Speaker A
I googled, "How do you make the most money?" It's called the CEO school. And the people were mostly just [ __ ]. I spent a ton of time punishing myself. If you fail, you need to suffer. So, I was
Gorgc shares his journey from gaming obsession to streaming success, discussing struggles, motivations, and personal growth in Dota Unspoken #14.
Key Takeaways
- Streaming and gaming can be both a passion and a source of emotional struggle.
- Viewer count heavily influences streamer happiness and perceived success.
- Personal hardships, like loss, can deepen one’s engagement with gaming as a coping mechanism.
- Success in streaming often requires strategic promotion beyond just playing games.
- Balancing gaming with real-life responsibilities is challenging but possible.
Summary
- Gorgc discusses his early gaming experiences, starting with limited PC time and progressing through games like Counter-Strike, Diablo II, and World of Warcraft.
- He explains how his passion for MOBAs began with Han and solidified with Dota 2 after watching TI3, which inspired him to commit to the game.
- Gorgc reveals how his father's death when he was 15 intensified his gaming as a coping mechanism, leading to a more isolated lifestyle focused on gaming.
- He reflects on the emotional challenges of streaming, including the pressure of viewer counts and the unhappiness common among streamers.
- Gorgc talks about the importance of streaming as part of his identity and the difficulties faced when viewer numbers drop.
- He shares insights on strategies to gain viewers, such as hiring people to promote clips on social media.
- The conversation touches on Gorgc's transition from a shut-in gamer to someone trying to get his life together by returning to school.
- He highlights the balance between gaming and real life, noting his academic success despite heavy gaming involvement.
- The interview format provides a personal and candid look at Gorgc’s life, career, and mindset as a professional gamer and streamer.
- The dialogue emphasizes the emotional and psychological aspects of streaming and gaming careers.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
punishing myself, maybe not eating, whatever it took to feel more miserable. Why are you punching the wall? Are you crazy? 90% of my life is still streaming. You want to keep that going.
Speaker A
Like, what am I if not streaming? Every streamer is unhappy. It's just an unhappy breed of people. That's kind of the reason why they're successful, and happiness drives them and me as well.
Speaker A
The number of viewers is usually how much money you're going to be making and how successful you are, how many connections you have, how much people like you because you've attached your whole identity to it. So, when that
Speaker A
number goes to half of what it used to be, regardless of the beginning number, you're going to be unhappy. There is no escaping it. I've learned that every streamer feels like this.
Speaker A
Look, listen. Look at your mother. Look at a portrait of your mother. Look at a portrait of your mother. You've seen that she's a dog, okay? She's a [ __ ] dog. And that means you are also a dog.
Speaker A
Okay? I was scared of people disliking me. It's still a bit there. I would say one way to gain viewers is, for instance, you hire like 20 people, they just spend all day pushing your clips everywhere on accounts that seem like fan accounts,
Speaker A
but they're not fan accounts. I would never have paid this myself. They agreed to cover travel expenses. I asked them, "Will you cover the cab?" I think it ended up being 2,000.
Speaker A
Hey everyone, I'm here with a pretty special guest. You know, one of Twitch's finest, one of Dota 2's finest, Mr.
Speaker A
George Cow, aka Gork. Mr. Gork, how are you doing? I'm good, Queso. I'm good. Happy to be here and your newish podcast series, even though we've known each other for a lot of years now, you know.
Speaker A
Yeah, it's fun to do something like this with you. I'm happy to have you. It's a... Yeah, it's a new era. I'm trying something different. We got to bring, you know, all the faces, the players, the streamers, the people
Speaker A
who do both, you know, because obviously everyone knows you whether it's Dota, people know you, people know you from Twitch, but I would like to know, and I'm sure people would like to know, how did this even start? Like what
Speaker A
does your childhood look like? What does your upbringing look like? Okay. Yeah, I've talked about this some other times, but honestly, not that much in depth. Well, basically, I grew up in Sweden, right?
Speaker A
I was a very big video game nerd from early on. Like my brother used to, like, my brother used to only let me play one hour a day on the PC, but that pissed me off because it was like his PC.
Speaker A
Yeah. And I was always mad, but I got to play that one hour every day. I have an older brother. He's 9 years older, so of course, you know, I was kind of like at his whim, you
Speaker A
know, I got to play it whenever. And I was super into Counter-Strike and Diablo II early on. I remember a lot.
Speaker A
Those were my first two big games, I think. And then I slowly and surely went on towards Dota 1 as well because one of my brother's friends played Dota, Dota 1, and I thought he was cool
Speaker A
because he was 10 years older than me. I was like, wow, that's so cool. I learned it to impress them.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. I learned it to impress them. I used to even, like, when we were on family vacation, sometime I remember when we were in Greece or something, I used to sneak
Speaker A
off and run to an internet cafe and play in the middle of a vacation.
Speaker A
That's good. How old are you at this stage? I was like 10 or 11 or something.
Speaker A
That's years ahead of other people. That's awesome. Yeah, I was always obsessed with games and then I moved on towards World of Warcraft instead a lot more.
Speaker A
I stuck with that game a lot of years until Han came out, and that's kind of where I really started. That's when my real mobile era began again. Like since Han, I think I've been playing mainly MOBAs except for the occasional like
Speaker A
World of Warcraft era and all that. I know you said you asked me about my childhood. I'm just talking about games right now. But you're fine. You take it wherever the hell you want.
Speaker A
Yeah, the World of Warcraft era was really addicting. And then Han was also quite the game. I really, really fell in love with that game. I still have the profile picture from Han.
Speaker A
Yeah, that game was good when Monkey King came out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know.
Speaker A
Yeah. I used to even watch K's streams back then. And I remember, hell yeah.
Speaker A
Back in the Han days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, when Dota 2 came out, I was very hesitant about the game. I was like, "Ah, this is kind of trash." I played like Dire Tide, but it was so
Speaker A
slow and sluggish. I didn't really like it. But at some point, I just committed to it like 2013, I think, after I watched TI3.
Speaker A
I was like, "Damn, okay, I get it now." You know, we were having a watch party to watch TI3 together. It was me and like nine friends. I just had moved out of my
Speaker A
mom's house. I was like maybe 19 or something. Yeah. We were with nine friends and we were all eating and maybe drinking a bit, and we were watching TI. Everybody fell asleep except for me. I was the
Speaker A
only one up because it was like back in the Seattle days TI was like middle of the night.
Speaker A
Yeah. So I was the only one watching this grand final, Alliance versus Na'Vi, and I was like, dude, I was shivering. I was like, this is so [ __ ] hype and everybody else was asleep next to me
Speaker A
like on the couch, you know, whatever, and I was like, what's the hell's going on? This is so hype. But after that, I was inspired. Okay, I gotta play this [ __ ] now instead. And yeah, I
Speaker A
really got into it. And after that, what can we say more? If we roll back a little bit more to my childhood, I guess I mean my obsession with games. I talked about this a bit on Dr. K's podcast as
Speaker A
well. I think I really went into games around the year when I was like 15 when my dad died. I kind of just started playing games a lot more because it was kind
Speaker A
of like a coping mechanism for me, and that's why I play a ton of games.
Speaker A
That's why I really, before, I wasn't—I was a video gamer, sure, but I really liked real-life stuff too, I guess, mixed in with it. But then I kind of shut myself in. I just became like a
Speaker A
full-time gamer around that age. And I've pretty much kept going since then until recently, I would say, with that kind of mindset. Yeah.
Speaker A
What else is there to talk about? All right. Well, maybe how I started streaming or maybe your next question. I've been rambling.
Speaker A
I mean, I think you summed it up pretty nicely. Do you think it, like, you closing off towards gaming, was that always like a part of you, or do you think that got solidified a bit with
Speaker A
like, I don't know, whether it's your family situation or your dad passing away, or do you feel like it would have just naturally been that way anyway?
Speaker A
I mean, I was always very into gaming. I was very obsessed by it. But that really made me lock into it more, I guess, if you want to call it that.
Speaker A
Yeah. I think I still would have been a gamer, but maybe I would have had a normal job instead. I feel like this kind of path, my life kind of put me on this path, you
Speaker A
know. Yeah. Willingly or unwillingly. Yeah. Well, okay. We can talk a little bit more about how it was when I was like 18, basically. 19. I was kind of like a shut-in gamer. I just played games. I
Speaker A
lived on and off at my mom's house. Sometimes I moved out for a year or two, you know, lived with friends or whatever, right?
Speaker A
But mostly I lived at home. And then at 22, I think I finally decided, okay, I'm going to get my life together. After a lot of yea
Speaker A
waiter. I worked driving a forklift in a warehouse, stuff like that for a little bit on and off.
Speaker A
And then I was like, "Okay, I'm going to get back to school now." Because because I was actually pretty good at school.
Speaker A
Um, despite being such a gamer, I I had straight A's, so I could pick any school I wanted. So I decided to pick I just didn't know what I wanted to do though like like doctor seemed a bit like iffy
Speaker A
and lawyer didn't inspire me like nothing really inspired me. It was always pretty good at math so I chose the direction of engineering and I just picked the one that said I googled what how do you make the most money because I
Speaker A
didn't know what the [ __ ] to pick. Yeah. Yeah. It's a classic that was called Yeah. And that's called that that that that education was called industrial engineering, industrial economics actually.
Speaker A
Mhm. And it was funny fact it was the same exact school PewDiePie went to as well.
Speaker A
Same direction, same school, same everything. Yeah. He was just a few years older than me, so I never saw him.
Speaker A
Uh but he did go to the same school and we actually even went to very uh uh rival schools even in high in before high school. What do you call that? like um I don't know, not elementary school,
Speaker A
but from six to nine, middle school or something. Went to rival schools. Middle school.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. Me and PewDiePie were in opposite schools, but I never saw the guy, but I just know he he was there.
Speaker A
It was just kind of funny. It's not an name drop I was expecting. At least not for your school times.
Speaker A
[ __ ] awesome. Yeah. Kind of random. And then we went to the same thing. But I I it wasn't really my type of people. I went one and a half two years of this education. It was kind
Speaker A
of It's called um the CEO school. become like a CEO or consultant type of guy if you go there and the people were mostly just [ __ ] there honestly like that's like crypto bros and [ __ ] or what
Speaker A
it's like people who want to like make like uh wearing a suit consultant bros you know like we're better than you bros I see the chant for that particular school was literally which means we at industrial economics are are better looking than you that was
Speaker A
what we what people were chanting I was like what the [ __ ] I hope there was a bit of a meme with that cuz if you say that like fully meaning it it was insane actually. It was insane.
Speaker A
Um but it was I mean still I met some good people there. It's not all [ __ ] but this streaming thing just kind of came about out of nowhere. Uh I was just playing games one day and uh I had the I
Speaker A
I remember singing was playing Lethal League. That's how the Lethal League. I was like [ __ ] I have Lethal League. So I I saw him playing I sniped him. I beat his ass and then people were like who is
Speaker A
this guy? And I was like damn what a high you know. People like who is this guy? I'm like that's cool you know. Uh, and that uh that that's kind of how Singh got to know me a little bit, maybe
Speaker A
know my name. And then like a year later, he was playing um something called Hardcore Ninja. Yeah.
Speaker A
And I wasn't like a big sing watcher at first. Like I I didn't really watch many live streams. I mainly just watched WoW streams like Reckful and stuff like that were my main streams. I didn't watch Dota streams at all.
Speaker A
Um but because and the thing I never watched because he had a title once on his YouTube it said noob trying Dota and I was like who wants to [ __ ] watch a noob?
Speaker A
Yeah. like I didn't know who this guy is, you know. Uh so I didn't really know Sing so well, but then I saw him playing hardcore ninja, like a custom game, and I was like, "Shit, me and my friend
Speaker A
played that last night, you know." I had one day practice on him. So I went in, I sniped him again, I beat his ass again, you know, and um I think one thing led to another. One of his friends invited I
Speaker A
mean added me to friends and then we ended up playing like Party together. And after that me and Singh kind of like started playing part every day. We became very close. We played a lot off stream as well. A ton of games.
Speaker A
Like uh we spent a [ __ ] whole summer playing Total War games like every day, 16 hours a day.
Speaker A
It was like insane actually. I don't know. And I didn't really have much of a life back then. I was just in my uni thing and and did this. Um so did is this the time you started streaming or was this even before? Like
Speaker A
you're still not streaming yet. You're just like sniping him. You're chilling. You're getting to know him and it's like Yeah. No, we became friends after that and then Yeah. And then we became friends after a year of playing with
Speaker A
singing pretty regularly a bunch of games. Mhm. Uh he actually encouraged me to start streaming and I was like I don't know really like what would people why would people I I didn't feel comfortable in front of a
Speaker A
camera first of all and I was like I people didn't even know what my face looked like. I never had a face reveal or anything.
Speaker A
Yeah. So I was like I don't really want to do that. I have a good school. Why would I bother you know like what's the point you know? Um but eventually I was like okay fine I'll try it out. And my first stream was
Speaker A
actually playing some For Honor game or something like that, which is like a one v one dual medieval game type of thing.
Speaker A
I streamed a little bit of that and slowly and surely got into Dota. I mean, back then I was still like despite despite doing all the random stuff, I was still like a top 50, top 100 player.
Speaker A
Yeah. Um and when I started playing pubs uh and streaming, my viewers pretty quickly grow grew fast and I started being consistent with streaming while going to uni. Um, and honestly it was kind of just I feel like I was really at the
Speaker A
right place at the right time because right then after a while seeing quit streaming Dota and I think also Bulldog took a step back a bit and uh I don't know I I kind of felt like I was lucky
Speaker A
enough to be there at the right time to make make my stream blow up. And then I got my first paycheck. I remember I got a paycheck for like 2K. I was like [ __ ] that's a lot. you know, like one of
Speaker A
the first few months of streaming and I was like, "Okay, maybe I can make this a career then. I guess I'll keep grinding." So, I quit school eventually.
