him. As to Crystallize — I played with him a couple of times in Double Dimension when he was a standin for us, and I liked him then.

— Did you have difficulties in communication? Do you speak Russian fluently? How did you guys communicate among yourselves during these matches?

— I don’t speak Russian fluently, but I can understand it very well; I was talking in English because I didn't want to give wrong info in Russian, but I could understand everything other players were saying.

— Does your pool of heroes differ significantly from that of SoNNeikO? What about your playstyle?  

— Well, my role is not pos5, so we had to improvise; my playstyle is aggressive, I always want to be in the action so that's why I like pos4!

— We’ve seen you playing on Rubick, the hero that previously has almost never been picked by NAVI. Was picking this hero your idea?

— Yeah, I just gave the suggestions and we tried that in winners’ bracket; it worked out well so we continued to pick him. I was lucky that 10 days ago I spammed Rubick for about 20 games on another account to practice the hero and it worked out really well.

— Can you describe the atmosphere in NAVI? How does communication work inside the team?

— I could feel that Ii am playing with the real team; the atmosphere was fantastic and at one point, when we were losing 2:1 to Team Spirit, SoNNeikO joined our teamspeak and gave us some advice and motivated us for next games - that helped us in the end.

— Who was in charge for the coordination of ingame actions during these matches?

— Everyone who saw a play that we can make, or if some core felt he is really strong and we can go HG (Danya, Vitya).

— Do you think you managed to introduce new things or learn some new lessons, for example from the draft process?

— I showed myself that I can play in a top team and this gives me more motivation for the future, and I learned a lot from all NAVI players.

— Can you say a couple of words to the fans?

— I got a lot of messages on social media with everyone supporting me, and that helped me a lot: NAVI is not just a team and I could feel it. My first ever Dota tournament I watched was TI1 and I started following and cheering for NAVI since then; I used to watch this clip a lot , and it always makes me happy and motivated to try and be a pro. A big shoutout to NAVI players - they are amazing. And cheers to the best fans in the world!