With a prize pool of over $23.7 million, The International 7 is going to be the biggest Dota 2 tournament ever. Sitting as one of the favorite teams to take the top spot is team Evil Geniuses. How do you prepare for something this huge? By playing a ton of Dota 2.
Player.One had the opportunity to sit down with members of Evil Geniuses before training began for this year’s big tournament in Seattle. Despite having a nice place to hang out and train in a great part of the Bay Area, the men of Evil Geniuses have not be far from a computer screen.
“I think we’re pretty bad at that as a team, switching off. I think most of us prefer just staying inside and playing Dota,” Ludwig “zai” Wåhlberg said. “Right now, we’re in the mood where we don’t care about anything else but playing the game.”
Then again, when the top team walks away with over $10 million, it’s hard to fault Evil Geniuses for taking things so seriously. Even compared to smaller tournaments, Wåhlberg said the team is way more focused this time of year, but knows the competition is as well.
“The level of preparation is way more serious. If we’re here for a smaller tournament, we might be fun or goofy. It might not be that serious,” he said. “For The International, it’s just one of those tournaments you put everything into. That’s the appeal of it as well – the 17 other teams are all doing the same. Everyone is bringing their best stuff.”
What’s interesting about practicing for Dota 2 tournaments is the level of competition needed to get solid practice in is so limited. Teams will play each other in practice matches, or scrims, many times leading up to big competitions. From a strategy standpoint, players and coaches need to be tracking both what they are doing and what their opponents are trying.
“When you play scrims, you have to keep track of what you have shown and what you haven’t,” said Wåhlberg. “If a team has played against something before, they’ll know what’s coming and how to react.”
This means for coach Avery “SVG” Silverman, he spends the time he isn’t training with the team to watch Dota 2 matches from players on other teams.
“I’ll fully admit to that [watching streams from other teams],” Silverman said. “A lot of players and coaches will do that. As a coach, I spend a lot of time watching my players;’ public matches and other team’s player’s public matches.”
It’s this knowledge of what to do, mixed with ideas of what the opposing team will do, that will lead Evil Geniuses to victory, according to Silverman.
“For this tournament, we’re going to go in with a lot of structure and consistency with our gameplay. That comes from having strategies that as a team, we’ve practiced and fully understand,” said Silverman. “We know how to run them, we know every player’s job and role. We know why we’re picking the heroes we’re picking,”
“The line-ups we’re picking, we know what they are going to work against in this tournament, what are the enemy teams we’re playing against going to pick and how our strategies match up against those,” he continued. “I need to have an idea, not only of what we’re going to run and why we’re going to run it, but also when to use it.”
Now that the start of The International is only days away, it’s time for the team to get mentally focused. This is where Silverman steps up to make sure everyone on the team is prepared to win.
“What I like to focus on is getting their mentality in the best possible state it can be – having all five individual players in a state where they feel confident about what they’re going to do in the game and have everybody understand how their roles fit together,” said Silverman. “So when they actually go in the booth and play at The International in a competitive match, there’s no question that they are the team that is THE most well-prepared there, they’re the best team there, they’re going to win this tournament and they’re confident that that is going to happen. If you go into the booth with that mentality, you’re going to come out with the championship. I view my job as helping them get to that place.”
However, despite this integral role for Silverman to play, he still wouldn’t consider giving himself a fancy nickname.
“I don’t know if I call it being the hype man, but emotional preparation is part of every Dota 2 coach’s job,” he said.
Evil Geniuses begin their march towards the top prize at The International starting Aug. 7. You can watch along on the official The International Twitch stream, or if you’re new to Dota 2, watch the Newcomers stream to have more advanced strategies explained in an easier to understand way.
So what do you think? Will you be tuning into any of the action from this year’s The International? Will you be rooting for Evil Geniuses to go all the way? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