Speaker A
Um, and just kind of went all in on it and I'm in a very like, how do you call it? Very dedicated mindset, you know, to say the least, because, you know, these past 10 years have flown by because I mainly been
Speaker A
doing the same thing over and over. I mean, that's definitely something I think that streaming also does. And, uh, I mean, I will because you told me about your podcast with the Dr. Okay. Like the episode he had with you
Speaker A
which I first of all I think that was an insanely good episode. U I mean the guy is really good. I think you were also you're very I think open and like very what's it called? Like brave and honest
Speaker A
with like you know just like your life and laying it out there. And you talked a lot about that you feel there's a lot of like pressure I think that you put on yourself. At least you did back then.
Speaker A
It's something you mentioned. Is that still something that happens to you now like when you stream like oh I need to be the best.
Speaker A
Well, like this this this I could tell my story of why that I mean explained with Dr. K. I was actually one of the first people to talk to Dr. K like open on a podcast. It was cuz I
Speaker A
already was a little bit friends with Reckful back then. Okay. Um and he was the first one to really do like the Dr. K thing. I think I was the second or third to publicly talk like uh to him a therapy session life or
Speaker A
whatever you want to call it. Um, and I talked a lot about my motivations of why I wanted to stream. And part of it was, um, the fact that I grew up kind of poor in a way. And it really set me of this,
Speaker A
like money was very scarce to me, and I really wanted to like succeed no matter what. That was a huge part of it. Like I wanted to feel secure.
Speaker A
Mh. Um, and that put a lot of pressure on myself. Uh, I I mean, if I tell you a lot of the times I I feel like over these 10 years, I've learned so much about myself. I even like Dr. Okay. I
Speaker A
mean, big shout out to him. Yeah. He taught me a lot about myself. He even spent hours off stream with me uh talking to me uh for almost like six months straight. We were talking almost weekly um for an hour and we're talking.
Speaker A
I learned a lot like cuz you feel all these emotions as a person that because nobody teaches you maybe like how to deal with pressure especially if you put it on yourself.
Speaker A
Mhm. And um I learned that it's like okay to feel a certain way and that kind of makes it less it less feel feel less uncontrollable because I was spending a lot of nights like early on streaming especially I was putting a lot of
Speaker A
pressure on myself. I spent a ton of time like punishing myself after stream because that's the only way I was taught how to improve.
Speaker A
Interesting. If you if you fail you need to suffer, you know. So I was punishing myself. I was like feeling miserable, maybe not eating, maybe not like whatever it took to feel more miserable. I was not allowing myself any pleasure after
Speaker A
stream. If I feel like I failed, like that would be if I lost my daughter games or if I felt like I did a bad job or I didn't stream that day, I would be miserable also because I kept just
Speaker A
punishing myself. That's like I was my own boss, but I was also the most toxic boss.
Speaker A
Um, I've learned to ease up on that a little bit since, but it's still there.
Speaker A
Uh, I think it was very confusing concept for me because Dr. taught me like okay you this sucks for you and you're unhappy.
Speaker A
Mhm. But do you actually want to change because if you change then maybe you don't know how to be successful right like this is the way you know success.
Speaker A
Yeah. How do you how do like I didn't even want to change subconsciously. I wanted to be unhappy but I wanted success at the same time. Success was more important to me than happiness. I realized in a way uh but the way I was
Speaker A
going about it was very bad because I ruined a ton of relationships in my real life. Um, I had all my I don't know people don't normal people with normal jobs I would say they don't 100% um understand why you would do this
Speaker A
to yourself like why are you I mean not all normal people some people do but like the people I was with let's put it like that instead they didn't understand why do you why do you put yourself through this why are you why are you
Speaker A
punching the wall like what are you doing you know like I didn't do that regularly but if I did that like what are you crazy you know like I'm like yeah but I feel so like inadequacy, you know, like I can't express it in another
Speaker A
way. Um, so yeah, it really like pulled me apart from a lot of real life [ __ ] which kind of a sad, but u I've started like only the I think the past two three years I've started to improve this like in a
Speaker A
proper way. Yeah. Uh I stopped being so toxic towards myself, putting as much pressure on myself and um I started like taking actual time off because I didn't do that before. I was I mean I'll tell you about
Speaker A
my work mentality up until honestly up until two years ago. Yeah. I was doing [ __ ] like okay I flew over to to cast Singapore uh TI in Singapore from a hotel room there in the in the TI
Speaker A
thing in the in the same hotel and then after after I'm done I wrap up like 1:00 a.m. My flight is at 6:00 a.m.
Speaker A
and I fly like I fly like 16 hours and when I land instead of going to sleep or anything like that I just went straight back to streaming. I plugged in my PC stream right away. I wanted to be like
Speaker A
consistent. I did that every time. It was insane. And I did that for like eight years straight. No, like Okay, I took like if you look at my record, I think I stream 350 360 days a year, but you know, 15 of those days or
Speaker A
20 of those days, those are mostly just either travel or I'm actually like so sick I can't stream. Like that's it. I There was your body is like telling you, "Bro, please, please take a chill because I have
Speaker A
I literally did not." Yeah. Like I I I stream before and I know how it is. I mean, I've never reached the state that you're in cuz you're obviously like you're like top 0.001 percentile of like streamers. Uh is it hard for you? Like
Speaker A
what makes it hard to like maybe take the day off? Is it like I'm going to lose out on so much or people depend on me or is it like the pressure of oh I need to be there? Like what's is it like one
Speaker A
or is it like many small ones? It's all of them combined. One, I mean the obviously the viewers are expectant of you to be there. And two, I think the most one of the most important part of streaming, especially early on, is
Speaker A
consistency. And that consistency is brutal. If you miss like a week, it's insane for your numbers, especially early on. So being attached to your numbers was also something I was very much early on, like, oh my god, the view
Speaker A
count or this and that. I've started detaching myself a bit from that, luckily. Um, but back then it was everything. So I I think it was a combination of the things like you said uh that put that pressure on me. Um I just had to succeed
Speaker A
no matter what. You know I always envisioned myself like okay I have this opportunity and if I squander it I'm an idiot and I that was like my mindset all the time. I don't want to wake up in 10
Speaker A
years like um bleeping like things in a supermarket like produce and thinking [ __ ] I should have like streamed another extra week there. Why did I take that off? You know that was always in my mind for some reason. I don't know why, but
Speaker A
that's what drove me. You know, there's nothing wrong with working jobs like that. I I completely understand. It was just something that I kept as a motivation. I mean, like you're saying, you're trying to like be extra grateful for the
Speaker A
situation you're in to like stay in it. Yeah. In a toxic way, but Yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah. Grateful. Okay. So, then because I mean mo I mean most of my questions that I have or a lot of them will revolve like around you uh and your stream. Like one of my questions is Yeah.
Speaker A
What do What do you sacrifice for full-time streaming that you feel like the like viewers don't really understand or it's hard for them to grasp?
Speaker A
Don't understand. Yeah. It's honestly I I will preface this by streaming is like a dream job in a lot of ways. The only part of it not being a dream job is just being is trying to be the best and uh the best
Speaker A
version of yourself. you know, the mile and working as hard as you possibly can.
Speaker A
Regardless of what you're doing, that's going to be hard. You know, if that's your if that's your mindset, it's going to be hard. And uh it's not so much about what you're doing. It's just like how you're doing it, how much you're
Speaker A
doing, and how much you're thinking about it. Because when you're thinking about things all the time, um then it affects the rest of your life too. Like I think I spent a lot of years not enjoying doing anything. Like in real life,
Speaker A
nothing. I didn't enjoy having relationship with women. I didn't enjoy going out. I didn't enjoy anything because my mind was always elsewhere.
Speaker A
And that's something maybe people don't really like get, you know, like it's it can be fun. I can say, "Oh my god, it's so fun. It's a passion." But it's also it's also everything, you know? And when that when that's your whole world,
Speaker A
right? And you have nothing else going for you. I wasn't working out. I wasn't doing anything.
Speaker A
When that starts going bad, it feels like your soul is leaving your body and you're worthless. Like there's nothing else to life, you know? Like when you've get put all your eggs in one basket. I think that's the hardest part I think of
Speaker A
streaming because to succeed I think you do basically have to put all your eggs in one basket at least for a long period of time.
Speaker A
No, I I I think that's good and I think that also makes sense. It's just there's um also a different quote that you did in the Dr. K podcast. You mentioned something when you see other people do well it makes like it gives you a
Speaker A
certain feeling like ah this sucks like I want to do better than them. uh whether there's like different streamers or someone else. Do you still have that now? I mean, there's different people that retired and they stream a lot. Like
Speaker A
whether it's RTZ, it's Topsson, it's some Russian guys, you know, maybe there's some Ramsey, some solo.
Speaker A
Is that still the same? Are you just more like is it just you? Do you even see them as competition? Like there's so many things like I don't even know where to really lead the question. So you can
Speaker A
just take it as you want. Yeah. I mean, of course, I'm a competitive person in general. I mean, for me it's not not so much about Artezian tops. I mean, sure, like, uh, but I look at other like I can't
Speaker A
watching I can't enjoy watching many Twitch streams in general because I'm so I'm always so obsessed with like, okay, I could do this different, I could do that different. I'm always in that mindset watching streams. And it's not
Speaker A
so much about the dollar streamers. It's also about every other section of streamer as well, you know, like XQC and seeing all these people, you know, have success.
Speaker A
It it drives me for sure. Like, of course, I think it should drive you like you're like, "Okay, I can do better. I can do this with my stream." and whatnot. And um yeah, I beat myself up over it, not not trying harder
Speaker A
sometimes, for sure. Even still to this day. Mhm. Is there do you have like do you think that's linked to anything or is it just like your nature of I mean I see it all the time. Like it's not like I
Speaker A
always watch your stream, but you are very competitive. You do you do beat yourself up. Maybe it's less now than it used to be, but do you think there's like a specific link?
Speaker A
Is it just I want to do the best all the time or is there like more to it? Um h I mean if you're thinking like okay if you're thinking like deeply more psychologically what link is I think
Speaker A
it's related to what I talked about is like um the fact that I did grow up poor and stuff. I have a fear of being broke even though that's not really like now obviously I've streamed a long time and
Speaker A
I'm I'm I'm pretty frugal about myself so I saved saved enough money to be fine you know but in my head it's never really fine you know because you never know what's going to happen and I think it's probably linked to that in
Speaker A
some way. I don't really think about it as a money thing necessarily, but it's also about like I don't know. It is still 90% of my life is still streaming.
Speaker A
Yeah. And I want to keep you want to keep that going, you know? Like you don't want to like what am I if not streaming, right?
Speaker A
I don't [ __ ] know. I think most streamers don't know, honestly. It's really hard question to ask is what is a pro player without playing pro?
Speaker A
I was going to say the same. It's the same when you have players that quit but it's like their whole it's like you have the player identity but then you quit and then it's like I have lost all of
Speaker A
that. So yeah it definitely is like very difficult. Um yeah those questions fascinate me too. I I definitely I I think about that a lot for pro players as well. What are they doing nowadays? You know that's why it's
Speaker A
good that you have your podcast. Yeah. Like sometimes you just like you don't know what's what's going to happen and it's just so interesting. So I have something that's cuz now we talked about like you know the maybe the mental stuff
Speaker A
or some of the pressure. What is one of your proudest things either about you or your stream or both? Like maybe it's a recent development like just what are you proud of?
Speaker A
Well, I'm proud of uh I'm proud of the fact that I'm at least trying to assemble a human routine nowadays. I go to the gym regularly.
Speaker A
That that is something I'm proud about. I'm proud of um I think I'm also proud of uh the fact that I've managed to step away a bit from solo queue nowadays and focus more on other things in life. like
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I went I'm sure you're going to ask about this later also maybe but I went into more of casting games and that direction and maybe a little bit more variety like that was a huge step for me because it also was actually the fear of
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like losing it all like [ __ ] what if I do something different so I started taking steps towards like doing uncomfortable things you know in general that's what I'm proud of because before I was honestly even though I was
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working really hard I was staying only in my comfort zone so I'm starting to step I'm proud of myself trying to step out of that at least how much of the stream you is the actual you.
Speaker A
It's a very weird question to ask because like when it like if you're playing a competitive video game, you're in such a different mindset than you are in real life. Like in real life, I'm very calm and reasonable person. I I
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don't really get mad at anything. Like it sounds strange but Dota kind of brings this out of you I guess that you're frustrated and you get into arguments and but I wouldn't consider that me at all.
Speaker A
Uh so but I would say the person I am when I am not playing solo cube but streaming that's still 100% me actually like when I'm watching games talking to other people that's me like I do the same off stream
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I'm totally this person I'm very open like I got inspired streaming by Reckful and he did the exact same thing where he was very open about his life. He said everything exactly what he was doing to his audience was completely transparent
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and sometimes he took it a bit too far I think. Um which I think affected him a lot. Um so I'm trying to keep some things private to myself. Like for instance if I'm in I'm in relationships and stuff I keep that usually aside
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but other than that yeah it's it is totally me. It's pretty much unfiltered me. I don't think like okay me getting angry I like I would I wouldn't say that's me but I am human. I do get I do
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get frustrated too like everybody else. Okay. No, I I honestly think that also makes sense. It's just kind of like the nature of Dota and then so the switch you made from, you know, not so much solo queuing to like, you know, being
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more whether it's community casting, watching pubs, watching the tournaments. Is that something you realize yourself?
Speaker A
Did someone suggest it to you? Are you speaking to like other people like sing or like other streamers who are like, "Yo, like this helped me a lot. Maybe you're going through this right now. You should try this." or is it all you?
Speaker A
I've honestly reached out to a few other streamers to see what they think. Like I've talked a little bit to Asmin Gold.
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I've talked a little bit talked even to XQC about this and not specifically this co streaming thing but in general dealing with the pressures of streaming like in general that was before I actually did the switch and they told me
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a couple couple advice how they deal with it, right? uh because this was a few years ago. But honestly, the the specific part about switching up from solo queue, I I just kind of like I've been doing this for a while and I just
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realized uh I feel better. My numbers are better also. Like objectively, the numbers are just better when I don't solo Q nowadays. Um I would say the competition in solo Q streams also got a little bit higher now. Thompson and
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Artzi are back playing solo Q. I still I still have a lot of people asking me to play and that's great and I still play sometimes because I want to, right? But it's a very big difference. That's the
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Singapore mindset, right? Flying back, doing, and you do it because you have to, you know. Yeah.
