Dendi's blog

Recently, Danil "Dendi" Ishutin has published a very extensive blog, talking about many of the issues that his fans and skeptics like to discuss. Below is the full translation. Enjoy!

Hello everybody. I wanted to write something about the hate and other stuff for a long time. I finally got to it, because I feel like I have to do this now in order to deflect a lot of stupid things people have been writing for years now.

I haven’t been doing this because people tend to listen only to those who are on the top. We have been very much under the weather for a long time now. I’ve been waiting for the moment when we will finally play well :) We came quite close a few times, but the moment never really came, so I will have to talk about this from the bottom ^_^

I have an example from a distant 2010 (about the fact that people tend to listen to those who are on top of their game) when I played for DTS team and I wanted to do something for the Dota community (at that time there was no concept of media presence in esports as such and everything was done free of charge and sincerely, in my opinion). 2009-2010 is the approximate time when I moved from the "support" position to the "solo mid" position.

I was very much inspired by the player under the nickname "YaphetS". To this day, I'm his fan (I even have his mouse pad). He was an insanely good "Nevermore" aka "Shadow Fiend" player. After the WDC2010 tournament, I analyzed a couple of my games, prepared a little and decided to record the guide "How to solo mid SF". At that time, I had a burning passion to share with the Dota community the depth of the game, the interesting and insanely difficult game. There are all sorts of mind games happening there, and I just wanted to share my knowledge and my love for playing with others.

After I recorded the video, I certainly went to read the comments on different forums. I was wondering if others like the video, and I wanted to do something else! Create more videos. By then we weren't the top yet :). The reaction I saw upset me. There were lots of negative comments and "YaphetS or (insert here any nickname) would've done a better guide" as well. It was mainly on gosugamers and other similar forums (gosugamers back then was one of the main discussion forums).

But then the time passed. Definitely a long time :) I think by then NAVI Dota2 lineup has already appeared, and we've taken the first The International. Then my (already outdated) video began to gain momentum. I learned that it was translated into Chinese and it became quite popular in China, as many strong players of that time praised it. And then it became very popular here as well :) People began to praise and worship it very much. Then I realized that people tend to listen to those who are on top. While those who are under the weather often suffer neglect, even if they say correct or sensible things. A small reference to history. I do not want to take up your time, but there is more where that came from (and so I try to write very briefly).

It was always difficult for me to understand how a person can hate or dislike someone who did nothing wrong to them? Or someone they don't really know? I keep asking myself this. Let’s imagine that you are a hater! Or someone who hates me.

My first questions is: “What did I do to you” You don’t know me. I don’t know you. I play Dota and live my life :) So do you, too...

I realized a long time ago that you can't be liked by everyone. No matter how hard you try, what you do or how you act, there will always be people who will despise you, who will be jealous of you or something like that. That’s why it is important to be right and honest with yourself. I’m not perfect, I have committed and still committing mistakes like all people, but first and foremost I've always tried to be a good person.

Hating NAVI and hyping on any negative developments regarding this organization is a trend. You can’t deny that. It seemed to become one around 2014 and it continues to grow. Why? It is a tough question. In my opinion, envy is a big factor. People are jealous of the success of other people and they get mad that someone is getting attention and recognition unjustly by their opinion.

This is especially noticeable among the youth, since young people always want to go against the system, and NAVI in their eyes looks exactly like the said system. In general, the topic of youth deserves a separate talk. I am quite sad to watch the followers of "EvilArthas"< "Karinochka" and the like. But I will not talk about it. This is the CIS community! and it is as it is. We have all we need to change things for the better. If only public opinion influencers (talent and commentators) weren’t encouraging this behavior, jumping on the hype train, and promoting themselves through this.

I saw a lot of different absurdities, because of which people hate me. And here I will try to clarify at least a small part of what is out there on the Internet for years and leads me into perplexity.

Very often I see messages that I am greedy and get a huge percentage of sponsorship deals with the organization, I have an incredibly high salary, and in general, I'm only in the NAVI for MONEY !!! They write that I am stingy, guarding my salary and biting into it until the last breath.

No matter what I'd write - most still will keep their opinion. But I'll write one time. Last!

For me, money does not have much value. I can quite easily manage without this matter. I'm not demanding and I do not need much. I think it comes from nurture, or I'm just such a person :) In this regard, I was lucky (Thanks to Mom and Dad).

I do not need expensive cars, houses, expensive branded things (like many others in my environment). Maybe I'm still not mature enough (although I am already 28), maybe I am just a different type of person. I only need a  computer with internet, mattress, healthy food and relatives with loved ones nearby. I much prefer to enjoy beautiful nature and architecture, rather than some material benefits.

