Arrow Gaming after winning TI4 SEA qualifier: ‘ddz is the main weapon we use to scare our opponents’
Arrow Gaming defeated the surprise finalists MVP.Phoenix in order to qualify for TI4 earlier today. Even though the South Korean team showed a lot of heart in their games against the Malaysians of Arrow, but were ultimately not able to take more than a game against them and had to settle for 2nd place, and a spot in the wildcard tournament.
Some of the biggest stories throughout the SEA qualifiers were Team Zephyr's poor form in contrast to that of MVP.Phoenix, as the American/European team that have dominated Korea competition for close to six months finished second to last in the group stage and didn't get into the playoffs. Likewise, Team Scythe that consists of Galvin 'Meracle' Kang and Nicolas 'xFreedom' Li finished in the middle of the pack in the groupstage and were also left out of the playoffs of the entire tournament.
Following their victory, Arrow Gaming's manager, Firdaus 'MasterRamen' Hashim was kind enough to answer a few questions we had following the conclusion of the tournament:
First of all congratulations on acquiring a spot at TI4. Did you expect the qualifiers to go as well for you as they did?
We went into the qualifiers with lots of confidence. We had developed new tricks and strategies during the bootcamp and a few tournaments we played prior to the qualifiers. So we expected we could at least get top 2 but here we are as the winners of the SEA Qualifiers.
A lot of the focus landed on Kok 'ddz' Yi Liong and his dominance in the midlane. Is the team overall centered around him a lot in order to suceed?
ddz is the main weapon we use to scare our opponents. He's incredibly individually skilled so we ask him to play lots of ranked MMR matches so he can develop his skill even more and he usually carries his team to maintain his MMR points. We drafted several of his signature heroes during the group stage as a strategy so that our opponents will focus more on banning his heroes rather than Fua 'Lance' Hsien Lang's heroes. If our opponents shut down ddz in mid, we stil have Lance to balance it. It's working so far and in some games our opponents weren't able to stop ddz which makes things much easier for us.
Likewise, I'd like to know how much knowledge Johnny 'JoHnNy' Lee is able to bring to the team due to him having played in China previously. Is he a big part of what makes Arrow work as well as they do?
Johnny bring a lot of experience to the team. His knowledge is a bonus for us, but there is an additional strategist in our team who actually drafts, but I'd rather keep who it is a secret for now. All I can say is that the teamwork and chemistry that they've built up after Johnny joined us is good
The players built some rather interesting items throughout the qualifiers. Some western fans went as far as to call some of their pick-ups bad mannered. Was it all in good fun?
The players all have different styles of play. So they will pick items based on their need to support ddz and Lance throughout the game. Sometimes, they pick weird items to enable ddz to go wild on the opponent and Lance will pick another weird item to balance it.
SEA countries like Thailand, Philipines, Malaysia and Singapore are very well known for their respective Dota teams and players. But this time Korea's MVP.Phoenix showed that they have grown a lot in this past year. What did your players think of the skill of MVP.Phoenix and the matches they played against them?
We'd rather play MVP than other SEA teams as MVP had less knowledge about our hero pool and we had plenty of time to study them. Their players are very good but their hero pool is kind of small. If they increase their hero pool they will be tough to beat and Korean Dota has improved lots under a short amount of time and SEA teams need to improve so that we won't be left behind them in the future
So you will now be heading towards TI4 now. Would you give your team an advantage over some of the other competitors at the event. If so, how well do you think Arrow will do at TI4?
I don't think we have an advantage going into TI4 because I believe all teams will study us and will not underestimate us. TI4 is just too big of a tournament for teams to look down and underestimate their opponents at. However, we will try our best to develop new strategies and increase our hero pool so we can make an impact in Seattle. I believe we do have a chance in the tournament and looking at a top 8 finish doesn't feel like an all too distant dream. We will try our best to make it happen.
Ok, that should be enough for us. Any final shoutouts?
We would like to thanks to all our fans and all fans in SEA for supporting us in the finals! Special thanks to Jaren Gan our project leader and to all our Sponsors AVF, Ttesports, AOC, AMD and lastly Kingston. Special shoutout to Naddy!
Photo Credit: Dota Talk, Valve