Speaker A
It's about I think people can tell when you want to do something, when you have to do something.
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And for sure, maybe they can't tell right away, but they will they will realize by the emotions you express on stream and stuff like they're going to they're going to know, okay, this guy doesn't really want to do this. So, I think slowly but
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surely, especially around the 2022 2023 era, I was very unhappy as a person. I think one of the most unhappy versions of myself. Um, and I think it it affected on my stream. I mean, it was obvious on my stream as well. And I feel
Speaker A
like I was I kind of hit the wall where I'm like, "Okay, I'm forced to change." Because it's hard changing without h someone like being forced to. But that forced me to change no matter what. Um, like I said about my relationship too,
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like I had a very long-term relationship end around that time as well, which also forced me to change. I feel like, okay, I realized something about myself. I can't keep going like this.
Speaker A
It's not sustainable. Um I need to find a different way. And I was already doing a lot of co streaming and stuff. Um watching games and I was having a ton of fun doing it. Uh I get to interact with
Speaker A
chat. Otherwise, you can't really interact with chat. I mean the streamers nowadays that play solo queue, they even put on like Topson and those guys, they put on like uh long delays and I just I just don't see the point of streaming
Speaker A
if I have that delay. I might as well be doing YouTube videos or something. It's not really my passion. But with the other uh other type of streaming, I can still interact with an audience. I can I can like have banter with them and
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whatnot. And that's that's that's what brings me joy at least with streaming nowadays after doing it for 10 years compared to like obsessively grinding solo queue for what? Like for what am I grinding? I'm not that's what I ask
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myself. I don't know why. You know, yeah, I didn't really at at some point.
Speaker A
Okay, maybe it was the money, but now I feel like I don't really need the money in that same sense I did 10 years ago.
Speaker A
So, why am I doing it? And that was just that question kept popping up in my head and eventually, okay, I realized it's time to do something different.
Speaker A
Like, when you're a big streamer like you are, let's say you stream, you have 18K viewers. Sometimes you have 10, sometimes you have five, whatever, you know, whatever your average is right now, and then you get to a week where
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your average is like half of that and you see the number. If I had, I don't know, let's say I start streaming again, I have a thousand average viewers, I'll be like, "Holy [ __ ] this is incredible."
Speaker A
Whereas for people like let's say it's you it's XQC if you drop like below your average even though that's still like astronomical for other people for you it feels weird.
Speaker A
Is that like easy or hard to balance or like cuz I don't really know how that feels.
Speaker A
Yeah. I'll tell you I'll sort this by saying like every streamer is almost every streamer is unhappy at some point because honestly already is really Yeah. That's crazy. That's a crazy statement.
Speaker A
Yeah. There we're it's just an unhappy breed of people. That's kind of the reason why they're successful too because this unhappiness drives them and me as well.
Speaker A
Yeah. I mean, of course, there are a few exceptions. There's always, but yeah, in general, people are unhappy, especially because it's such a in life, we don't get such a direct measurement, you know, of our value. The number of viewers is
Speaker A
usually how much money you're going to be making and how much successful you have, how many connections you have, how much people like you, right? Because you attach your whole identity to it. So, when that number goes to half of what it
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used to be, regardless of the beginning number, you're going to be unhappy. There is no escaping it. I've learned that every streamer feels like this. It doesn't matter if you're XQC have hundreds of million in the bank account.
Speaker A
He is unhappy when he has lower viewers. That's just the way it is. Um, and I feel like I heard a quote recently the other day that happiness is found through contrast in life. So, for instance, like me living
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in a let's say I live in a shitty house and I go to a nice spa, I'm going to be happy. But let's say I live in a nice house with a nice spa and I go to a
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different go to nice spa, it's not going to do anything for me, you know. And I think the same is true for unhappiness.
Speaker A
Like I think unhappiness is also found through contrast. Like you're used to something so great and it doesn't really matter if it's still great at 5,000 viewers compared to 10.
Speaker A
The contrast is what makes you unhappy. I think that's in life. Yeah. I I think that's a good call because also I think it's uh I think it's just difficult to like cuz even though while it is true that like if you
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look properly and if you like yeah like you're still like the best but it's like you're used to something and like you're saying I think streaming is a bit weird than that that it's like there is direct value in the number that
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you're seeing on your screen or on your Twitch or whatever. It's like oh there's this much or there's this little.
Speaker A
I've I've gotten a lot better with that. Like nowadays I don't really look at it as much. Of course I look at it a little bit. I think it took me a long time to realize the 2021 era of numbers is over
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over because I think I used to average like I used to go live without a camera play solo queue. I had 10 to 15,000 viewers. That's crazy now. Ridiculous.
Speaker A
Ridiculous. Yeah. So nowadays, you know, of course my numbers a bit lower. Everybody's numbers are a bit lower.
Speaker A
Um and it affected me a while. Of course I'm thinking like, oh my god, what am I doing wrong? Like you're trying to find things. What what happened, you know?
Speaker A
But in reality, it's it just takes I think the body or the mind realizes with time it's okay, you know, it's not a big deal. But at first, yes, of course, I was like panicking. I think everybody that their numbers go down, they panic a
Speaker A
little bit. But now I'm like, all right, it's all right. I'm still like comfortable with my numbers. I I've managed to also grow my community a bit, which was something I focused a bit more on. Uh instead of having this just like
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10,000 hate watchers, you know, like I kind of weeded a lot of them out. And that's that's probably a good thing too, you know, that's kind of the direction I see you see most streamers taking. Even in Dota, right? Like you see the the
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path of singing. He did the same thing, right? Yeah. He just kind of quit cold turkey Dota and then he weeded out a lot of people that were just kind of there for one thing to hate or just for Dota,
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whatever. And now he has a very nice community around them. And I was like, okay, that that's pretty cool, too.
Speaker A
So when I mean cuz there's a bajillion people watching you. Do you think there is like an overarching like misconception that people have not of streaming but of like you as a person?
Speaker A
I mean it ter it does. This is honestly what used to keep me up at night a lot was the fact that okay let's just begin with people clipping me being angry and then people think that's all I am as a
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person. That sucks. You know that really does suck. Of course I get angry but if that's all people used to clip it because it was not something I was all the time.
Speaker A
Yeah. Uh so they thought it was like oh what a that's crazy. let's clip it and do this.
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And then everybody like thinks I'm some sort of charact caricature caricature that just smashes his desk, you know, like or whatever. And that kind of sucks a bit, of course, but that's also a part of me I'm not
Speaker A
very proud of, right? Nobody's very proud of their most weak or angry moments of Dota.
Speaker A
Uh, and the nature of clipping itself is where they take a clip out of context or whatever. Let's say somebody's harassing and flaming you and you say something back and suddenly they take that what you say something back and try to trying to like
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say, "Oh, this guy is [ __ ] awful because he said that, but they never bring in the context." It's so in it's so infuriating. I talked about it on my stream actually a few months ago as well
Speaker A
because there were some Reddit threads. Um, and the problem is you can't defend yourself. It's you can defend yourself to the people are watching you there.
Speaker A
But once it's out there and it's on Reddit or it's it's a clip somewhere.
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You can't like defend yourself. You can't say, "Oh, but this is the content because people don't care. They don't listen. They just form this initial impression of you." And move on and that's all you are to them. And that
Speaker A
frustrates me. I wish I could change that. Or like for instance, there was some Reddit thread like I wish I could tell people the truth. You know, it was not about this raging thing, but it was something else.
Speaker A
Mh. Um, and that happens a lot. Like I've had a I've had a handful of Reddit hate threads throughout the year or whatever.
Speaker A
Like Instagram big. Yeah. Or what? Yeah. Everybody who's streaming goes through this and uh it's so hard to deal with. I don't think like I genuinely just came to conclusion we as humans are not meant to be able to deal
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with this normally. It's not normal to just receive this amount of hate and like kind of like um kind of like be able to be okay with it because you want to tell your side of the story, but nobody cares
Speaker A
at that point. And one thing one of the big streamers told me, I'm not going to say which one.
Speaker A
I was like, "How do you deal with these Reddit hat threads?" He said, "I detach myself and I don't see them as humans at all." I was like, "Damn, I guess." Yeah, it's like a It's like doesn't see
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them as humans. Like, I'm like, okay. I mean, I have a hard time doing that.
Speaker A
Like honestly when I see a comment Yeah. at no matter how hateful it is, I assume this person is like a reasonable person coming from coming from a place you know that's normal. But a lot of the time the people
Speaker A
who do hate like this in general online are people who are unhappy and want to spread more unhappiness to other people.
Speaker A
And it doesn't really it doesn't really matter what you do. They're always going to be like that, you know. Um so taking it personally is a mistake. But it's hard not to. It's really hard for me.
Speaker A
It's personally very hard not to take it personally. I mean, I I have one I have one or two that I would that we can just have on the side again. And it's like I would like to like I mean, this one, first of all, I
Speaker A
think this one is just hilarious. I think you'll have sound. You can see it, right?
Speaker A
Yeah. What a joke. Especially when we trashed the top [ __ ] screenshot. 6K [ __ ] network to this dog.
Speaker A
But I need to trip this one. [ __ ] Oh, that piss me off just thinking about it. So, this was one of my subs who's just like like they think that this is one of the funniest clips
Speaker A
like from you literally ever. I mean, the other one I won't play it, but this is the this is the it's the fishman incident. Like look at the portrait of your mom.
Speaker A
The fishman incident. Yeah. Which I also think that was No, you can play it. Why not?
Speaker A
Okay. Like cuz these are like I was people the first one is very funny. I mean this one I mean I think is also funny but then after this I think you can talk about like I can explain these clips too if you
Speaker A
want. Yeah, go for it. So there's some context. Play it a bit in the back.
Speaker A
Look, listen. Look at your mother. Look at a portrait of your mother. Look at a portrait of your mother. You've seen that she's a dog. Okay? She's a [ __ ] dog. And that means you are also a dog.
Speaker A
Okay? You're a little dog. So you can go bark. Bark. Woof. Woof. Go bark. Fishman. Go.
Speaker A
Come on. Bark for me. I would have [ __ ] dog, dude. No idea how to respond to this.
Speaker A
First of all, like your comment is so like hilarious and weird at the same time. You will just stun me.
Speaker A
It is weird. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, but it was it was I mean Okay, so for context in this one, let's start with this one. Context, Fishman had been flaming me the whole [ __ ] game.
Speaker A
And at some point and also what bothered me about it, the way he was flaming me was very like um how do you call it? You know, we knew each other and he's kind of inflaming me in an inhumane way, you know, like he's
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treating me as not as a person. And I say it with a smirk on my face.
Speaker A
Your mom is a dog. You're a dog. you know, like I don't really mean it like that harshly. I thought it was kind of funny, too, at the time. Some people took it very seriously. As the cliff is
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called, Gork really angry. I don't even think I was that angry. It was more like, "Fuck you, Fishman." You know, he had been going at it the whole game.
Speaker A
Stop [ __ ] barking, you know? And I just said it in a different kind of manner. Um, of course, some people feel like this is like some crazy stuff, but it's not really meant in that way, but
Speaker A
yeah, I understand it sounds kind of bad. It's the context, too. If people saw what Fishman had been saying all game and pinging me and stuff and our history going back, they maybe would get it a bit more. But yeah, I mean, all in
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all, like, you know, it was it was kind of weird, I guess. I don't know. They kind of came out of nowhere.
Speaker A
Would you say if you had the situation? I I don't know how old this clip is.
Speaker A
Okay, it says 3 years ago. Do you think this would still happen now just because, you know, he's like poking you or do you think like right now you would play it off in a different way?
Speaker A
I don't know. depends a little bit. I mean, I would definitely maybe handle it a bit better, but honestly, I feel like as long as you don't get too personal, some people consider this personal. I I don't, right? Like, it's so ridiculous.
Speaker A
How could it be personal? Um, I I don't think I don't think a little bit of flame if you flame someone back a bit, like I don't know. I I always have this constant battle with myself. What am I
Speaker A
supposed to just sit and roll over and take it, you know, like what am I supposed to do, you know, on stream?
Speaker A
It's kind of like, you know, honestly, I don't know. That's something maybe people don't get either. When somebody flames me a lot on stream and especially if they keep going at it, it's hard not to [ __ ] bite back at
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some point because you're sitting there getting laughed at by thousands of people, you know, like imagine a thousand people watching you. You get bered and you're like, "Okay, I can rise above it. I understand." But on some level, you feel like
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this is so embarrassing. Like, am I not supposed to stand up for myself or say anything back?
Speaker A
So, you end up you end up doing maybe something like that then, you know, sometimes.
Speaker A
Yeah. I I mean I guess you have the choice of I mean nameless streamer who gave you the point of oh when they do this Reddit thread you can see them as nonhumans. I mean I guess you have the
Speaker A
choice of you turn it into this. It's funny. I mean it's also like it gives you a clip. It's funny people like it.
Speaker A
I mean some people don't like it but that's just at that point that's just life. You have so many eyes on you.
Speaker A
I can tell you that it doesn't matter what you do. There's going to be the.1 percentile or the 1% that they will just not like you.
Speaker A
That's just human life. I have a hard time I had a very hard time dealing with that. Honestly, I wanted everybody to like me for a while.
Speaker A
And honestly, I think it affected me as a person, as and as a stream where I started being not myself a bit because I was scared of people disliking me.
Speaker A
It's still a bit there, I would say. Like, obviously, it's kind of hard not to be, but uh yeah, it's some you said it, you know, like you're right. There's always going to people be people disliking you, but for me it was hard to like realize
Speaker A
that. It took me a really long time. Yeah, it's a I think it's a it's a tough one to understand, but it's very helpful once you do because you Yeah, you you just can't. So, I have a different question. When you play Dota
Speaker A
right now, when was the last time you had fun? Maybe it was a few days ago.
Speaker A
Is it a long time ago? No, it is. No, no, no. Especially now that I don't play as intensely as I used to. Then I never had fun. I mean, like, if you look at the clip 3 years ago, I think I
Speaker A
almost never had fun playing Dota. Mhm. Uh but nowadays, yeah, I find myself having fun even in solo queue.
