SEA Qualifiers Interview: Arrow Gaming

For those not fully familiar with the team who might want some background information, Arrow Gaming is a Malaysian team formerly known as Lowyat.Net. With their pickup by Arrow Gaming and with new resources at their disposal, including a team house in Seremban, Malaysia, the team shot to the top of the SEA scene this year, even looking as perhaps the second strongest team on the scene earlier during the year.

Going into the qualifiers most experts rated them as one of the main challengers to Scythe's position at the top of the predictions, but it appears we've all been roped in, as they told us they realized early on that getting a direct invite would be difficult, and instead set their sights on the qualifiers. Smart move, as it turns out, as they are clearly ahead of the pack and have all but secured their place in the winners bracket for the qualifier playoffs.

We sat down with Firdaus 'MasterRamen' Hashim, the teams Manager, to get some insight into how the teams first day had gone from their perspective, what they had done to prepare and how they felt going forward.

Interview

Hello Master Ramen. You've had an amazing first day run, sitting on top of the standings. What's the atmosphere like within the team right now?

Hi, the players are really satisfied with their performance today. There was lots of shouting and excitement taking place in the gaming house. Haha, even the neighbors came and asked us what was happening. Luckily no-one called the police though!

Early predictions had Scythe as being the frontrunner for the qualifier, but they've struggled badly. Are you surprised to see them go to pieces like this?

To be honest, I think they are lacking in their preparations. They are well known for basing their strategy around Meracle's Carry play. This means that any team who can counter it, have a chance to win against them. I'm not really surprise but I'm sure they will bounce back and make it to the playoff. Hopefully we can counter Meracle when we meet them tomorrow.

Which teams have surprised you the most in a positive sense?

Mineski. Their performance before the Qualifier was pretty much like a yo-yo. Seeing them back to their 2013 performance in a very short of time is surprising. We can expect a tough playoff on Sunday if we qualify. Hopefully we can survive their challenge and other teams.

Your closest games of the day was against Orange. What would you say was the key to your victory against them?

It was a very heart breaking match. We made a lots of risky moves here and there and it ultimately gave us the win. In the end we were patient enough and lucky that our mistake didn't cost us the game :).

Usually these important qualifiers cause teams to play more safe, but your team has felt as aggressive as ever. What gives you the confidence to play this style when the pressure is on?

Whenever we play a passive style we are like a cats without claws. So, I told them to play our own style and fear no-one. They took my advice and went on to play with an aggressive "yolo" style. It's paying off for now. We do have several more different styles that we haven't really used in competitive matches. Hopefully we can save them during group stage and surprise others in the later stage if we succeed.

In the Americas qualifier we quickly saw a clear meta emerge. What do you think has been the common themes for the SEA qualifier so far?

I see very little different in SEA teams drafting so far. Maybe it's because SEA teams are more concerned about laning than strategy oriented drafts. Each country in SEA has a different style. Malaysian Dota is different than Philippines Dota and much more different if you compare it to Korean and Indonesian Dota. RRQ for example like their Jakiro carry pick and play some very weird heroes. That's why you see it's hard to predict who the best team in SEA is, besides Titan. You can hear about Scythe winning a tournament and then being eliminated in the early round in another tournament. So that is why there is no clear meta emerging in SEA for now. But I think for sure, Batrider will always be banned :P Because SEA teams don't like being dragged around by a bat, especially Xiangzaiii and Mozun.

Doom seems to be the hot commodity right now in SEA. What makes the hero so powerful in terms of how your team plays him?

Doom is Lance no.3 favourite hero. So, Arrow Gaming played with this hero as carry and offlane a lot in previous tournaments. It's working very well for us and rarely gets banned because other teams are more worried about the other two of Lance's heroes. We use this to our advantage and DOOM also has that "YOLO" feel that the players really love. They feel more motivated and have more fun when they DOOM their opponent. Valve did a really good DOOM voice for it. We're really thankful for it.

Thank you for talking to us and good luck in the rest of the qualifiers. Any final words?

We still believe the journey to The International 2014 to be tough as SEA teams are very unpredictable. We hope we can maintain and improve on our performance for the next 3 days. Stressful weeks of training are showing results.

We been saving our strategies and heroes in the few tournaments prior to the TI4 Qualifiers. We hope to redeem it back by winning the Qualifiers and make our fans proud. We are still new and there is a lot to be learned. From a team that no-one cared about, we have actually improved a lot since we moved in to the gaming house in January. Our players have been camping the Solo MMR prior to the TI4 Qualifiers to increase their individual skill (editors note: ddz and Lance are Rank 1 and 2 respectively on the SEA ladder, with JoHnNy coming in at Rank 11).

The KFC bought by our sponsor really motivated the players specially with the tight schedule. Haha. Finally thanks to our Sponsors AVF, AMD, AOC, Ttesports, Kingston & Xigmatek for their supports! Special thanks to Jaren Gan, the project leader of Arrow Gaming for making this possible. And of course not to forget our lovely fans who keep supporting us since the Lowyat.net era until now. We love you all.

PS: To The GD Studio Lounge streams, we are from Malaysia and not from Philippines or Singapore :) Love you EU Hub!