Striving For Greatness

Alright so, first question would be: this isn’t actually your first time on Team Liquid, you’re actually coming back right?

That’s true (laughs).

Does it feel a little different this time?

I mean back then everything was a lot smaller I would say. Esports and dota in general was a lot smaller. And also Team Liquid obviously was not as big as it is today. I knew Victor from before, pretty well. He’s a great person to come back to, because back then I really liked him as a CEO already. So, it’s always really nice coming back to people and they still believe in you after all this time. It feels really nice being back on Liquid, for sure. Now everything has grown really… to insane proportions. But yeah it feels super nice [to be back].

It’s gotten a lot bigger now, esports has grown. It’s been a while so you probably feel like you’ve grown a lot as a player as well, right?

I mean for sure, back then I was… I want to say 18 or 19, now I just recently turned 24. I definitely have a different mindset now than I did before. I think I’m much more, I don’t want to say like… I’ve always been very stable outside of the game, mentally, but I think my performance now is a lot more stable than it was back then. Back then it was more flashy, likely to go 10-0 or you don’t have an impact in that game. So, for me, in that area I definitely improved a lot I would say. Other than that I think I’m pretty much the same person.

The same old Max, huh?

Yeah I think so (laughs), I don’t think I’ve changed that much, I think.



So you specifically said that you feel a lot more stable than you did before, and you’re by far the most experienced player on this roster…

I think it definitely factors in, having played a lot of lans. The nervousness doesn’t really affect me anymore, and also the confidence levels, they don’t really shrink when you don’t perform on stage for one or two games, it doesn’t really get in my head anymore, but back then it definitely did. So I’d say experience is for sure a thing in Dota, but I don’t think you need five experienced players to do well, looking at OG for example (laughs).

Sure, because your experience seems to go a long way in that… one person being really experienced can go a really long way, see similar teams like Secret, that’s been the case a few times with Puppey, right?

Yeah having a good mix of new players and experienced players is always a good synergy to have.

Do you have a favorite LAN or one that you remember most fondly?

I’d say TI4 was a lot of fun, that was probably a top-3 favorite. I’d say ESL Hamburg, last year, even though we got knocked out pretty quickly. Everything was so well done and the event was just fun. Yeah I wanna say this TI, but… I think if we’d gotten further this TI, then I’d say the last TI as well. It’s just a lot of fun, but getting knocked out is just in front of my mind when I think about this TI. It’s the first thing I think about, I don’t think about how much fun it was, just the getting knocked out part.

Sure and that’s the tough part, unless you’re OG, everyone else is…

Everyone feels that way, for sure.

Yeah everyone else gets knocked out and that’s everyone else’s focal point, compared to the one winner.

But it’s all good.



So with that loss in mind… you guys in this past year looked way stronger than in previous years… do you feel any different going into this next year after having had such a strong year?

I don’t think so. I think we all agreed that the season last year was not where we want to be, ideally. We want to be a stable top team, top 3 every lan kind of thing. So I think the road for us isn’t even half done. I think we’ll all strive to be a lot better than we were last season, even though there was clearly a lot of improvement. So, I think that’s just our, I will say motto, our slogan, just keep improving every season, just keep getting better. You don’t have to go from top-16 to winning TI in a year. If you just keep improving, you’re gonna get there eventually.

Which seems like a very “Team Liquid” kind of thing, this seems like a very good fit with you and the rest of Team Liquid.

Yeah, it’s true.

Like you said, it’s nice that you can go back to someone you know with Victor.

Yeah, it was a nice opportunity, that this is happening. I think we all feel really welcomed by Liquid, and I think Liquid gives us everything we need to perform and improve for the next season, so there’s nothing in the way.




In terms of how well you and your team fit with each other, do you think that’s maybe the biggest difference between this current roster and some of the past rosters you’ve played with that didn’t perform as well?

I think in this team, we’re all pretty similarly-minded people. I’m just talking about Dota, not outside of the game. We just strive to be better in Dota and it’s actually not easy to find five players, on each individual role, that are as into the game as you are. It’s actually pretty hard (laughs). So I think in that sense, it’s a really good fit, because we all want to just win. That’s pretty much just it, we all want to win, no matter what. I think that’s the most important thing.

It gets really hard because your player pool isn’t very large at that point, for competitive-viable players.

Yeah, most of the tier-2 players, tier-1.5 players, I don’t wanna say they don’t work as hard as [tier] 1 players, but… I think most of the tier 2 players, they’re studying on the side or they have a job or work outside of Dota, which is completely fine. But for someone who wants to win tournaments and wants to be the best, you can only focus on Dota. I’ve tried studying and playing Dota and uh (laughs), it doesn’t work. I don’t think you can be on the best while studying, I think it’s very very hard. You have to have insane time management to even have a chance. I think in that sense we’re pretty lucky that we found five players that have a similar mindset and just play dota. It’s been a nice experience so far.