Speaker A
Sometimes a few games a day, maybe one or two games a day are fun. The problem with solo Q nowadays, I mean, that's we can go into another three-hour podcast of how they could fix that. It's the matchmaking system is a mess. The
Speaker A
the punishment or reward system is a mess. Um the the the polarizing games where it's like over half of the games are over before they start.
Speaker A
Yeah. Uh that's just builds up so much frustration. It's not fun. No offense to the people you play with as well. But when you're playing with 19year-old shutins with no em emotional intelligence or an underdeveloped frontal lobe, that's not an insult. It
Speaker A
it fully develops at age 25. The problem is like, yeah, those are a fact. The problem is those people will spew the most heinous [ __ ] in the world at you. And it's hard not to get baited
Speaker A
into that, you know, like into that mindset of this is how it's supposed to be.
Speaker A
Yeah. But in reality, to quote the other streamer, they're not really human. They're not fully human yet. They're getting there, but they have they don't they don't understand how to act around people, you know, like not really. Um,
Speaker A
and this being around those kind of people, especially now that I'm in my 30s, like it's it's a crazy mind [ __ ] honestly. It it corrupts your mind and soul with time. Sounds like an excuse of bad behavior, but it's just honestly
Speaker A
true for everybody. I think in high ranked pubs and stuff like there's a lot of people spreading unhappiness there. That's all I know.
Speaker A
You need to be a real angel. You need to be like GH to like really level through that which is tough. So like yeah, shout out to him as always. Guys, literal angels. There's like there's like five people who can do that in high rank.
Speaker A
That's it. Like everybody else gets mine [ __ ] then. cuz I I read something or there was a different question uh where someone wanted me to ask you uh how do you feel about like the pub meta
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influencing pro games. They mentioned your bristle back with like ashard agon saying that you were like farming like high ranked players and then it became the meta after. Is that true?
Speaker A
Yeah, I mean I I love giving myself credit for it on stream a lot because nobody else will give me credit for it.
Speaker A
But there was a while I mean of course you know as much as I played Dota back then of course there was a few things that I was a little bit ahead of time than others like the bristle back it was
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also alchemist also that era that I played I I think if they have I if I have one talent in solo quora and heroes I feel like my biggest talent would be finding an easy hero to play that's broken like
Speaker A
my my brain will just gravitate towards that a little you know it's true. Yeah, it was just so simple.
Speaker A
You just I don't know. It was just so simple to play and it had so high impact, but back then they weren't really meta. Um, but they became meta after a while, you know, and uh No, I feel like that that's probably my best
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aspect as a player. And that that's not like trying to toot my own horn because I have a lot of weaknesses as a player, too. But that's for sure one one thing I I I'm good at gravitating towards.
Speaker A
Okay, that's good. I have two questions on like similar in a way that do you have a hero where you feel you know more than the pro players do currently.
Speaker A
Um I mean definitely bristle back carry I think people are misplaying and misite item building it but it's mostly it's mostly about item builds really okay uh to some extent and I I even talk to pro players about this quite often like I'm
Speaker A
I'm still like even though I'm not in the scene as a player I still talk to my friends who are in the scene all the time. I mean I talk to Omar a lot. I talked to 33. I'm very very close to 33,
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especially I talk old ideas all the time with them. Uh different heroes and stuff. So, I'm very still like uh I'm very opinionated even though I'm not in it, but I'm not going to like say I'm an authority in it, you know, but I
Speaker A
definitely have some ideas. Um I it's very scary to be like that KZ guy on Reddit, you know, like thinking, you know, too much before you know it. You don't want to be that guy. You don't want to be that guy, right? I'm not that
Speaker A
delusional, but there's definitely I I definitely like for instance last TI uh I was talking to talking to Molina a lot about buying basher on sanking and nobody was buying bashing. I just didn't understand why because it's so broken
Speaker A
especially if you buy refresher, you have two abyssals and it works with your ulti on a nobody was buying it but I I I like I told him like please try it. I I put my life on this. It's OP. And now
Speaker A
on the line. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like I I I like doing that and I will admit sometimes I'm probably very wrong about things too but the masher sanking I was so sure about I was like you have to do this
Speaker A
Moline no matter what and he won that year. Yeah. So if I ask him we'll take that.
Speaker A
He will say it's from you like it's inspired by you in a way the basher hopefully otherwise otherwise I'm suing him.
Speaker A
I'm going to fact check that gaming. Yeah do it. It's fine. Yeah. No that that is interesting. And then I have also um discussions from Tsunami cuz we're talking about pro play in a way. Um if you could be as good of a pro
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player as you are a streamer or you would you could have the pro player dominance that you have streaming dominance would you trade it?
Speaker A
I mean monetarily it would make sense. I think being a top pro player especially like eight years ago was very lucrative in Dota.
Speaker A
Oh yeah golden days. But I would say one big yeah um one big benefit of being a streamer compared to a pro player is the fact that I can I can keep at my career a lot longer, right? I have a lot more
Speaker A
longevity. Hopefully I can keep going streaming for years to come at least. And um that's a big benefit of streaming. That's why I wouldn't necessarily want to trade it.
Speaker A
If you compare the lives to a pro player and a streamer, I think being a streamer is generally better at least. Um you get to stay home more. Like people underestimate how much time away from family pros are spending, especially if
Speaker A
they're not European. Yeah. Like it's crazy. You're like nowadays in this competitive season. That sucks. I wouldn't want to do that, right? In this current climate, for sure.
Speaker A
Yeah. I mean, it's it's rough being a pro. You're like never ever ever home.
Speaker A
No. And that's why we see a lot of the pro players actually taking real breaks nowadays.
Speaker A
Yeah. Because it's you need I mean, you burned the [ __ ] out otherwise. Like it's kind of like what you said earlier like you stream 350 days a year at at one point your body will not let you
Speaker A
stream. Yeah. Cuz like I know I pushed through that burnout a lot of years in a row and I didn't understand what was happening and yes it was I still streamed with burnout. Yeah.
Speaker A
My streams were so bad. Honestly I'm so I'm so ashamed of a lot of my streams in the 2022 2021 because I was just burnt out but I wanted to keep the consistency right. I think nowadays, especially the
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past few months, I'm a lot more prouder of what kind of quality I'm putting out on my stream, at least compared to before.
Speaker A
Yeah. I have also like um at what point did you feel like that you made the right not like that it's the right choice, but it's also like this is really big. I mean, you talk about you got your first paycheck and like your
Speaker A
viewers were rising, but was it like a specific moment where you're like, whoa, like this is what I'm going to do.
Speaker A
I'm going to stick to it. And this is like your grateful moment in a way specifically with streaming.
Speaker A
Yeah. Um I mean yeah for I think somewhere it was honestly one of the first variety streams I had. I think it was when I was doing some it was like a cooking stream.
Speaker A
I don't remember what the game was called but either way you were just in a stream cooking.
Speaker A
Yeah. And I remember uh before that I don't pretty much only play Dota on stream and I remember just the energy I felt in the chat like people having fun people happy that's when I felt like holy [ __ ]
Speaker A
this is so this is so fun you know and so rewarding uh I think that was one moment I remember very clearly as one of those like defining moment in my career yeah okay that's that's really good because for me also like
Speaker A
I mean it's similar in a way I mean like we work like we as talent we work in front of the camera or when you're a pro player like sometimes you're you're going somewhere. When you're at a at a
Speaker A
LAN or you talk to like your fans or real people, it feels more real. Do you feel like you are aware of actually how many people's life lives like you impact like every day?
Speaker A
Like you have haters obviously, but you have so many people that watch you because it makes their day. It makes them happy. They're maybe not happy in their life and like you help them get through.
Speaker A
Do you ever think about that or like how easy is it to keep that in your mind to like also help you that you're important to people out there?
Speaker A
No, that's a big deal too. I mean that that's something I would want to mention as well was really rewarding. I think that Dr. K video we mentioned a lot of people still approach me about that and message me this helped me a lot which is
Speaker A
really cool. Yeah. Um also whenever I go to do events I went to Birmingham a few weeks ago and a lot of people approaching me and it it makes it feel more real you know. Okay, there's real people watching me. Like,
Speaker A
yeah, this is this is very rewarding in that sense. And yeah, no, I I am super that's part of the reason I beat myself up sometimes, too, is because I realize so many people are watching me and I
Speaker A
don't want to be an unhappy [ __ ] in front of them. And it's like I want to inspire something more than just like being angry playing solo Q, you know?
Speaker A
That's what kind of made me change a bit too. Like I don't want to be that guy, you know?
Speaker A
It's a good it's it's it's a good reason to change because I mean I get it also that like there is this pressure like there is a I mean if you do something stupid or something bad or whatever it's
Speaker A
like thousands of people that like see it or that you quote unquote let down even though I think it's not you always feel it more intense I think than it is like if you're not going to stream a day
Speaker A
I think your viewers they're fine they get it. Yeah. Yeah, I understand. And all all these disappointments of they pass with time, you know, and the hate they kind of wash over, but in the moment it does feel like the end of the
Speaker A
world at least. God, that's rough. It's it's it sounds Yeah. Yeah. It sounds toxic, but I mean, you're you're aware of that. You're working on it. It's getting better. At least I'm pretty sure it is.
Speaker A
Yeah, for sure. It is. It is. Yeah. So, you watch career. Maybe maybe you'll get back there one day.
Speaker A
There's there's things there's things to mention in a better career. We will still get there. Don't worry. Com will still be touched on because for like you still watch I mean you watch most tournaments maybe all.
Speaker A
Um most do you have I say the interesting ones at least. Yeah. Do you have a team or a specific player that you really love watching?
Speaker A
Like when they're on you're like that's the game like if every team was playing you would always choose them or always this player to like put it on not just for you but for the stream?
Speaker A
That's a good question actually. I mean, it's been a lot of Nigma watching for me lately because they're the I would say they're the number one team because they're very um they're sometimes a bit unpredictable and also they're the most they kind of
Speaker A
bring a lot of eyes to the tier 2 scene when they're playing these smaller tournaments and qualifiers. They make they make the qualifiers actually interesting which is fun. So I think as a team overall it would be Nigma I
Speaker A
would say for sure. But if I want like the highest quality lo and a little bit of fun I think Liquid is something I gravitates towards a lot as well. I would say Liquid and Nigmar are probably two of my go-to watch teams right now.
Speaker A
I think they're good choices. How about some uh and and you said players? Yeah, you said players as well. I mean, I would say Nisha obviously mid lane has been very inspiring lately, but I would say I don't want to point out a certain player
Speaker A
or a certain um or a certain play style. For me, it's actually like I like the intrapersonal relationships in Dota as well. Like let's say Saberite got kicked from Liquid.
Speaker A
Yeah. I'm watching the next Saberite versus Liquid match no matter what. Yeah, I mean like that's what I that's what I watched. I think that's what that's what grav gravitate towards.
Speaker A
Yeah, I mean we need to I mean drama always works. I mean for me also I think that you have a lot of newer players that have a lot of personality actually like Amar is a very obvious one. I think Malady as
Speaker A
well. I love this guy. Like if this guy gives an interview you'll sign me up.
Speaker A
I'm quitting everything I'm doing right now to watch this guy. Yeah, I had him I interviewed him actually at I was at Blast Copenagen last year and I interviewed him on my stream and I was like, "How do you feel
Speaker A
about me calling you Maady instead of Malady and he just says like with a cold face like I'll kill you." I'm like, "Oh [ __ ] that was funny." No, like this.
Speaker A
This guy is definitely one of my my f I think that's like some of the positives.
Speaker A
I think you have like new players and new faces that do a lot of like good in a way. What do you feel like is something that is declining in Dota over time?
Speaker A
Whether it's the past years viewership, game play, do you think something about tournaments? All right, we can get into this if you want. Well, first of all, uh first of all, Valve are not really working enough on the game.
Speaker A
Obviously, they've moved on to Deadlock. Ice Rock is not at Valve. And there's it's very apparent with how much love they're showing the game. Bugs get fixed very slow. Mhm.
Speaker A
I don't know what the reasoning is for this extreme slowdown. Uh I think it's a bit much. I think they slowly realize that over patching the game makes people leave. So they decided to go the other way and they kind of underpatching it
Speaker A
now. Yeah. Like not changing big things because they're like they don't want to scare people off. I get that. But on some level I I just miss the amount of love they showed in terms of events and everything. Like that's definitely
Speaker A
something that's been declining a lot in Dota. And that's obvious for everybody who's super active. Um, I hope this year they do something for battle pass or whatever. That would be cool. Or even like some, it sounds egotistical, but
Speaker A
even some integration integration with streamers. I think almost every other title in video games has something for streamers. And the Valve has never done anything.
Speaker A
Uh, back in the TI3, TI4, TI2 era, they did language streams on site at TI. That was awesome. Like, I hope they do something like that again. I would love to I would be honored to like be in the
Speaker A
arena and cast from there like they did in the olden days. That would be so hype. Mhm.
Speaker A
Um but nowadays they take such a big step back. I hope they change their mind around that. And in terms of like I guess a very prevalent problem nowadays is there's a bit of an oversaturation of tournaments which is good for me because
Speaker A
I watch a lot of tournaments. Yeah. Yeah. But I think they could probably like I think a way to fix this is maybe okay we can keep most of these tournaments but maybe we could still have like a Valve
Speaker A
assist major every now and then, right? to kind of bring up like the level of a few of them, you know?
Speaker A
Uh I think that would make a big difference towards people and players. Um what else is there say gameplay-wise? I obviously have my gripes with like you can fix this, you can fix that gameplay wise to make it a little bit more
Speaker A
interesting, but honestly, I've come to realize I'm a video game player. I'm not a video game designer. It's actually kind of hard doing these balance things.
Speaker A
It's really difficult. Yeah. I just hope they do something, you know? That's kind of my only hope.
