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ТраВоМаН interview
Enjoy the read!
Today we will introduce you to one of the best Techies of the current Dota 2 scene and one of the most popular streamers on Twitch - Timur "ТраВоМаН" Hafizov. In this interview, Timur told us about himself and his hobbies, Techies and professional players, as well as the main problems of streamers.
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Born and raised in Moscow. From childhood, I loved reading, from about three years old to eleven or twelve I devoted all my free time to books, usually fantasy or detective stories. Somewhere at the age of twelve, I got a computer and obviously games. Loved and love to play strategy games (Civilization V) and Dota, of course.
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I do not have a degree, I study at the BMSTU(Bauman Moscow State Technical University), as an optical engineer, one more year before I graduate, but last year I took the academic leave for the youtube channel.
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The first time I played Dota 2 was somewhere in the eighth grade, I was fourteen years old, it was still by invites only - classmates invited me. I don’t remember the first match, but the DotA I played for fun years later, I’m not sure that I even played one game till the end.
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For a long time I had 3-4k MMR, once I’ve had a lose streak of 300-400 pts to 3800 MMR and decided to change something in the approach to the game, for example, picking Techies for fun. He just got reworked back then, and it happens that I began to master it at the same time as other Techies lovers.
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Now it’s hard to say exactly why this happened. Probably more so because people were not ready for the hero with new mechanics, and there were almost no Techies players. I immediately managed to “find” an effective game, and for quite some time my strategy dragged me up, although my understanding of the game remained at the level of 3-4k player.
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Naga Siren, Oracle, and Anti-Mage.
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In general, I love Pudge a lot, spammed this hero even before the Techies - therefore, I'm most comfortable in the game with him, I understand better where I need to be. Otherwise I take some hero on position 5 and get used to slowly during the game. I can only judge by high matchmaking games - here the support is required to understand their position on the map rather than being on a specific hero. But in principle, Chen is in meta.
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W_Zayac is the only Techies player in the pro scene so far, who I am not ashamed to watch when he plays the hero in some tournament match. In pubs, I did not see him play on a Techies, unfortunately, but I blew him up on mines, even uploaded to YouTube later :)
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Yes, broadcasting is like my working day in the office, 7-8 hours. But, unlike regular work, I then come "home" and do YouTube, interact with the audience, and develop the channel. The total time is about 12-14 hours of work per day. The main difficulty is psychological stability, but maybe it's only for me. My girlfriend helps me a lot in this.
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I worked as a press secretary in the Moscow government. My tasks included communication with the press, for example, helping with making reports on channels.
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No, it’s rather my personal state of mind. I’m a calm person, I’m more comfortable broadcasting like this. Another thing is that this is also the right approach in terms of giving an example for viewers.
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There are two reasons. First: this is a difficult game in terms of interaction, and people are forced to depend on each other. There's no escaping it, but it's also a source of conflict. Second: leaders opinion. Since the appearance of streamers and content makers, people have had examples of how to "behave" in front of their eyes. Often these are just toxic examples.
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I thought about it, but in the end I decided that I was not interested. After all, you have to devote all yourself to esports, and with streaming I at least sleep at home :) I think I could play any role, the only question is motivation. If you really want to, you can sit for hours and practice your position. But I don't have the desire.
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Inexperience. I believe that this defeat lies entirely on me. Firstly, I was absolutely unable to strictly and clearly regulate the team, to the extent that I did not dare to kick the toxic player, which in the end let us down and we couldn't to participate in the first qualifications. Secondly, I was confused in the game against Nemiga and did not make obvious bans and picks, I was simply too nervous. On personal performance, if I am on Techies, I see no problems.
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I doubt I will be commentator: it’s hard for me to cover the events of the match in this format, constantly listing events. In this regard, in my personal live streams, I give more the analysis, and pay almost no attention to fights, but rather, to their causes and consequences.
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No, there were no invitations.
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The most non-standard and unexpected for me is streamsnipe :) It depends on the level of professional players, of course. But on my channel you can find an example of how a pro player actively uses the information from my stream to win. Otherwise, it's just a regular Techies counterplays.
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Tier-1 scene players rarely allows themselves to do some remarks. Mostly, players like Zitraks,
fn are aggressively raging, but for me it is both funny and sad at the same time - after all, it is very rudely done. As for the praise,
No[o]ne often mentions me, and he gets tilted but respects it, for which I am very grateful.
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This is probably one of my first matches against Miracle- when I just hit the 6k MMR. He then played Meepo, and I remember the shivers i got during the game. I often rewatched the highlights of that game on YouTube.
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In general, during the games themselves I always root for the team with the best draft. But on the whole in the tournament I will in the first place root for the victory of the CIS teams.
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Hardly, there is almost no free time only maybe as part of the job to be up to date with whats going on Twitch.
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I have tried, played about 10-15 games - It isn't for me.
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Remember that the main thing in the game is to enjoy it, be it a victory, just beautiful gameplay or a pleasant atmosphere. And toxicity does not help any of these factors.