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Mag: We have a lot of work to do

Dota 2 / News / 31 March 2021 — 13:50

Mag about the Major tournament, Dota 2 anime and popular heroes

ua Andrey “Mag Chipenko shares his opinion about the ongoing ONE Esports Singapore Major 2021 tournament, rates the most popular heroes, and talks about the team's future plans.

What is your opinion about the format of the competition? Should teams play four BO2 matches in one day?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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Obviously, due to the pandemic, it’s understandable that organizers want to hold the tournament in the shortest time. On the other hand, teams and players are not happy with the format, since four bo2 are too much, though everyone competes under equal conditions.

This is the first LAN in a long time, of course in the future I think it would be better to add one more day for the group stage, as well as adding a one day-break between groups and playoffs to give the teams sufficient time to prepare.

This is the first tournament with teams from different regions. Which regions can you point out? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each region?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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I think that the guys from South America - pe Thunder Predator, surprised the most, despite the fact that they came from second place in their region, they showed a very good performance in the group. They were unlucky with their first opponent in the playoffs, but I hope they will still be able to get into the top 8.

Further, Chinese teams show good stability. us Quincy Crew also did a great job in the group stage. It’s interesting to see who will be among the top teams in the play-offs, I think at least 3 Chinese teams will be in the top 8. Personally, I'm very curious to see how ru Virtus.pro will show themselves in the match against cn PSG.LGD.

seAlliance and eu Nigma did not reach the playoffs. Did this result surprise you? Can you say that Europe is overrated?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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As for the guys from eu Nigma, the stand-in and the absences of bg Mind_Control had a very strong effect. ru Ramzes could be a very good choice as a stand-in, it is strange that they did not use this chance, even despite the fact that he had already arrived at the tournament and was ready to play.

Of course, I was surprised by the results of teams from Europe, but these were groups, and for example, se Liquid still has a good chance in the tournament. And do not forget that the main representative of the EU region at this tournament is eu Team Secret.

When it comes to the ru AS Monaco Gambit, what did the team lack for decent performance? Did they overthink the picks in the decisive game enough?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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I think that the guys from ru Gambit were well prepared and had to take a tough road. They had very tense matches against cn Vici where they had a high chance of winning both maps but unfortunately lost in the end. And Bo1 vs se Liquid for the advance was pure random.

If you try to guess the winner of the championship now, which team are you betting on?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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Before the start of the tournament, the main favorites for me were eu Secret, ru VP, and cn IG. I feel like at least one of these teams will definitely be in the final. Yet, this is probably an obvious prediction. It's hard to guess what will happen in the playoffs, the advantage of teams from the group stage is that they have already had a chance to play in the tournament and will feel more confident in the future. From now on, anything can happen and that's what makes this tournament exciting to follow.

At the moment, the most popular hero of the tournament is Puck, with an over 60% win rate. What makes this hero so good?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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He's versatile in the midlane, hard to shut down, and good at all stages in the game, plus he can be flexed into multiple roles. Puck is a cool initiator, spells with a small CD, AoE silence in a fight, the ult that holds several heroes, and also works against BKB in late-game with Aghanim. Who else can do that? The hero was popular before Major if you look at the stats in all regions.

Elder Titan has less than two dozen games, with a win rate of more than 80%. Is this hero broken?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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I would not judge only by win rate. In fact, most of the games with him were played by cn PSG.LGD and cn Vici who showed themselves very cool in the Wild Card and the group stage, hence the win rate. The hero was forgotten, but the Chinese are very good at using him, he is good against many meta agile carries, as well as popular midrange heroes such as Puck/VS.

He is definitely a strong hero, but strong in the hands of certain teams and players, that’s why this win rate is not an indicator that the hero is imba. By the way, Phoenix at some point in the group stage + Wild Card had a win rate of 100% with 14 or 15 matches played. But now, with 26 games played, the win rate has dropped to 69%.

Io has been banned over 60 times, while in the picks this hero was played as a core. How did it happen that he managed to change his role from support to carry?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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I think that many teams and players understood his potential in the core position, there was simply not enough practice, but as we can see, many teams managed to train with him and use him effectively. I'm not surprised, I knew that many teams would play with a carry IO in this tournament. The hero is very strong, he’s one of the heroes that changes the game a lot. I think that he will always be banned in the playoffs against teams that can play him.

We cannot ignore Luna in the 5 position. What makes this hero so good at this role? Do you like the fact that the core heroes have ended up in the support positions - and vice versa?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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People just started to look at the Dota support position differently. We see more and more unusual heroes in the 4th and 5th positions. Such as Tide / Puck / Gyro / Luna/ Death Prophet and many others. It's a meta + very cool for your draft when you can flex a hero at multiple positions.

Why is Luna strong? Just look at her base armor/move speed, on top of that, the hero has cool talents for the support position through the magic build. So far, in this tournament mostly Chinese teams are playing with Luna, they were the first to actively play with this hero at the 4-5 positions. I'm not sure if we'll see Luna played by other teams though.

Since we have already discussed  Luna,  it's impossible not to ask you about the Dota 2 anime. Have you seen it? What were your impressions?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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Watched it in one breath, despite the fact that I am not an anime fan, I really liked it. The producers did a great job - the only problem is that the show is too short. I would like to see more episodes!

Do you think the anime will succeed in attracting new players to Dota 2? What should Valve do to increase the number?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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This is one of the main priorities. I think Anime alone is not enough, they need to think more in the direction in which they can improve the game itself for the community. Although it's worth noting that they've started to do a lot more in comparison to the last couple of years.

What do you think of training missions for new players? Isn't it too late for Valve to take this initiative?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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To be honest, I haven't gone through training myself, I had a look at it, but I cannot say that I had time to get to know this update well. I think this is a great idea, especially considering that Valve wants to attract new players. Dota is a very difficult game for people who are playing it for the first time. So better late than never :)

You haven't streamed for a long time. When do you plan to return to this activity?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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I will try to come back in the near future, I do not promise to stream a lot, because the second season of qualifications for the Majors will start very soon. But I will try to make some kind of a schedule and find time for it.

How does the ua NAVI team plan to spend the time before the second DPC season?
uaAndrey “Mag” Chipenko
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We are going to decide it in the near future, I think that we will resume training in the coming days. We have a lot of work to do, especially with all the recent events.