Speaker A
Yeah. I I would I share a similar sentiment. I think now that I play a bit less obviously I'm less affected but I know like all the like when the pro players you have to play this game like
Speaker A
every day 10 hours and it's like I think right now it's like what like whether it's pock and lone druid and alchemist like whatever that are in like all the games like come on I did something I did a test yesterday
Speaker A
for for Lone for instance right like I just tested it just to feel it you know so this bear let's say you're level 20 right the design of Lid right now everybody know isn't one of the most broken heroes but like it's hard to
Speaker A
visualize ize it. So, this bear is six slotted uh five slotted at 20 minutes, let's say, and it runs around the map uh freely right?
Speaker A
Mhm. And uh the issue is that people have is that if I kill it, it just respawns again because he has a level 10 town.
Speaker A
So, he basically has 100% uptime on his bear. It's almost impossible to gank it twice in our own time.
Speaker A
But the big issue is the XP doesn't scale with a bear. And it's it's like you have to kill like almost 10 bears to get the same XP as one hero at level 20, right?
Speaker A
Like just doing the math on that, it doesn't make sense. And the goal doesn't scale either. So everything like it it it's just weird to me Valve would just let something be in the game that doesn't make sense, you know,
Speaker A
uh for so long. I don't think this would if we roll back 10 years, this would have been patched out in a week.
Speaker A
Mhm. And it's a shame that things like this just get to stay so long. I don't understand. That's like one thing as an example of I think Val being a bit too much hands off I would say.
Speaker A
And like speaking also because I mean you have a lot to do with tournaments whether it's online or because you go there and there was drama like like many years ago you know where maybe it was Kyle who
Speaker A
mentioned it like the most strong then where it's like streamers like abuse tournaments and like the way it is now.
Speaker A
Do you feel like that's developed? Like are you do you think like you and the T also have like a pretty good relationship now? Like it's just you know hand in hand you're happy happy days.
Speaker A
I would say pretty good. I mean recently ESL did a new guideline for co- streaming which actually affects co- streaming quite a lot. You can't have like you have to show their advertisements all all the time on stream which I understand but one weird
Speaker A
thing they added was like you have to show the panel all the time as well.
Speaker A
Which I was a little bit surprised by. What what's the difference before? like you show the games, you go or something, right?
Speaker A
Okay, I see. Yeah, I could play some geographer in between, you know, we'll keep the audience retention higher.
Speaker A
Um, and now I have to show the panel. And a lot of streamers, I know like I'm like, okay, I can kind of do it like, you know, sure.
Speaker A
Uh, but a lot of streamers in other section, I know like for instance only pixel, he just quit entirely streaming it because of it because he doesn't get to do what he wants, right?
Speaker A
So, it does affect people a bit. I think the relationship between to uh to Mia is very good though. Most of them invite me out to their events, give me somewhere to sit in the crowd. Like, that's amazing. You know, I'm like super happy.
Speaker A
Um, so I'm glad it's integrating. And this whole Kyle drama was really funny, too. In 2020, that's one one of one of the biggest dramas I' ever been in.
Speaker A
Yeah. But it's good though. Kyle called me the Joe Rogan of Dota that I make millions a year playing Dota. I was like, damn, I wish maybe he should be my agent or something.
Speaker A
Maybe then you would make millions. Yeah. Shout out to Kyle. Yeah. Yeah. He We talked about it last time at the Birmingham after party. like maybe it should be my I mean Kyle we made up since like yeah he's he's he's a grown old man you
Speaker A
know you can like talk it out yeah we made up since and like every time we were at events we were like always joking around about it you know all that but it used to be like real drama I was really pissed off at him
Speaker A
because it all started with him criticizing Sing for co- streaming okay cuz he was involved with an organization and I was like I I had a response they [ __ ] off you know I said basically why are you why are you harassing Sing like
Speaker A
this like it's not his problem but then he turned that drama in he wrote like a manifesto and used it as a springboard for something else and that made me feel very used. That's a smart move. [ __ ] you know, I like gotta
Speaker A
respect a little to him. It was a smart move. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, [ __ ] And I got me a bit mad. So, I was like a bit mad of him, mad at him for that. Um, there was
Speaker A
obviously a weird it was a weird era where co- streaming was uh not really a thing yet. Mhm.
Speaker A
So, uh people didn't really understand, people felt like people were leeching content. But a very big misconception that people are slowly realizing now is that the tournament organizers can use the numbers of the streamer to sell to the sponsors. So, in reality, they are
Speaker A
using the streamers sometimes more than streamers are using them, right? Like they're getting money from it. So, and streamers aren't getting paid always for co- streaming, not very often. So, in reality, it's a win for the tournament organizer as well. But back then the
Speaker A
mindset was so different. If you were walk into any Reddit thread 5 years ago, they would say streamers are all leeches. We need to get rid of them watching tournaments. This is awful for the game. But in reality, it wasn't
Speaker A
really the truth. Uh in reality, some tournaments even pay have offered to pay me to watch them, right?
Speaker A
Yeah. Which has happened several times, right? Like this is not an anomaly. It happens everywhere. So it's actually something we that's beneficial for both parties usually. Uh so that that's I'm glad that misconception is kind of over now and
Speaker A
people don't think that way anymore. It's kind of stupid. Yeah. I guess this developed then like if people now are like okay like you funnel in all the views not just them themselves but we have co-streamer XYZ and like you just take it all.
Speaker A
I mean it's huge and like imagine if let's say let's say like okay they they might criticize me for watching a tournament but what if like let's say XQC or Jinxy or one of these streamers watch the tournament. That would be good
Speaker A
for Dota right in the long run. That should increase the player base, create more interest, the pro players get the pro teams get more eyes on them, maybe more fans. Like it's all all in all good for the ecosystem of Dota itself.
Speaker A
Yeah. Uh- which is nice. And I wanted to touch on that because it was actually interesting subject. That was actually the reason me and OG split the first time 2021 2020. I think it was 2021 or 2020, one of those years.
Speaker A
Um it was actually an argument about co- streaming I have with the CEO. Okay. um back then JMR um back then they didn't understand it really and I was getting into trouble for it and OG were also involved in hosting their own
Speaker A
tournament and uh basically they were asking me not to stream it and I was like no that's not how it works. I feel I already saw back then honestly I think not to toot my own horn I was one of the
Speaker A
first people on Twitch to really see this co streaming thing as a like as an avenue like that's going to be uh good for me at least back then people weren't doing co streams in other games much either back then I was like [ __ ] but
Speaker A
this I don't want to give this up so basically that's part of the reason me and OG split 2021 um so yeah back then I already saw like [ __ ] this is going to be big like I
Speaker A
don't want to give that up and for me it was mainly like I can finally connect with my audience in way that's not [ __ ] solo queue.
Speaker A
Yeah, that was huge for me. I hadn't done that before. And the OG situation, just so I understand it properly, um yeah, the co-streaming thing started and they were going to host a tournament and then you Yeah.
Speaker A
Even though you are you are an OG streamer. They did not want you to stream this OG event.
Speaker A
Exactly. Uh and it wasn't like I wouldn't say like this is not like OG's fault or anything. They even offered to pay me not to stream and it was actually a good amount. They wanted they wanted to pay me a lot not
Speaker A
to stream it. But I was like princ for me the principle was it's not about money. Like I don't want to take money not to stream it. This is like I I saw it more like this is something I want to
Speaker A
do in more in the future. So if this becomes like a normal thing they're paying me not to watch then I I don't like it, you know. Um purely purely numbers wise it didn't really make sense for me or whatever, right? Like but yeah
Speaker A
it was it was more about the principle of itself for me. Oh okay. It wasn't their fault necessarily, but they they just didn't understand the the system back then. At least their their CEO back then did.
Speaker A
That was kind of the story of why me and OG didn't work out in general. Uh I think that's why a lot of streamers don't really do orgs anymore. Yeah.
Speaker A
Because it's really hard to justify it year round at least. You can make events, but it's not that easy to make it like a stable thing for them either.
Speaker A
Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I don't know anything about that, so I'm just going to take your word others. I just keep bullshitting. We need to touch on your liquipedia.
Speaker A
Oh, yeah. Because I mean, first of all, I didn't actually know that this is where your name came from. Gorgeous cow.
Speaker A
Oh, you didn't? No. I thought people just I don't I never knew why people called you like George Cow, but you know, now it makes more sense.
Speaker A
This is old. This is from uh World of Warcraft uh Wrath of Lich King. I was playing a Torren Warrior.
Speaker A
Interesting. Cuz then we need to talk a bit about your uh there's been some tournaments, some games. Team Bald.
Speaker A
We had our team Horde. That was my first like real team after some casual team.
Speaker A
Yeah. S4 actually actually recommended me to AK. Holy. Because I knew S4 a bit.
Speaker A
And AK was the captain of team Horde. So was that is it like this iteration that you played with? Like is that the one that you're talking about right now?
Speaker A
Yeah. 33 was only there for this one tournament. Um Okay. So at the end I guess cuz I think I just opened like the Yeah.
Speaker A
Here this one the major. Okay. Yeah. So this this one we lost this was a devastating one. We lost to singing in the qualifier. I remember that to the bean boys.
Speaker A
That was kind of silly. Yeah, they bean. We got beaned. Yeah, that was that was pretty rough. That was not expected at all.
Speaker A
Yeah, of course. But we should have won. I was we were a bit sloppy. Um but then they went to the close qualifier and they had to suffer through losing there a lot as well. So yeah, it wasn't really that fun. But yeah, my
Speaker A
early professional career was like kind of like Team Horde. We were playing like these tier 2 tournaments as you see. We we won the Pro Dota Cup for $2,000. got second in the in the Champions League season, you
Speaker A
know, like casual like tier 2 Dota back then. Um, we were not too bad, you know, like we were okay, but not not great.
Speaker A
Uh, the first big line I went to was that that one sucked by the 2017 013.
Speaker A
Can you go back down there? No, down. Uh, down down there. This one W there. That I think that was the first one I went to in Yeah, you can click it.
Speaker A
It's there was a tournament held in China in Chang. $1.5 million. Uh so kind of big, right? Really? Um and we went there and uh there were some good teams that ended up winning like TNC, like a real
Speaker A
team type of thing, but this was a national team kind of thing, right? It was uh it was actually for like the Danish stack, the Chinese stack, you know, the Turkish stack.
Speaker A
It's national, but it's still like it had like orc names in it. That's why I got confused. But it's all Swedes, right? So that's kind of Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. So, this one this one was pretty rough because we went there in China and I was kind of broke back in 2017. I hadn't really started streaming yet or something like that. So, it really sucked us losing because look at
Speaker A
our score in the groups and we we didn't actually close. We had one Yeah, we had one two and four one ones.
Speaker A
We never really lost a series and then we ended up like, you know, if you look at that last game there too, 1-1 MVP like we ended up like throwing this last game and then you just cuz you're broke
Speaker A
like right and you're in China in the middle of China. Yeah. And you get eliminated like day two or something and you're stuck there for two weeks doing [ __ ] nothing. That was the worst [ __ ] in the world. It was not
Speaker A
a fun city. Yeah, that I can that that sounds rough. Yeah, it was rough. And this game, I remember this game. I was playing Juggernaut, right? And I had like a bad Omni Slash or something ever meta on this hero.
Speaker A
Do you remember this? What is this? This is grief. I had Dominator Jug. It might have been It might have been meta back then. Yeah, it must have been something to it, but that's funny.
Speaker A
Yeah. Let's look. There's the graph down there. Were we throwing this as much as I remember? It was a bit of a throw for sure. 13k lead at 22 minutes. you do have out, but 13K is still You are up a
Speaker A
lot like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a pretty bad loss, not going to lie. And then uh yeah, we lost and then we just sit in China for two weeks and do nothing. It's And we got zero dollars for it in a $1.5
Speaker A
million land. Yeah. Kind of sucks, especially when you're like this whole for you where it's like, oh, you get less than halfway. Well, nothing.
Speaker A
Ninth here even 9th to 24th did not get money at all. This is crazy. It's like more than 100 people go home with nothing.
Speaker A
It's actually crazy. Yeah. 100 people. That's when you put it like that. Yeah. Yeah. So, this is like early like early pro touching in a way like some play some games.
Speaker A
This was my this was my first first tournament so to say in person at least.
Speaker A
Um then we ended up playing some tier two tournaments. I think I went to another WSG at some point.
Speaker A
I guess this one you see the Europe this one. Yeah, this was this was in this is a really nice tournament. We went uh uh we went to Barcelona, I think.
Speaker A
Barcelona. One of the coolest place I've been. This was just a this was like a qualifier tournament to the next WSG and we made it.
Speaker A
Uh we actually beat out No Tale in this one. I'm very proud of that.
Speaker A
Hell yeah. The Notail Stack was in our groups and we beat them. Oh my god, there's so many. Where are you? Okay. You played off lane, didn't?
Speaker A
Yeah, I remember it was with Mik and Insania back then, right? I had Mik and Insania on my team and I did not win. That's kind of sad. My offline is pretty [ __ ] though.
Speaker A
Yeah, they needed a couple more years to calibrate their Dota skill. It's not just you.
Speaker A
Yeah, they were still horn frogs back then. Yeah, we can blame that. Um, but yeah, that was cool though. That was fun. Um, this was one of my favorite tournaments we went to because Barcelona was so nice, you know.
Speaker A
I mean, that sounds like a good location. Then we made it to WC 2017, the next tournament, I guess.
Speaker A
This one, huh? And when does that show up? Yeah, that one didn't that didn't go so well.
Speaker A
Classic 30th place uh finish there. You know, 30. What the [ __ ] I don't even know what happened this one. Was this one also as bad as the other one? I I think it was also some weird [ __ ] with the groups. I don't
Speaker A
remember. But I remember just me, Mickey, and Loa and those guys. We just hang out in a hotel room the whole time doing nothing.
Speaker A
Um So, did you lose really fast again and you had to stay the whole time before going home? I Yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah. That's uh it was pretty ass. Can Can you check the groups on this one? I'm just curious.
Speaker A
What happened? I remember losing to Sammy boy. That was rough. I think it was also one of those like rough situations where like phase one I guess.
Speaker A
Oh yeah. Down and then phase one. Yeah. Oh yeah. So this one had Oh, we were just 03 here. Jesus Christ.
Speaker A
Slice and dice. Ultima and Leviathan. Yeah. Leviathan was the American Rudy. I don't know who those guys are.
