Thanks very much for taking the time to talk with us! Please tell us a little about yourself and what stirred your interest in playing DOTA 2 professionally.
My name is Arseniy Usov, I’m from Ulianovsk, Russia and I play the captain/support role in Vega Squadron. I’ve been in touch with Dota2 since an early age. When I came home from classes, I would go play some dota allstars matches on local bnet servers. Ever since then, I’ve never stopped playing.
You’ve already won three online tournaments this year, including your victory over HellRaisers for the Gigabyte Challenge #12. On top of that, you’ve taken games away from NIP – one of the most successful rising European teams. Do you believe your win over HellRaisers came down to your drafts? Or were there specific plays you felt vital to your success?
I think that we were a bit lucky with our drafts and our plays against HellRaisers. After the first game, I understood which heroes I should pick/ban and everything became easier. I’m not saying that HR are bad, but it was a strangely smooth win.
I don’t think that there is a "special" Vega play-style. What we drafted was pretty typical for us, but... it went well. About NIP...ehm, this game decided nothing actually, both teams played poorly to be honest. We shouldn’t consider this match too much. I want to say that our roster change is the reason behind our success.
In regards to your roster change what brought you guys together? I saw that you referred to no[o]ne as the UA Sumail in your game against Alliance.
We played with 9pashaebashu and CeMaTheSlayeR for a long time. No[o]ne came from USH team (with DotaStalk and Androidp) which I played with for a month and TpoH came after he left M5.
About No[o]ne, yes he is some kind of Ukrainian Sumail. He is very young and ambitious and of course he is a very talented dota player. Actually, I found him through a Russian team named TEAM-ASC from the SLTV Pro Series, which I played for as a stand-in. I was very excited by his plays.
Why do you think your recent match against Alliance wasn't as successful? Did it come down to drafting or certain decisions in the match?
Our match against Alliance wasn’t successful only because everyone became very tired from a very tight match schedule this week. Plus, that was bo2 and bo3 with ONE team. If we lose something, we try to fix our issues with drafts/any plays, but there were no time for this.
With the ESL One qualifiers you may be matched up against some established teams. You may very well be expecting some long series to play. What will your team do to cope with a long series and keep your momentum?
Oh, that’s a very hard question though. We are trying to train some new stuff compared to the meta (it’s all about juggernaut, axe, etc), nothing else. We think that our old strategies and our new stuff will help us to win against any other enemy team.
Overall, you're a quite a new team and you've had a lot of success so far. Why do you think you've had such immediate success in this patch? What about the current patch/meta do you believe works with your play style?
I think that we are all very experienced players in dota2, except No[o]ne – he is the new guy. Dota is all about serious intentions with dota. When we played in Ahead Gaming, we played just for having fun, laughed in all official games and stuff. But now we are professionals, I think we are committing ourselves like talented and professional players and this is our success. There is nothing about meta/play style/players and so on, just serious doto.
Your team appears to be very focused on using teamwork to pick off your opponent and gain an advantage through a lot of activity on the map. It seems like this has been crucial to your success, but also has the potential to fall apart sometimes. How does your team adjust if you can't take the opponent by surprise?
I think that our style to make some pressure or activity on the map is comparable to many CIS teams, so there are no surprises. But I think that there are no benefits in this play style because of the patch. If you kill someone about 10 times, you’re getting nothing, but when you die after getting this huge streak while "actively diving" or applying "map pressure" it becomes a big problem. It’s actually hard to adjust our plays – I don’t know what to say about this.
What would you like to see change or comeback in the current meta?
Now that Phantom lancer is in captain’s mode, I want him to be a bit better for competitive games. I’m playing him successfully in matchmaking, but it’s not enough. Actually, I'd like to remove axe and barathrum from cm mode, they are really annoying! My team can't really play against SB, it’s hard to understand this hero. About axe? 10sec cd "anti-bkb disable"? Need I say more? I’m always aiming to ban this hero during a draft.
It seems like CIS teams have been doing very well in the current patch. What about this patch do you think empowers CIS dota?
I think that there are no really EARLY strats in this patch and no ULTRA LATE strats. Mid game was born for CIS doto. Kill, Kill, Aegis, Fight, Kill, Kill, Aegis to high ground. Heroes like Troll Warlord, Juggernaut, Shadow Fiend, and Sniper are great for this.
Besides ESL One, what other tournaments does your team have its eyes on? What can we expect to see from Vega for the rest of the year?
We are playing SLTV Starseries, Weplay Tournament, DotaPit, and joinDota Masters division 2. We are going to participle in the qualifiers for The Summit also.
Are there are any last words you would like to say to current and new Vega fans?
I just want to say hello to our fans, hope you’ll be proud of our Doto! Shout-outs to our sponsor's: G2A and Alexey, they are doing soooo much for us. And I wanna say "zdarova" to my team and friends (apathy, ved, fru, chib) and my girlfriend Nastia!