(This interview was held on Sep. 14 ahead of TI14 Grand Finals)
Last minute replacements for Gaimin Gladiators, Yakutou Brothers, were underdog favorites heading into TI14, and their hastily put together roster, including coach Nicholas “zeal” Lim exceeded expectations, but, sadly, were eliminated before the main event.
We caught up with Zeal at the TI14 main stage, where the MOUZ offlaner and Yakult Bros. coach was taking in the action. We talked about MOUZ’s TI campaign, how he became the coach for Yakutou Brothers, and what his first visit to The International was like.
First, it’s a while ago now, but obviously you’re a part of MOUZ when you’re not stepping into Coach Yakutou Brothers. You were a part of a notoriously stacked Western European qualifier. Do you have any thoughts about MOUZ’s performance there or how that qualifier went?
So the MOUZ the qualifiers… Just like the other regions we have like very strong teams in the qualifiers and every game matters. We didn’t find any team unbeatable, but it’s just like we weren’t as well prepared or there were some things on the mental side that we didn’t do as well that made us lose some games.
I think that mainly after the Riyadh loss (EWC qualifiers) we didn’t recover as well as we could, and didn’t perform as we were supposed to play. So when TI qualifiers happened we didn’t perform as well as we expected to.
So for the rest of the TI14 you were coaching Yakult Bros. How did that come to happen?
So I’m very close friends with the owner and the manager, Yakult. One day while I was playing in a pub, he just hit me up with a call, told me, ‘you want to come to Hamburg?’ And I was like, what? He asked me to come to Hamburg. I was like, ‘why? Do I need to pay?’ He said, ‘no, it’s free.’ And I’m like, ‘Why? You’re watching TI?’ ‘No, we’re playing TI.’ Then I said, ‘okay!’
Then I asked whether I’m playing or not, but he said no, I’m not playing. But he said that they are replacing Gamin and asked if I want to tag along. Then they don’t really have a coach. They asked if I want to help out since it’s like a really last minute thing. It’s like one week before TI. So we had minimals preparations and scrims. And that’s how I get to this TI, basically.”
You play in multiple regions around the world. I also heard you play on multiple servers. Uh is there a difference in how first the competitive scenes work in the different regions and then also is there a difference in the pubs?
I’ll start with maybe SEA and China, because we’re playing the same server. So when you get higher MMR, you mostly only play at a certain time where everyone is free. Sometimes if you don’t have a team, you won’t have scrims. So basically in the afternoon, you can’t really get a game. Sometimes you queue outside of that time, but you just get into like a very weird average game, which is not that enjoyable. So night times, there will be like a higher average games where there’s like much more balance.
And for Europe, it’s very cool every single hour of the day or night there’s high average games. I don’t really play that much of midnight games in Europe, but I always play like morning pubs in Europe and towards the late night and every time it’s just like a few minutes of queue time and the game quality varies differently, but it’s way better than the SEA.
Is there one Region you prefer to play in competitive or pubs, or are you just happy so long as you’re playing Dota?
If you’re talking about competitive, it’s not that I’d prefer, but I would like to try in and play in a European team. Even playing with MOUZ, the time was a bit short, but I really enjoy playing in Europe because I get to see different perspectives on Dota 2, because I’ve been playing in Asia for entirely for the earlier part of my career. So for my future plan, I prefer to play in Europe and see how it goes.
Zeal at PGL Wallachia Season 2 (Image Credit: PGL)
So with the Yakult brothers out, who were you supporting for the rest of TI?
So after Yakult went out… I’m supporting all my Malaysian brothers but unfortunately they are all faced against each other every single game. And for now, towards the end I support my remaining Malaysian brother, it’s xNova, Xtreme Gaming.
Talking about Dota at the moment, there’s been a lot of talk about helmet of dominator, it’s too strong, it’s too cheap. Do you think it’s made things stale in the meta?
Oh I’ll say like it’s not really stale, it’s kind of like a very new thing actually. It’s just from this tournament and there are teams that don’t value the item that much and there’s teams that abuses it and I think it’s just uh it will become stale if it’s after TI and the month and there would not be any changes it would be very boring. Yeah.
For me personally, I enjoy this item so maybe I have mixed feelings about nerfing this. I would like to see how they do it.
Is there a hero you want to see getting picked more? A hero you’re sad that’s not in the meta really at the moment?
“I would really like to see Visage being playable again. And maybe more Darkseer. Darkseer is really cool to watch.”
TI is special because it’s more than just a tournament. It’s like a festival where loads of fans, talents, players all meet up. What’s been your highlight of TI so far?
“So this is my first TI. So it’s really amazing to be surrounded with like pro players, talent that I’ve seen all of the time before. Because basically since young I watched Dota and this is the first time I get to see all those talents gather for this prestigious tournament. And during hotel stay and stuff you get to see like pro Dota 2 players like chatting, talking, it’s really special. There’s like no language gap or anything. Everyone’s just cool to talk to and meet each other.”
Finally, just because the grand finals are coming up, who do you predict is going to win this finals? Or do you not want to jinx it?
“I think Team Falcons might win, but I actually want Xtreme to win, but I think it will be a very close one. I think it’s 3-2. If Xtreme wins, it’s going to be 3-2.”
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