Speaker A
I remember him from pubs. Yeah, Leviathan. Yeah, Sammy boy. Oh, you lost to Ix boy.
Speaker A
You should never hear the rest of that. They should follow you for life. Yeah, it was all right. It was rough. I don't know what we did there to 03 to be honest. I don't remember that tournament as much as the others.
Speaker A
This one is acceptable. And I lost. Yeah, they were pretty. Miposka and DM obviously was early in their careers, but still they were Yeah, good.
Speaker A
They were solid. Yeah. So, that one sucked. Another two weeks wasted in China. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker A
Zero dollars. Yeah. That guy sucked. Yeah. Cuz I know that like after this you have like a lot of other iterations. I mean here this I didn't even know. You have some tournament with like complexity.
Speaker A
Yeah. I stood in for Complexity for a bit actually. I remember Eternal Envy asked me to stand in.
Speaker A
Interesting. Uh was snaking limp and I was like I'll stand in. I don't know how we did. I think we did fine. I think we won that game. Envy was my five which was funny.
Speaker A
He Oh wow. That was this era. The guy was playing Winter Wyvern. Yeah. Yeah. I remember these games.
Speaker A
Like that was cool experience, you know. Yeah. This is some NA qualifier thing. And then honestly that one I need to touch. Look at the look at the stack I had for the 2018 North Europe qualifier.
Speaker A
You won't believe which stack I assembled. The gold Swedish stack up. One more. H one more. Okay.
Speaker A
There. Yeah. Yeah. Look at look at the stack I had assembled and we [ __ ] lost.
Speaker A
It was me versus Final Trap. I had Pike at Limp S4 and Z. I had You should not have lost that one.
Speaker A
I know. I was playing post five for these guys cuz I did like I pulled every string I could to get S4 Z on the same team, you know? I got Pikeat. He was really good as carry back then and Limb
Speaker A
was goat admit and we still [ __ ] lost. Okay, whose fault? But to be on to be fair to us, Z was a S tier player back in 2018 by the way. Yeah, obviously it was my fault, but
Speaker A
okay. I genuinely think Yeah, I genuinely think Final Tribe was actually like they had played together for like a year plus. They were pretty good.
Speaker A
Yeah, actually. I mean, they were a real team and you are like you're a scramble.
Speaker A
Yeah, we were just a stack and we didn't know what the [ __ ] we were doing. And Z was probably mad he was even there the whole [ __ ] time. He's like, "What the [ __ ] am I doing here? I'm playing for
Speaker A
secret." And Gore convinced me to play for this [ __ ] Uh, we lost. That was pretty pretty. EG S4 offline, dude. I had What the [ __ ] Yeah.
Speaker A
Ended up losing. I mean, out of free agents, you probably had the best ones assembled here at the time.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, it was crazy. They they were on S tier teams, you know, like 02.
Speaker A
Not even not even that competitive, huh? No. No. It was just a stomp, I guess.
Speaker A
That was funny. My witch doctor didn't cut it, I guess. The Gor Witch doctor. A tale of legends.
Speaker A
I mean, and then it seems that it's shortly after where Team Bald Reborn iteration one of many gets gets started.
Speaker A
But we can talk about this Twitch rivals too as well. This is what actually burned the bridge between Dota and Twitch.
Speaker A
Funny enough, because this was kind of like not a team bird. [ __ ] No, maybe this was the next one. The next one burned the This was just a casual Twitch rivals. I don't think anything was There was nothing about this one. Uh,
Speaker A
I don't even know if I was playing this one. No, it was the 2021. Yeah. Yeah, that one burned the Twitch between Twitch and Dota actually entirely. And I'm partially responsible as well. Uh, it was basically they were trying to make
Speaker A
this big Twitch rivals thing. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, basically me and Bulldog, look at the price. 50K for a show match between me and it's insane. Yeah.
Speaker A
And basically they put us with a couple of like no offense to them, but like unknown players like Snow Fox, Namx, Yuyu. I don't know who these guys are actually to be perfectly honest, but one of them was like and we were versus like a
Speaker A
Yeah, we versus like a pretty [ __ ] serious stack, you know, like Iceberg, Kavost, Aloa Dance, you know, like like these the these CIS players with like high MMR.
Speaker A
Yeah. And I was I think I remember we were so mad about how unbalanced it was.
Speaker A
Like it's so unfair that they just get gifted $40K dollars. Yeah. Because we had no chance. We literally had no chance. It was such a waste of time.
Speaker A
And we were really mad at Twitch for like this is so badly organized. So unbalanced.
Speaker A
Mhm. And after that, I don't think Twitch rivals has done a single event with Dota since 2020.
Speaker A
Ah, you [ __ ] you ruined it. Yeah, I agree that this is this is in two teams. I just look at two teams.
Speaker A
It's insane. Guys could have just taken the free 10 and yeah, but I couldn't shut up about it back then. I was like, "No, this is so [ __ ] bad." Oh, that's funny.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I remember this. I didn't realize that the you and Bulldog, maybe Sunspan, I can give him some blame. Like the three of you, you guys killed it.
Speaker A
Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Sunfan for sure killed it. Yeah. This is what Sansfan warned us about.
Speaker A
Here come the team there. The real meta. The real Goric meta. Now I need to know what's even like the back of like bald.
Speaker A
Okay, so Bambo actually is the one that uh named it cuz it's like a combination of bad and bald. I don't know. Some calling someone bad and bald was like very sort of it was funny back then also.
Speaker A
Yeah, I remember. You're so bald. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of thing. And yeah, it was just basically me and uh I think me and Pablo were kind of the core of the team going on after this. But yeah, we basically made a
Speaker A
stack just for kind of for fun to play a little bit of uh play a bit of div 2 Dota together and we ended up doing like pretty good overall like you know we kept in the upper echelon of Dota 2 uh
Speaker A
sorry div 2 and these kind of tournaments for a while you know like it was pretty pretty successful and was obviously people are very hyped about it on Reddit. I think actually they didn't really post this anywhere but I think our game our games and div 2
Speaker A
and nobody cared about div 2 back then right if you look at div one it was so it was all the top team our games and div 2 had as many or more viewers than a lot of the
Speaker A
div one games uh so there was a lot of interest around our team because we're just like kind of like the the underdogs you know look at Miracle there we played against Miracle this game must have had a lot of
Speaker A
views Gork like I think that's maybe the one that the most. That might be the one that had the most views. For sure.
Speaker A
Uh yeah, it was crazy. It was uh it was really fun and people were very passionate about it. It was pretty unexpected how unpassionate people got.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. And uh yeah, I kind of that's one thing I wish I did more with honestly going down. Like I wish I did more with team Bald in terms I could have maybe turned it into a real thing, you know, brand or
Speaker A
something. I mean, do you think that it's Jover? Could you still do something like that?
Speaker A
Like some fun tournaments have the reoccurring We have the reoccurring team ball ti stacks, right? Um yeah, so we can talk a bit of about the different rosters I've had in team ball. I've had a very good players in team ball like throughout the
Speaker A
years, right? This was the Excalibur era. This one this one is the one stack.
Speaker A
So we obviously have to talk about the TI qualifier after this, but yeah, that's that's after.
Speaker A
Okay, let me see where should we maybe all the TI qualifier. Yeah, the international 2020. Yeah, we can look at it. Sure.
Speaker A
We can look at it quick at least. Yeah, cuz I I know that you did play you had good teammates cuz I have a question for that later also.
Speaker A
Yeah. Okay, so this is Do you want to touch on this one? Yeah, the Yeah, the Gorker Zip Zapper, the Pango Expert, they somehow they gave him Pango some games which was great.
Speaker A
Pablo and Bangan. Yeah, this is a good stack. Yeah, Bang Bangan definitely led us a bit in this stack as well towards the end. So, he he definitely stepped up. It was just a solid solid stack of like players
Speaker A
without a team, you know, and this is where like Okay, so Alliance actually had an upper bracket game against Entity where they looked competitive and Entity were good this year. I mean, they obviously won the whole I think Alliance
Speaker A
were really close to beating them. I remember. Yeah. 3-0 Secret in the final. Entity were actually pretty good.
Speaker A
Alliance did good against them. They could have even won those games. So, everyone was thinking like Alliance is pretty good this year. And then they faced us at like 1000 p.m. our series starts in the lower bracket.
Speaker A
Oh no. And somehow we had a generational run against them, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker A
Game one, it was Dala's version. We had Ducalas Niko baby. Game one we This was What year was this?
Speaker A
2022. This is 22 something like that. Yeah. 22. Yeah, it feels like yesterday. Wow.
Speaker A
Um Yeah, game one. What was I playing here? Playing pod safe lane. Yeah, this was game two. Sorry cuz I skipped one.
Speaker A
Yeah. Okay. Game two we lost. I remember that. Yeah. Could have won. Game one. You are cooking. You're playing on CK. I remember this too. Uh we just just destroyed them this game.
Speaker A
Yeah. Signature egg CK. Yeah. And Zip Zapper got Pango. We never got that again. I think that was banned first.
Speaker A
Uh game two was a little bit harder. Uh they picked a bit more late game void situation. And it was pretty rough to be honest.
Speaker A
Um, and then Pablo did a lot of carrying in these teams. And then game three, it was like we versus PL and Ursa. And I was like, [ __ ] this is over. Like this match up is considered pretty hard. But
Speaker A
I like I think I had the game of my life in this this [ __ ] this game. I was destroying them.
Speaker A
17. Yeah. 17 to 57k damage dealt. I was like on fire this game. I was destroying them. And I remember it very clearly cuz like this was a hu one of the biggest upsets I I've seen in a while. You know,
Speaker A
Alliance was considered pretty good back then. And I remember like it was like 1:00 a.m. when the game was over. And that's honestly the mo I think out of my whole like Dota career. That's like the happiest I was when we won at the end. I
Speaker A
felt such a high, you know. I was like, "Holy [ __ ] we [ __ ] did it." And the amount of Reddit threads that came and everything, it was insane, you know? Yeah.
Speaker A
Alliance lost the team bald, you know. No, those wins ever. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think Alliance ever lived it down. I think they pretty much disbanded. I mean, they slowly but surely disbanded as an or after this loss. It it took very hard on them, you
Speaker A
know. And Alliance was a very staple staple thing in Dota for like seven years straight since TI3, right?
Speaker A
Or sorry, nine years since TI3. They were very staple. And after this, they had like one or two more versions of Alliance, but they basically were disbanded.
Speaker A
Holy [ __ ] I mean, also kind of crazy. Yeah. You mentioned like the high you got after this game. I mean, that's like one of the best things I think of being a pro when you win like cool games,
Speaker A
whether it's land, online, whatever. What's the closest to you for streaming? Does it exist? Like, what is that? Like a cool moment or like um Mhm. I mean, for sure like I mean, okay, I have a lot of guests on on my stream,
Speaker A
so it's very cool. Like I had Anna on my stream that was really cool. I I have Puppy many times and all these legends come and join my stream, talk about Dora.
Speaker A
That is that is big for me. I feel very excited when I have a a guest nowadays that's very um that's very high up there or when we play Battle Cup with pro players that could be very fun too. Mhm.
Speaker A
I mean that's the most comparable thing I can think of, right? I mean for instance recently I had a geograer tournament. Uh I was playing against Kadrol, Lwig, Jinxy, Oni Pixel, all these guys.
Speaker A
Yeah. And honestly that was it was in the middle of the night. I underperformed. I lost horrendously. I think we were the 80% favorites going into it because I've been playing a little bit more geog than others. And this loss broke me because I
Speaker A
was so excited and I lost. This was just two weeks a week ago. So the the wound is fresh. But it was um yeah, that was that was also one of those highs when that was me competing against it was like 200,000 people
Speaker A
watching. Think about it like that, you know? It's like bigger than a donut tournament nowadays. And I [ __ ] lost and of course that that was a big high too of that was a big high.
Speaker A
Yeah. Okay. And because yeah, it's just I think that's one of the things with like streaming where maybe it's not always easy to like have inside like what you're working for or like not like working for but like
Speaker A
what are you like what's the next improvement rate for you? I don't know like keeping it steady.
Speaker A
Yeah, whatever. You can talk about the meal iterations after also. But please continue. Sure.
Speaker A
No, for me like touching on that like what do you want to do? What's your next thing? For me, my next goal is obvious.
Speaker A
I I think I want to like I mean, I've branched out a lot in Dota. I think I know everybody. I've had almost everybody on stream. My next step would be to keep doing that because I love doing it. But also to like also like try
Speaker A
other things too with other streamers and other games a little bit at least to explore, you know, and give give the Dota frogs and my stream a little bit of a taste of some other things too sometimes, you know, like at least.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. The the Dota frog. That would be fun to do. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker A
I mean, Dota can use more. And I mean, if you can have any people from other streams like look at you or look at Dota, that's a net plus for like Yeah.
Speaker A
everyone. Oh, yeah. No, I'm hoping Jinx is playing League now and he's liking it a lot. I'm hoping to convince him to try Dota and he knows me a bit from the Geogesser tournament now. So, it would be huge to
Speaker A
like maybe like have him coach or teach him a bit about the game. Like, if he would like to do that, I think that's that would be massive for Dota and for me as well. But for Dota as well, for
Speaker A
sure. Time to time to collab it up. Yeah, I mean I think it's fun. It's not so Yeah, I think this is fun, you know.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. This was this was probably our most stacked team bald ever. And this is uh Yeah, I mean Nagato is the one I know that leaves about, but I know he's high MMR also. And obviously like Mike player Mike.
Speaker A
Yeah, Mikey very high more mid and obviously Saber and Light and Saxa speak for themselves. I can try try to tell you one thing I had to do. I had to like pull so many strings to get this roster
Speaker A
together. It was so hard. Yeah. Um uh we lost to Quest pretty early on.
Speaker A
Yeah. I think first we started on the lower bracket, right? Yeah. Yeah. And Sakus was like, "Please, I want to play against OG." But we didn't get to play against OG. So, we got to play against Quest. And game one, we did
Speaker A
really well. We should have probably won this game, but we were just they were just a pretty [ __ ] good team. You know what you do, right? Um if you look at the graph like I had a very good
Speaker A
necro game going um for a while. Radiance heart refresher. I had everything but they were just playing so well. Noob was actually owning a mid and this was like a real stack they had.