Like you were saying, since it’s incredibly difficult to try to balance… you can balance school and high-level Dota, but school and Professional Dota is entirely different.

Yeah, it’s very hard, especially with all the travelling. The minors, majors, TI, ESL’s, it gets very rough.

Yeah because when so much of your time is spent in airplanes…

Yeah…



Is there any country that you actually like more than others? I’m not sure how much time you get outside of the tournament while you’re somewhere, do you get much time to walk around and enjoy the scenery?

I think the USA, obviously, is amazing every single time I’ve been there. You know, The Summit, we won the last Summit in LA and that was just the best time, I love LA. I’ve been there like five times now.

Do you love the food? Or is there anything in particular you really like about it?

I’ve been at Venice Beach, in the old Liquid, where the team house was near Venice Beach. Venice Beach is just the best. The vibe, the people are so chill, the food. Chipotle is my favorite food in the world.

Oh yeah it’s delicious.

I mean it’s actually just the best. I don’t know, I just like the mindset and mentality of the people in the US. It’s just a very nice place for me to be, I could definitely imagine spending months there. Other than that, I really like Kiev. Kiev was really chill, the food in general was really good. And we just bootcamped in Malta with Team Liquid for the last set of qualifiers. So that was really nice as well, the weather and the people.

So just overall a good time?

Yeah that was just a good time.

Sounds pretty nice, I do want to touch back on this, though, because you mentioned that you were in school. Before you decided to go full-time pro Dota, were you in school full-time or did you finish up school before committing to Dota?

I actually quit school one year before graduating, and then that’s when I played with Liquid. Then after I left Liquid, I finished school for a year, and then returned to Dota after that. I just played a little on the side, I tried to be as good as I can while finishing school and then returning full time.

And then once you returned then you could take your real focus and say “Okay, let’s do this. Let’s throw everything into it.”

Pretty much, that’s been the battle ever since. And now I’m here, I’m back.



What was your degree in?

Oh this was just high school.

Oh right, just highschool, because you were so young!

Yeah I took a year off of high school since I was 17 or 18, so I took a year off of high school, and then finished high school, and then moved on to professional Dota.

Right so you essentially did the same thing as Zai, essentially, with that whole thing.

Pretty much, yeah. I think he did it a little earlier than me, but pretty much the same thing.

So to talk a little more about Dota itself, if you could be any one hero from Dota, who would you be?

So like be that hero in real life?

Yeah, if you could be any of them.

Oh probably Furion, because you can TP anywhere. That’s what I think, that’s just convenient. Have a LAN in China? Just TP there. No more travelling. Oh My God! Definitely Furion.

What about favorite heroes to play?

My all-time favorite is probably Tinker, and Storm, and right now it’s probably Ember. I think Ember is a lot of fun right now. I’m curious to see the two new heroes in Dota, I hope they make kind of a mid hero. I’d definitely be down to play them.

Yeah, I’m excited. Storm and Ember are some of my favorites as well. It would be nice to get more cores after only getting Monkey King of recent heroes.

Yeah I hope the new Spirit is a mid hero, that would be cool.

Yeah that would be very fun. So have you always felt like a mid player? Or did you start out saying “Oh maybe I’ll play support”?

I actually was an offlane player back in Mousesports, when I played with them. But I played a pretty farm-intensive offlane, then eventually I just moved to mid because it was the most fun for me at the time. It felt like a natural move and ever since then I’ve been playing with mid.

I’m glad you actually got to stick with your favorite role then, because we don’t always see that happen in pro dota, right?

Yeah, that’s true. A lot of people have been switching from Mid to Carry. That has been a popular move right now, and Carry to Offlane.



So we saw that recently with Ramzes moving to EG to play offlane from Carry at Virtus.Pro. That’s a bit more of a surprising change to me than Mid to Carry because those two roles seem closer in terms of farm priority and consistency than Carry to Offlane. So does that strike you as strange that these carry players have been moving to Offlane? Do you think Ramzes is going to find success there?

I think if you have high individual skill, then moving from Carry to Offlane is… I don’t want to say it’s not that hard, but if you play the heroes well in Dota, then you can still be a good offlaner even if you’ve played Safelane all of your life. We saw in the MDL Major Qualifiers that Ramzes played things like Nightstalker, Enigma, heroes like that and he played really well. I think if you just know the heroes really well and watch replays of other top offlaners, then you can definitely do well. I think time will tell for sure, it really depends if you’re a sacrificial offlaner. If you remember the old EG.Universe, he played a really sacrificial offlaner, or if you’re a high-impact offlaner, someone that gets kills and runs around.

Someone that needs to get their farm and then go kill everyone.

Exactly. For sure, time will tell. I think after one qualifier it’s kind of early to tell if it was the right move for them.

You can only imagine what’s going through the player’s head as well when switching roles.

Yeah, we’ll see high-stakes games at the Major. Stage games, you know, when the pressure is up, if he’s gonna perform.

So if you had to play another role, would you maybe play another core role? Or would you switch to support?

