With insomnia50’s official start just a day away, Reason Gaming are in full swing in terms of preparing to make a large impact at the event as we did at the last one. Despite only two games being represented at the tournament, we will be there in full force to ensure we take home substantial placings and make our name heard.
Prior to the chat with the captain of our DotA 2 team, Kieran “DreadKnight” Ghataora, who should be no stranger to any fan of Reason, or of UK DotAevent, we have sat down to have a.
Firstly, since i49, the Reason Gaming DotA 2 lineup has undergone a number of changes. Could you tell us about them and what the rationale behind the many adjustments were?
Ah yes, we have gone through quite a number of changes. The first two happened directly after i49 and were unfortunate as we were really just starting to find our feet. The two players that left were our mid player 1cHiGo_ and our support player Mute242. Unfortunately 1cHiGo_ had to quit due to real life issues affecting the level he could commit to the game. There’s actually a post on this matter from him (http://www.reddit.com/r/UKDota/comments/1nguxr/my_departure_from_reason_gaming). (He thinks he’s being funny by calling me Dreadshite, it’s not a sign of any internal conflict as it was speculated to be). Mute242 however simply parted ways with us at the same time due to interest conflicts within the team, it was unfortunately concluded that these issues could not be resolved and therefore a mutual parting of ways ocurred.
After this we went on a short break and then decided to continue trialing people, with ESWC being right round the corner the pressure was on to find two replacements that had the right attitude and skill level to fill our two open slots. The players we ended up choosing were Geoph for our midlane and Lahmage for the offlane. The reason we chose to put Lahmage to the offlane is because I wanted to try Antab back on support as we played back in the old Team eNigma. Geoph was doing particularly well, improving consistently and settling into his spot in competitive DotA quite well (He still has a way to go but I assure you, watch this spot. He will be great!) however Lahmage was not quite up to the challenge. After a few weeks and a failed attempt at ESWC, we decided that it was simply not working out with him and decided that we needed to replace him, before too much time before iSeries had been put into that roster.
Unfortunately, as it worked out, the time between us and Lahmage parting ways and i50 was very short and we have had to attend with a standin, a good friend of mine KHAAAN. We will however be trialing for an 5th (Offlane OR Support) after i50. I hope to see some good new recruits to mould into great DotA players.
At i49, you found yourself up against aAa, where you managed to take one map before eventually coming second. Do you see yourself back on stage at the upcoming i50 event?
Definitely, our aims have not been set any lower, despite an incomplete roster. We shall be aiming for the main stage once again and I am sure we will get there.
Tell us a little about how the team has been preparing. What kind of things have you guys been doing to make sure you’re on top form?
Honestly, we have just been trying to practice as much as possible. The main problem we have faced at this time is simply the combination of a new patch and a new team; in which we concurrently have to find our style of play that defines us whilst also looking for new recruits. It is not an easy task. For the most part we’ve just been trying to churn out as many games as humanly possible, trying to iron out issues before i50. After i50 however we will be taking a much slower but more focused approach to learning and growing as a team. This will most definitely be beneficial in the long term and less focused on simply playing the game, and more about understanding the game, our strengths, our weaknesses and what we can do to overcome them and improve as a team.
You’re going in to the i50 event with a ringer. Could you tell us about him and his h,istory within DotA?
So, our ringer is KHAAAN, a friend of mine that stands in for us periodically when we’re missing players – He’s actually taking the support role for this tournament and Antab is moving back to offlane. KHAAAN’s competitive DotA history is not particularly long but we’ve managed to train him up recently as he has shown serious dedication to the team and I am certain he will be able to succeed at this level of DotA with us at i50.
Are there any teams that you really want to beat during the tournament?
With respect to teams that are going, the list is currently not very long – Usually the list seems to populate closer to the event so we’ll see if there are any competitors we would really relish a victory against or would like to avoid, however, at a glance, there is only Team Infused there that jump out at me, no other teams really grab my attention or respect like they do. They are friends of ours and I personally cannot wait to play them again on LAN!
The final words are yours:
Thanks as always to Reason and their hard working staff for supporting us through our rough patch that we shall emerge out of soon. I’d like to thank Steelseries for providing us with awesome gear, Esportclothing for our new slick shirts and DualityMedia again for our new website.
Shoutout to the big King Dave again who’s hopefuilly going to be casting at i50 with durka, and ukdota.net who’s just started beta testing their UKIHL#3 (Please stop asking me when it’s coming out – It’s coming!!!)
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