Speaker A
Yeah. Um yeah 20. It was obviously not like we destroyed them but we had a 3k lead.
Speaker A
You had a good you had a good shot here. Here you have Yeah. Yeah. They have Tiny with zero deaths. Imagine Tiny with zero deaths against Necro. Like I feel like we got a kill or two on him.
Speaker A
Necro winter. Yeah. It's like he's over cooking. Should be a hard tiny game. But for sure, I don't know what the [ __ ] happened. Noob was like popping off.
Speaker A
Yeah, that was a pretty good stack. Obviously, they were a better team than us deserve to win. They went all the way to the finals. They barely lost the Tundra, which ended up like winning this year or whatever, you know? So, they
Speaker A
they're pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's no shame in losing to them, but we had a very cool stack, right? It was me, Saberite, um Saberlight, and Saka.
Speaker A
basically convincing Saka to play first sa first I had I got Saka on right and then I was going to get Saberite on.
Speaker A
Yeah. And Saber's like, "Okay, Saka's in I'm in." But then Saka wanted to pull out because he was like, "Actually, I have a birthday party or something." And when Saka was pulling out now Saberite was pulling out, too, and I had
Speaker A
to like, "My god, I have to beg and plead Saka, please stay so I can't lose both of you, you know." Yeah, it was kind of last second. I was panicking. But luckily, they both stayed. And I mean, honestly, I've never
Speaker A
played with a player as good as Saxa before. I mean, I played with 33 as well, I guess, long time ago, but he wasn't that good back then.
Speaker A
But Saxa taught me a lot about like how to communicate and how to do anything in Dota in competitive. Like it's crazy how good that guy is.
Speaker A
That's probably the best player I've ever played with. For sure. Yeah. So like out of the iterate like all the people you've had in these stacks, he takes the number one spot.
Speaker A
Saka that is, I think. So yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. That that's kind of undeniable.
Speaker A
And this was this year's uh TI stack. We did me MTD gunner off lane.
Speaker A
Yeah. Phil mini as plus four and pilot i5. So this this team was also solid. Honestly, I think we had good synergy. The problem is the way we lost is a bit of a shame.
Speaker A
Yeah. We got fourth place, fifth place. We could have done we probably should have won our our game. We went to a pretty intense like game three versus zero tenacity.
Speaker A
Mhm. Yeah. Went to a pretty game three. And I did like a legendary flex pick here. uh legendary know about I don't know if you know but yeah you can see my what we playing yeah Kax so we had I the thing is people
Speaker A
don't know about I have some excuses here basically cook them we don't we did not know how to play second pick because we this was like the second time we ever draft you know like we don't know the [ __ ] how to last pick
Speaker A
like I first of all paid dad was supposed to draft but he woke up late so I ended up drafting alone right dude [ __ ] pie dude this guy is so right people think that he's like but
Speaker A
your stream brings out a good side of him That guy is a huge clown. But other people before that didn't know him, they think he's a serious guy.
Speaker A
This guy is This guy is hilarious. Like I love pie. He is pretty funny. He's pretty funny.
Speaker A
He's cool. Yeah, he's on my stream a lot. But you actually need to show the clip uh of this one. It needs the clip of me calling his mom cuz that's the story before the series.
Speaker A
Are you serious? Pilot was supposed to wake up. Yeah. Yeah. You have to This is This is so funny dude.
Speaker A
What What do I need to Google this? pilot, our drafter, was 15 minutes late and we were about to get disqualified if they didn't give us an extension and I was like, how the [ __ ] are we
Speaker A
going to find this guy? He's like sleeping or something, right? So, I had to like find like his mom. Um, Gour's pilot.
Speaker A
I had to like find his Yeah, I had to find his mom on like some website and I called her and she was at IKEA and she's like, "Okay, drive home and I'll wake him up." It was pretty crazy.
Speaker A
Are you ready, boy? So, what the [ __ ] I mean, yes, sure. Yes, I'm ready.
Speaker A
Sure. Yes, I'm ready. This was a whole What? Your mom I mean, I guess I'm already late to like you not calling his mom anymore.
Speaker A
Yeah, I don't know. The clip maybe is not the best, but there was a whole like story line on the stream, right?
Speaker A
Everybody was so like, "Oh my god, they're going to get disqualified, you know, and p was late. He was sleeping in." It was 3 p.m. by the way, and I had to call his mom and talk to his mom like to wake him up.
Speaker A
It was a whole thing. This is what people make fun of me a lot for picking axe carry, you know. But it's fine. It can work. It's not that bad. It's a good laner. It's like it's whatever.
Speaker A
Okay. All right. At least not so harsh about it. Like don't don't take people's [ __ ] for it. You know, this [ __ ] can work.
Speaker A
Sometimes you go big or go home. You know, you were trying you were trying to go big.
Speaker A
Yeah. How much does it frustrate you losing the coin flip in game three, though?
Speaker A
Because this frustrated me a lot this game. I was like, "Fuck, if we had first pick, we had these guys. I'm sure, you know, like we were better in that sense." But the second pick really [ __ ] up our draft a lot.
Speaker A
This is this is some 33 influence on you. He likes talking about the coin.
Speaker A
Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now 33. There's definitely truth to it. There's definitely truth to it.
Speaker A
Okay. Let me see what I You got to show the last tournament. I won against Thompson in that one.
Speaker A
This one. All right. Let's go. Let's settle it once and for all. Destroy them. Best streamer world right here.
Speaker A
It was me. It was me, Excalibur. We stack and we're playing as Sebopsson. Dendi. Who is we had two players from not from Dota.
Speaker A
Yeah, these are not from Dota. Okay, I see. Aarian, he's a POE streamer for instance. Yeah.
Speaker A
Okay. So, yeah, we we ended up winning the Samsung Odyssey showdown. Destroyed them in Pudge Wars.
Speaker A
What did you win? Easy clap. Did you just get a uh medal? No, we got a we have to give away a a monitor to our chat. Like a 10 like an expensive monitor.
Speaker A
Okay, not bad. One of my chatters got an expensive monitor. Yeah. So, that's like one zero for me, Topson.
Speaker A
Oh, but you didn't even mention Midas mode, Ku. Like, were you like trying to Where is it?
Speaker A
Belittle me here. That's my biggest achievement. Let's go. Minus mode. No, wait. No, no, no. There 22k.
Speaker A
That That's a lot of cash. Yeah. Yeah. And this is also before you like All these things are also before your streaming career. Like I've lost track of when No, this is during this is during Okay. So, you're you're meddling. You're
Speaker A
like 2019. Okay. Yeah. Okay. First of all, let's get This is what I'm like tooting my own horn here because I talk about this a lot on my stream. Yeah, look at the people in the European one.
Speaker A
Look at the teams we're beating. This is 2019 OG. Right after their TI win, right? Is this in October? I think this is Yeah, around. Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah, pretty much October. So, right after their TI win, look at look at the teams we're facing and tell me not. We're not facing those. It's only Europe, right?
Speaker A
We're in Europe. Okay. So, is that so your alliance? This is a good team. How did you win this?
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know, right? I'm telling you. Look, look at the look at OG. Prime OG.
Speaker A
I won a tournament with Cinderin, guys. So, we were versus tops and jax. No tail. They did have a substitute, though, or two.
Speaker A
You can click there maybe. See if they had substitutes. Yeah. Okay. They had I don't know if they used them, but they did. But, you know, we still beat Prime OG, right?
Speaker A
Yeah. We beat Prime TI3 Alliance 7 years after their prime. Mhm. And Prime Vi1 Na'Vi after 10 years.
Speaker A
alliance with me and Cinderin did it, you know. Yeah. I This must be the best safe lane dual lane Dota has ever seen.
Speaker A
Oh yeah, we I would love to have zero in the finals. Yeah, not bad. So apparently biggest achievement.
Speaker A
But that was that I mean you know at 22k nothing you know like this. That's also not that bad. Like 22k is is not I'm never going to let Sebote live down that they lost a tournament to me. I
Speaker A
have never lost a tournament to them. So you know that's true. one zero me I feel like you would have I mean okay I guess that's a separate question do you feel like if you fully committed I asked you
Speaker A
earlier if you would have traded but if you fully committed to pro play what do you feel like would have been your cap I mean it's a lot about luck I mean there is a clip of for instance TI8 I
Speaker A
think Karoki andale were talking about it in a recent podcast thing that they were actually considering me as a carry instead of Anna and TI8 uh back then I was very high rank But I mean, if I joined, we might have
Speaker A
lost in the qualifier. They ended up winning TI, right? Like, who knows? Nobody really knows. But I think I don't I never I think in Dota, it's kind of silly to talk about what my cap is because I feel like your cap is what you
Speaker A
what you try for. And I never really tried for it. True. And I also tried it at a pretty late age. But if I really like if I really want to think highly of myself, if I go back, I would want to go back to when
Speaker A
I'm 18 and I start trying then, I think my cap would be pretty high. I think I could have I could have been very successful as a pro player. Uh but I think as late as I started and my split
Speaker A
focus between streaming, I don't think I ever would have become a very good pro player. Uh not on the level I would like think is high enough at least. Um so yeah, my realistic expectation of myself is not that high. But you know,
Speaker A
everybody I think everybody has a story. Even you case you could have said if I switched from Han earlier and went all in, you could have had like you could have had Korean donut potentially.
Speaker A
Maybe. Yeah. You never know. Yeah. Yeah. That's similar mindset for me. But yeah, I don't think as I did now, you know, like yeah, I think it I did good for myself focusing on streaming at least. I'm happy about that.
Speaker A
AB I mean I only have a few closing out questions anyway and I think then we're pretty much done. I have a member question from Fitzby who wants to know, did it ever frustrate you that Team Bald Reborn was seen only as a meme team and
Speaker A
when you didn't have results, did you ever have any type of beef? No, I don't think we ever had any beef.
Speaker A
Uh, I beefed a bit with Wia with myself because we invited Wy to his team and they were like, "Oh my god, we got Wii on our team." Turns out he hadn't played Dora for like 3 months. I was like, "What the
Speaker A
fuck?" Played you. I was so mad. I was so mad. I was like, "What the [ __ ] is he doing?" He was like, "I can play Tiny and Codly." I was like, "Okay, [ __ ] We're fine."
Speaker A
I think it went 07 that season. Sounds like I'm just I'm just kidding. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just kidding though. But um nah, not really. I I never really frustrated me. I We were never really a serious team. I like the fact that we
Speaker A
were seen as underdogs and that's just better. I like it. Oh, definitely. It's better. So then more fun.
Speaker A
I was idling in your chat a bit. So these are question. You can skip them if they're not good cuz these are random viewer questions.
Speaker A
So people just kept mentioning 33. Obviously you like him a lot. I think you're good friends with him. Can you give like a bit more lore on like maybe your relationship with him? How do you do you think he's like the gold
Speaker A
underrated overrated best? Yeah, I mean I know 33 from back when I was playing European Pro League if you remember the EPL back in 2015 16. Yeah.
Speaker A
He kicked me from the league cuz he thought I was a noob. Um good start. I was like all right.
Speaker A
Yeah. And a year later I invited him to join Horde and then he realized after two weeks we're noobs. So he left the team as well. We were just not that good. He already knew like what the [ __ ] He like taught me like I'm like he
Speaker A
asked me like why the hell are you pushing that wave? I I should be pushing that wave. And I just realized like bro I don't think when I play I just I hit the creeps like what are you talking
Speaker A
about? What are you talking about? And he was like what the [ __ ] You know um but slowly but surely we've always kept in touch and um like we always play games together. We play a lot of Dota
Speaker A
custom games. We still I played with him yesterday a bunch of hours custom games.
Speaker A
Yeah. Um yeah we just talk about Dota a lot. I I think um we're pretty we're pretty different as people. we're both kind of nerdy about games and uh you know I don't know it's just like uh we have a
Speaker A
good connection playing games together and he's I like him as a person and in terms of like his Dota achievements and stuff like I think he he is I don't I wouldn't say want to say the goat of
Speaker A
Dota because that's such a debatable question but if we talk simply a strategic mind in terms of like how to play the map then he I think in that sense he is the goat of Dota in that sense for sure um but yeah yeah I guess
Speaker A
that's your Yeah, I mean, yeah, the guy is uh incredible. You you don't have a guy that often that can you slot him into any team and they just like start winning everything. So, yeah. No, it's him and him and Saka are
Speaker A
proven that lately at least. I mean, there's obviously more of them nowadays. Amar is coming up as well. Also, somebody I respect, I think he's also coming up, but yeah, it's cool.
Speaker A
No, for sure. Then there's a I don't know who this is, but a lot of people mentioned the Tigris incident.
Speaker A
Oh, yeah. Okay. Is that a girl you fumbled or what is this? No, basically me and both are good friends. Um, if you know Alexander Bus, the chess player, back in 2020, we did a collab. She coached me on stream for chess. I played
Speaker A
her in poker. We actually played in the Geoger tournament together last week. Okay. Um, as well, so we're friends and we talk off stream.
Speaker A
And at one point, I leaked my DMs with her and I think like I don't know, maybe it was awkward for me to say, but people make fun of me for it. I just she said like, "Oh, I have a big event coming up.
Speaker A
I'm gonna do that now." I'm like, "Okay, go get him, Tigers." And I did like a little devil emoji. Like, maybe that's cringe, but I didn't really think about it back then so much until it got leaked on stream and then people like to like
Speaker A
make fun. That's it. Like, I thought that's going to be worse. Like, Gorg, I don't know, like approaches, stop talking.
Speaker A
It's not. I guess the worst thing is that somehow it leaked, but like sounded like whatever you said wasn't that bad.
Speaker A
Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't know. Back then, I feel like I was leaking a lot, but now I Yeah. It's dangerous really.
Speaker A
Did you ever leak something semi on purpose? Yeah. I mean, okay. Well, I I This is how I burned my bridge with Valve, I'll tell you. I was very good relationship with one of the Valve employees.
Speaker A
Oh. And uh we were talking a lot. He he was like And honestly, I I'm kind of kind of grateful for it. You know, Valve were very secretive. They don't talk to [ __ ] anybody.