My family wasn't the richest one out there. The family was big and we had to save on everything (we lived with two grandmothers, father, mother, brother and sister). I remember the times when my mother was looking for where to buy eggs for 18 kopeikis (Russian currency, 1 ruble - 100 kopeiki) instead of 19 to save. But at the same time, my parents provided me with additional classes of English, music, acrobatics, and dance. We shared one banana (once a hell knows how many days) with a sister and cut it into 50 pieces; each piece was savored as if it was a candy! I think, in those days, many people lived like this :) but I write this to state that I have little needs since my childhood.

When I started receiving my salary in WG (my first professional team) in 2006? or was it 2007? I do not remember. It was 1000 UAH (I only got 3-4 salaries, and we played together for much longer), but for me it was something unreal :) Ever since then I realized that money don't matter as much for me as doing what I love does. Then the salary certainly grew. When I was in DTS, it was $ 100 then $ 150 or $ 200. When we moved to NaVi, it was $ 150 or $ 200 (I honestly do not remember) but then, and now, in DotA, I never played for MONEY! So it turns out I was always doing something I loved in my life, and I am incredibly lucky on that regard :)

At the institute, I missed a lot of classes and completely gave myself to what I like (back then there were no tremendous prize pools or high salary). It was a kind of all-in which resulted in The International. Probably lucky? And maybe, if you give yourself completely to your favorite occupation and try to reach a maximum in it, the money will come.

I want to debunk another myth. I am not making and have never received any % from sponsorship contracts with the organization. My salary during the 2015-16 season was smaller than the guys from VP were receiving (back then we performed much better). EG and Team Secret players were likely getting twice as much. If I had left NAVI, then I would’ve easily gotten a much bigger salary.

I never asked my organization to raise my salary. I always trusted NAVI, and continue doing so to this day. I saw that they wanted and still desire to evolve, constantly enlarging the staff, improving practice conditions for the teams, and so on. I was and still am a part of NAVI and I always wanted my home organization, which I put so many years and emotions into, to grow.

If I really wanted to get as big of a salary as I could, then I most likely wouldn’t be playing in NAVI right now; would've probably left in 2014 or 2015. Maybe I would even create something of my own. I would develop my own social network presence, I would deal with the development of the media component and much more. Even my personal stream would’ve been making me more money (if I decided to become a full-time streamer). But I want to do what I like. Just like before, I want to do what brings me happiness.

I often saw the opinions that I play in NAVI for the sake of my media presence and they, in turn, keep me in the roster because of it (again, a shoutout to the opinion leaders).

During all my time here, I made almost no effort media-wise, but I had tons of opportunity for it. I could’ve been developing my social media presence, visiting different TV shows (which I’ve been often asked to be a guest at), writing blogs and so on. What I did was record a vlog at The International 2015 and then at WDC 2016 or 2017 (Dnevnik Zadrota). There was a desire to convey the atmosphere to people :)

But then the lack of time and full immersion in training, as well as all the same hate repelled the desire to do something like that (just like How to solo mid SF video).

Maybe I forgot something at some point, but this is it for my initiative in the media space! And if I really wanted to do something about it, I would post lots of Instagram stories like Lil, open a "Cybersport School" like Zeus or shoot "I want to know" like NS but I never did. And I'm not saying that this is bad and I do not exclude that it may appear in the future :) but for the time being there simply is not enough time and energy. And I really want to get results first.

I get the impression that often people who write about my media are trying to raise their own media presence. I simply live and do what I like :) If the organization asks me to do an interview or make a video, then I do that.

I've also seen stories about me being the shadow ruler of NAVI. I make the roster as I see fit, kicking the players left, right and center. The ultimate evil.

Alas, everything is the exact opposite. During all my time in NAVI, I’ve been against any kind of change 80(!!!) percent of the time. Back then, during the time of ArsArt and LightOfHeaven, and ending with LeBron.

Sasha (ZeroGravity) once said I’m a rather conservative person. Maybe that is true in some way, but I simply get attached to people. That is probably my biggest weakness. It makes it difficult for me to get over someone's departure, and I think about others more than I think about myself.

During my time in NAVI, I had the mindset that any problem could be (and should be) solved. You should be changing something only when it is impossible to do so. I always was one for giving more chances to one player or another, so we could fix some problem.

It seems to me that it is the weak side of our CIS community in general, that when problems arise for teams, they simply choose the easiest way out - reshuffle. This always looked like a weakness to me!

I didn’t always agree with the decisions of NAVI about swapping players. But making the right decisions is very challenging and I understand that NAVI always tries to pick the best possible option for everybody.