I think Offlane, Offlane is a lot of fun for me. In pubs sometimes I still play Offlane, if mid is taken for some reason. I think Offlane is definitely the most fun for me after Mid so yeah, definitely Offlane.

Do you like using the new party ranked system? Or did you prefer it back when you could just grind solo games and didn’t have to worry about parties?

I was definitely one of those people that just played 15 or 16 solo queue games a day, but I do enjoy the new party system actually. I’ve been playing with a lot of pros from other teams, and also with my own team. It’s just a very nice change, the games are… solo queue games are a lot more… toxic (laughs), that’s just the way it is, than to party queue games. Party queue games are just good games. They almost feel like scrims in a way, like training games where you can actually learn something. So yeah, I’ve definitely been enjoying the system. If somehow Valve is able to make it so party & solo queue games can coexist, that would probably be ideal for everyone, but I understand that is very hard to do. Because I used to queue for about 15 minutes per game for the last few weeks in solo queue.

And then you find party games much faster, presumably?

Oh yeah, two to ten minutes usually.

Oh yeah, that’s much better than 15+ minutes every time.

Yeah (sigh).

So you mentioned you enjoy playing pubs with your teammates, because you can actually practice certain things going in. You can treat it like a... not quite like a scrim, but you have a support that you’re talking to, say it’s Insania, it’s a lot easier to practice working with them, compared to only having scrims.

Yeah for sure, it’s a lot easier to practice these combos in party queue games than instantly in officials or in scrims. It’s a nice way to just try out things.

Yeah, doing things for the first time in officials can be risky.

Yeah and you don’t really want to waste a scrim by trying something out, when you could just do it in party queue games. Then, if it works, you can try it out in scrims. And it works.

Right, because if it’s gonna work in scrims then it will need to work in party games.

Pretty much (laughs).

So out of curiosity, if you had to describe your teammates in a single word, how would you describe each of them?

Micke is clowny, Insania is ambitious… we’ve actually done this on a video for Team Liquid, I’m trying to remember what I was saying.

(laughs) sorry to repeat that question on you.

I can’t remember what I said back there. I think Boxi is also, not clowny, but funny. Tommy is kind-hearted. That’s one word right?

Yeah, that counts. So you said Micke is clowny, is he the kind of guy that helps keep the team spirits up? Is that an important thing he does for making sure things don’t get too serious? Or is that not an issue in general?

That’s more outside of the game. I think in the game, it kind of depends on the game. It can be any one person that keeps up the spirits. I don’t think we have a player who is always super positive, it definitely depends on each game.

Sure, it depends on everyone’s mood from game to game.

Pretty much, yeah.



So how did you end up with these players? You probably knew some of them better than the others, how did you end up joining this roster to begin with?

I played with Insania and Micke on a smaller team before, and then those two and Boxi and Taiga went to Alliance. I went to play with Chaos Esports, it was DC back then. I played with Bulba, Mason, Jimmy, and MSS for a few months. Then that team disbanded, and eventually Loda moved to coach and I joined after him. Those two [Boxi and Taiga] knew me from before, so that was my connection with them from before.

As we finish up, I know we’ve been going for a while, a couple of quick questions. Do you follow any non-Dota esports or any real sports in general, like soccer?

Not really, I don’t follow any real sports. I follow other esports, that’s about it. I follow some CS, not really though, but I follow Fortnite a good amount. I watch most of the Team Liquid guys. I watch Tom, I don’t know if you know him, 72hrs. He’s probably my favorite streamer.

So is that one of your favorite non-Dota games to relax with then?

Oh yeah, Fortnite is definitely… I play Fortnite in my free time, whenever I get the chance, and watch it too.

Do you have a favorite food? A favorite specific dish, or…

Chipotle? (laughs)



Oh it is Chipotle over everything?

It actually is, yeah. It’s just the bomb.

Oh man, that’s unfortunate because you don’t have… actually, I don’t know how popular Chipotle is in Europe, if at all? Is it there?

It doesn’t exist, actually.

Oh… that is… it’s such a big company in the US that I figured it might have expanded into parts of Europe by now.

Actually I think there’s one or two in the UK, but I live in Germany so that’s not gonna happen. I’m not gonna fly to the UK for Chipotle. (laughs) Not yet, at least.

Surely there’s plenty of good food in Germany, I imagine.

Yeah we have kebabs. We probably have the best kebabs, I think, in the world.

Oh now I’m hungry, just the word Kebab is enough.

Kebabs are insane here, for sure, but nothing beats Chipotle on a hungry day. For me, at least.

So last thing, is there anything that you want to talk about, or anything you wanted to say to anyone. Even just something you thought was interesting, anything goes really.

Hmm. I just want to thank Nazgul, or Victor, for this chance. I think we’re gonna do well together and that’s pretty much it I’d say. Nothing really worthy of saying (laughs).

Sure, no problem. Thanks for the interview Max, we appreciate your time.

Thank you thank you, no problem.