In today's last Winner's interview at DreamLeague Season 21, Myroslav "Mira" Kolpakov from Team Spirit went over the mythical return of his Dark Willow, expectations for TI and how he pulled off the crazy Aegis steal.
I've always considered one of your signature heroes to be Dark Willow. You played it two times in your Grand Finals against LGD at TI, but over the past two years, you have barely played this hero. You've now played it four times at this DreamLeague with 100% winrate. What has brought Dark Willow back for you?
Last year it wasn't that good, but after the patch where they reworked Bedlam so you can use it on teammates and stay in position and don't commit [it's good].
You go in, Bedlam is killing someone. It is easy to pick it because it is Universal, so you just smash in lane and you have super broken spells. It's kind of nice, that's why we do it.
Have you practiced these Bedlam duos? They've looked really good. We saw you doing it with your Specter, in this series you were putting it on Collapse's Axe before he jumped in. Is this just your pubbing experience or just from scrims?
Basically from pubs. You can also use it on Warlock's Golem, Lone Druid's Bear and a lot of units, so it's very good now. You can just solo win games in pubs.
I've been watching you and Collapse on the off lane for a while now and it seems like you almost always win your lane. Is there any team that has a safe lane that is hard for you guys to play against or is every lane pretty easy?
Maybe Skitter and Fata in the past. And Nightfall and Kingslayer [
ilias]. They were our strongest opponents on lane.
Now, maybe the GG's [Gaimin Gladiators] duo, Seleri and dyrachyo are very good in lane, so I would name them our toughest opponents.
A lot of people say you guys are in TI form. Do you guys feel that as well? You just won Riyadh, you are steamrolling this tournament. Do you feel that you guys are just powering up towards the end of the year as TI is getting closer?
Basically we are just chilling. Before the tournament started, we told each other that we were not going to play too [tryhard] and we're just going to see what we can achieve.
We don't want to win [DreamLeague Season 21] because if you win the tournament you will lose TI (laughs). So, [in all seriousness] if we win, nice, if not, it doesn't matter.
Last year you gave an interview in which you said that you struggled with Impostor Syndrome. Has that gone away now?
I guess not, but I don't care anymore. It doesn't matter me anymore, I'll just try my best and I don't think about it anymore.
When your teammates found out about [the Impostor Syndrome], how did they react?
We didn't talk much [about it], but they cheer me up all the time, they've very nice guys. They try to help me by cheering me after the games when I play good, when I play bad they just beat me, so (laughs).
What is Silent's biggest strength as a coach?
I think he is a very smart and brave Coach. He is not scared of non-meta heroes. He thinks that he can pick any hero if the situation is good for it.
He mostly just tries to follow the meta, but if we need Chen, Visage, or maybe some Bristleback carry, he will pick it and it will win us the game. So he is very creative and smart.
Where does he get his inspiration from?
Maybe not now, but in the past he played a lot of Overthrow, a custom game. He mostly just took builds from there.
That is his source of new ideas. He sees some good hero there and brings it to Dota.
Two days ago you played a series, as Dark Willow, where you managed to steal the Aegis. In my mind that is one of the plays that will stay with me as a player for ever. How does it rank in your own pantheon of the plays you've made?
(Image via ESL)
That is the second best play in my whole career. The first one is when I stole an Aegis in a similar way with Rubik. The first time the play was my idea, but this time Larl just said to me that my life, as a Support, doesn't matter, so he told me to just "go die".
I didn't believe that I could do it, so I just went in and was hoping that I would die fast, without hesitation (laughs).
Featured image courtesy of ESL.
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