Speaker A
But I had one of employees. He talked to me a lot. We were good friendsish, you know, like whatever. Talked about other topics, too. And then 2023 or 2024 or maybe 2022, I don't remember the year. I was kind of molding a bit about the
Speaker A
talent invites to TI because I really feel like maybe it was sense of entitlement or whatever. I just really felt like I wanted to go and I noticed the Russian side of the talents, they invited a lot of like streamers and
Speaker A
personalities, but the English side didn't invite any streamers or anything. And I was like really mad about like okay, I wasn't mad about it, but like I was, you know, ruminating about it. I was like, what the [ __ ] You know, why
Speaker A
is this happening? So, I asked him the question and then I got a response of why they don't choose to do that.
Speaker A
Okay. And then I talked about it on stream and sold me. A Valve employee told me this and I said verbatim what he sold. Ted with is very taboo with Valve. You're never supposed to say what they tell you
Speaker A
privately right? Yeah. After that, they basically cut all contact with me. The guy is not talking to me much anymore.
Speaker A
yada yada. I don't get invited to to you know that's like leaking valve DMs.
Speaker A
Yeah. No, it was kind of stupid, but uh yeah, in general it wasn't meant as a bad thing. I just I just leaked their reasoning of why they don't invite talent, which I understand, you know, like sorry, like streamers and stuff. I
Speaker A
understand. Yeah. Uh back then I should have probably played that a little bit differently.
Speaker A
You know, I could have been patient. Maybe I would have invited some other year.
Speaker A
That's probably the better play. Interesting. Okay. But at least you didn't like show show the message. You were just like quoting it.
Speaker A
No, not that one. Yeah. No, no. I've never shown a message on purpose to leak like that for drama.
Speaker A
I'm not that kind of person. Even though I think it's a lot to be successful a streamer, you have to like kind of be controversial and Yeah.
Speaker A
stir up fake drama. Drama. I I don't really do that kind. I I don't have it in me really.
Speaker A
Mhm. I I guess you also don't really need it. No. I don't even know what the right way to answer or ask this is like when you're a really big streamer and you see other people with big numbers, is there
Speaker A
anything you can do that is not just what you do and what you show on stream that can help you keep bigger numbers?
Speaker A
Like are there tricks that people don't know about? I'm not going to talk about like view or something. I doubt none of you guys do that. But that is something a lot of the new generation is doing. Of course, I've
Speaker A
never done it myself, but I understand why people do it cuz nowadays Twitch need to do something about it. there's no downside to doing it. It's kind of crazy. Um but yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. Uh what people are doing now as well, which
Speaker A
I am really far behind with. Okay. Uh is that and I feel like it's so dishonest, but it's also just the way the game is played. And I get it. One way to gain viewers is for instance having like obviously other platforms.
Speaker A
You have to use other platforms, YouTube, Tik Tok, Facebook. I've started doing that a little bit more recently.
Speaker A
Uh branching out a little bit. But in general, what I don't think is honest, and this is actually from a guy, I think u some some Russian gambling dude started this and people are all adopting it the past two years now in in Twitch,
Speaker A
is basically you hire like 20 people, 10 to 20 people from like um cheaply from impoverished countries or whatever, right? Okay.
Speaker A
And they just spend all day pushing your clips everywhere on accounts that seem like fan accounts, but they're not fan accounts. And they get paid for the amount of views they get on these. Wow.
Speaker A
It creates a sort of like false sense of personal sorry not personality false sense of popularity with the streamer and then people think like oh this guy's popular and therefore they start watching him which drives traffic to their stream and this is how a lot of
Speaker A
big streamers came about like Cvicular uh Neon like all these new generation streamers kind of abuse the system to the max and I personally don't do it um because it feels dishonest but that's something I should be I've never heard of this actually.
Speaker A
That's one way. I mean, I see a lot of people haven't. And for me, go ahead.
Speaker A
Yeah, for me it's so like I see through it, right? Like these fan accounts posting like viral clips, but in reality it's like it's like 10 dudes posting spam posting like from 10 accounts on 10 different platforms. You know what I mean?
Speaker A
Oh [ __ ] Just like just to flood the world so he seems popular.
Speaker A
Yeah. It's kind of crazy, but that's the way it's done nowadays. Fake it till we make it. Basically, this is going to make me look different at some clips. I mean, obviously, some are still real and they're actual fans,
Speaker A
but yeah. Oh, [ __ ] Very few caves, but trust me, most of them are getting paid nowadays, which is wild.
Speaker A
What the [ __ ] Okay, that is I know. Hey, that's a good answer cuz I didn't I was just like, no, not really. Like, it's chill. Turn on your stream. I mean, yeah, have YouTube, have Tik Tok,
Speaker A
obviously, you know, it's normal, but Oh, wow. nowadays. It's it's a Yeah, that's what people do to get ahead and botting of course on top of that to make it like a real fancy bouquet, you know?
Speaker A
Yeah. What the [ __ ] It's crazy. Honestly, I the new generation streamer is crazy. But I I don't know. I just don't have it in me.
Speaker A
Yeah. To play the game like that. I don't know why, but I just can't.
Speaker A
I mean, again, I also don't think it's necessary for you. Maybe not. I think Okay, I we're getting to like my last twoish questions, I think. What do you do? I mean, what does a day for you look like? I mean, and I'm not talking
Speaker A
about the streaming day. Let's say like the hours outside of you streaming or you take a day off. What do you do to like stay sane?
Speaker A
Uh, I like to cuz I live now I live close to the beach. I like to kind of get some sun a little bit. I mean, I moved into a nice apartment building recently which has a gym and a sauna in
Speaker A
it. So, I try to go to gym and sauna every other day at least. That keeps me sane a lot. Um, I used to take walks a bit more along the beach, go somewhere.
Speaker A
I walk somewhere pretty far, maybe two, three kilometers. I eat, I walk all the way back.
Speaker A
Um, I started also socializing a bit since I moved here. Um, the people here in Cypress are more social than they are they were in the Netherlands where I lived before, right?
Speaker A
So, I have some friends. Maybe we we play some FIFA together sometimes or go to a bar. Like, I definitely started like living my life a little bit more normally before I didn't do any of this.
Speaker A
I basically did not see friends for seven years straight when I started seeing, you know, like it was crazy. Um, I hung out with people online, which which I still do sometimes. Like I play some custom games maybe or whatever, but
Speaker A
that's about it. Um, but yeah, that that's how the average day looks for me, I guess.
Speaker A
Okay. I mean, definitely a lot better than what it used to be like when you're saying, you know, you're saying no, it was streaming self punishment into streaming. Self punishment. It was crazy. That was my routine and I was
Speaker A
very unhappy. Yeah. And uh, yeah, I'm glad I got out of that vicious cycle, I guess. I mean, yeah, you should be because that that sounds ass. While you're like, you know, you are very like from all the other people,
Speaker A
I can speak for also your viewers watching like people know that you're successful. Like people would expect you to be happy. You know, you're a big streamer. People like you, people watch you, you're good. It's like, well, brother, it's like punishing, right?
Speaker A
I have heard this. No, no, it's behing about your future. the the cab ride.
Speaker A
What is that about? Didn't you have like some 20our cab? No. Okay, it's not it's a bit exaggerated. So, I lived in the Netherlands and Copenagen had a blast event. They invited me over to stream from there.
Speaker A
And basically, this is part of my toxic streaming mentality again. Okay. I did not want to take a day off for traveling and the only way to do it was to take a taxi overnight. I could stream the night streaming like
Speaker A
night taxi. Yeah. Yeah. So, I drew It was only to not miss a day of streaming. So I as soon as I ended my stream 10 p.m. I got in a taxi at 11:00.
Speaker A
I arrived in the morning there next day at like 9 or something. So I think it was more like a 10 11 hour drive. It's nothing still pretty crazy but um I try to sleep in the back of the taxi as well
Speaker A
as I could. I arrived and I streamed again at blast right try not to miss a day.
Speaker A
So I have two first of all that makes like from what you've said in this episode it makes a little more sense now because like that's you and that's how you stream and like your mindset.
Speaker A
How much was the bill for this taxi? And second, do you think the guy driving you thought you're insane?
Speaker A
Yeah, for first of all, the guy driving me almost crashed cuz he was [ __ ] falling asleep middle of the night. That was pretty bad. I regret doing it for that reason, too. U but yeah, he probably thought I was crazy. I think
Speaker A
the bill was So, I would never have paid this myself, but don't pay me to go to events. I don't get a talent management fee or anything. Yeah.
Speaker A
But they they agree to cover travel expenses. I was like, I asked them, "Do we cap cover the cab?" They're like, "Yeah, okay." I was like, "Okay, fine." I think it I think it ended up being 2,000 cap.
Speaker A
[ __ ] Wait, wait, wait. Back and forth. Back and forth. Oh, okay. Okay. Do you think when you asked them if they would cover the cap that they thought it's your cap to the airport?
Speaker A
No. No. I was perfectly clear. I was perfectly clear. And they were because they also saw the benefit of me streaming the day before cuz you know, the games were going on then and the day after. So they they were like, "Okay, we can do it
Speaker A
cuz we're not paying you to come anyway as a talent." So business expense. Business expense.
Speaker A
Of course. Business expense. I would never pay for it myself. I'm too frugal for them. I'm not really a spendful guy. So I do think this I'm glad they did. You know, this is a great story. I will say
Speaker A
everybody made fun of me like the cap guy, you know. Dude, this is I will say this even with the more lore on it. I like this story.
Speaker A
Yeah, I'm a fan. The mindset, you know. Okay. So, my closing question would just be like what do you feel like the future looks like for you and like for Dota? Do you want to like continue the stream as
Speaker A
it is? Do you have some goals? Could you see yourself like branch into something else?
Speaker A
I think I want to continue the stream as it is for a bit. I also have aspirations of hosting my own donor tournament like a real one.
Speaker A
It's just I'm just trying to f like a beyond the summit style tournament. That's my goal like and I want to achieve that goal.
Speaker A
Um, but I want like real big teams to show up and like have a like a a real studio kind of like how BTS did it, right?
Speaker A
Yeah. I think Dota would like that and I would like doing that. So that's a personal goal of mine. Uh, another goal is which I did in my New Year's resolution is play a little bit more other games and
Speaker A
stuff like that when I feel like it. And it's more about regaining that sense of like cuz I lost myself streaming a lot of years. um I lost the purpose of it and I think uh doing what I want to do is what's
Speaker A
important and disregarding numbers or whatever right like I think trying to go towards what I want to do and that's still for me dora I'm not saying I hate dora but it's also other stuff too sometimes at least to stay
Speaker A
sane yeah no that's yeah that's I mean I hope that you can you know continue on the path where you [ __ ] on yourself less and find things that are actually good and that make you like happy and whatnot, but when it comes to
Speaker A
like what I had prepared, I'm very happy with what we talked about. Do you have anything from your side that you would like to touch on that you feel like we did not talk about?
Speaker A
H No, honestly, we we had a pretty good conversation. It was not uh not something we missed, right? No, I guess not. And there's obviously more we can talk about.
Speaker A
Yeah, of course. But it's, you know, it's nerdy Dota stuff. Like, who cares? It's fine. I think I think we covered most of it.
Speaker A
Yeah. Like I think also it's like people want to hear about I think you and like how do you feel and like cuz a lot of the other people I mean like they're successful players and I think while you are a less successful player
Speaker A
you are the most successful streamer probably that no one else can really talk about and like the pressure and what it's like and your dayto-day and you go to tournaments and you know most the people so I think
Speaker A
people will love it. Yeah. No, I'm really honored to like be in the scene. You know, I used to look up to these players a lot and like, "Wow, they're so cool." But now I I I feel like it's really cool that like I
Speaker A
go to events, I hang out, I eat dinners with the players, I play ping pong with them. It's it's honestly really fun. I I love that aspect and I hope I get to do it longer, you know?
Speaker A
Yeah. I mean, people are really chill. I think that's also like I'm sure sometimes people come up to you and like, "Oh, hey, I'm this." If you sometimes you can tell they're nervous and you just tell them, "Yo, like we're
Speaker A
just normal people, you know, like when you hang out with the players, it's the same." Like just just chill dudes.
Speaker A
Yeah. One thing I realized this whole podcast, I realized I'm staring down at the screen down here, but I should be staring at you, but I was staring at you in a small screen down there. I should have been looking forward.
Speaker A
Someone else told me this the other time. They were like, "Oh my god, this whole time we talked, I looked at like your your windowed out like camera." You should have told me, Kate.
Speaker A
I thought you looking at me to be honest. I'm not going to lie. Uh, I was looking at you, but you were so small in the put you main screen.
Speaker A
That's much better. Okay, I came up with one more version. Uh, one more version. One more question.
Speaker A
Who is your favorite? If you could choose one guy that is like they're going to co stream with you or join you after a game, who is it?
Speaker A
I think Puppy, actually. I think he's very knowledgeable. Yeah, he's funny. He's a little bit edgy, too, which is fun for people, I think. So, I think Puppy I like generally. I mean, I like everybody I have on my stream, you
Speaker A
know, Pi and all those guys. Puppy, I don't know. He's just a funny dude, you know, like I don't know why.
Speaker A
Yeah, he is very edgy. Very funny for that. It's uh Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes a bit too much. Honestly, I'll admit it. It scares me.
Speaker A
Well, but then it's good because it's like unless he gets you banned, it's like I didn't say it, you know? He's your guest. It's like Yeah, exactly. Know my problem. That's that's why he's the best. No, that's that's a good answer. But uh yeah, Gork,
Speaker A
thanks for taking the time. I think it was a really good podcast. I know that the people watching like it.
Speaker A
Yeah. Hope to see you on my stream sometime soon. If you want to join for a game or something.
Speaker A
Absolutely. Let's make it happen. Let's go. Then thank you all for watching. Hope you will enjoy the episode. If you have any comments, put them down below.
Speaker A
Thanks for watching. See you all next time. Peace.
Topics:GorgcDota 2streamingTwitchgaming careervideo gamesemotional strugglesviewer countDota Unspokenprofessional gamer
