Interview with The Pango’s Ghostik at ESL One Mumbai

We got a chance to talk to Andrey “Ghostik” Kadyk on the final day of ESL One Mumbai. We discussed about his time in India, his opinions on Dota patches, how one can get into a big Dota 2 team and more.

Pawn: Hi Ghostik, is this the first time you’re coming to India?

Ghostik: Yes, it’s my first time here.

Pawn: That’s great! How are you liking it here?

Ghostik: Everything is good. The weather is a little bit hot for us though.

Pawn: What about the food? Did you go anywhere with the team for a meal?

Ghostik: We just ate food at the hotel. The food is a little spicy for us, but the sweets are great!

Pawn: Yep, we have some great sweet dishes in India.

Pawn: You’ve been to a lot of tournaments across the world, how do you think ESL One Mumbai is different from them?

Ghostik: I think everything was great. The hall was great, the arena was great, the crowd was great. I don’t think there is anything big difference between other big tournaments and this tournament.

Pawn: Did you have any memorable fan interaction that comes to mind?

Ghostik: Ya! A fan compared me to a guy from an Indian TV show for kids. She showed me a picture and he was actually similar to me.

Pawn: Haha. Do you remember which show or what character it was by any chance?

Ghostik: No I don’t remember.

Pawn: Okay, let’s talk Dota now. 7.21d has been around for a very long time (32 days) and there’s a few heroes that are spammed over and over in pubs like Mars, Abaddon and Necrophos. Are you bored of this patch yet?

Ghostik: I think it’s a bit different for pro players. If a patch is around for long, we get to fully study a certain hero or a playstyle and completely understand it. If the patch is around too long, everyone will know how to play against the meta heroes, which will make people play different heroes, which in-turn changes the meta again. So, updates are very important sometimes.

I am guessing that we are going to get a patch after the Major. It might be a big one but it also might be another small patch. It’s going to be a big one for TI, but I’m not sure whether that will be the next patch or not. For TI, I think they will add Mars. I hope they do because I love this hero. But they need to fix him a little bit before adding him to Captains Mode.

Pawn: Oh, Mars is one of my favorites too. Do you play that hero a lot?

Ghostik: Yes! I spammed him for about 20 games when he came out. He’s a little OP because of the super high damage on his spells. Maybe they will nerf the damage on his ultimate, or maybe they will nerf his W (God’s Rebuke), We’ll have to see.

Pawn: Yes, Mars definitely has way too much burst damage right now.

Pawn: Now I have a different sort of question for you. Do you have any suggestions for players in the Divine/Immortal bracket who aspire to play professionally and who are trying hard to improve their MMR?

Ghostik: There is a no simple recipe like “follow these steps and you’ll make it in Esports.” You’ll have to tryhard, really hard. Competition in Esports is great and it is really hard for young players to become a good player. So, you need to practice a lot, and need to hope that some team has a shuffle. If you’re doing great in pubs, someone will notice that and they will want to try you out for their team.

Pawn: Instead of getting to really high solo MMR, do you think its better for players to play in some small teams with lesser known players?

Ghostik: I think its different for everyone. Some players play in small teams or play in no team at all and they get invited for tryouts by a big team.

Pawn: True, like it happened with Topson.

Pawn: Do you believe there can be players will really high solo MMR, but not at all fit to play in a team environment?

Ghostik: Yes, that is actually quite common in high level pubs.

Pawn: I see.

Pawn: So I’m assuming you’ve played a lot of SEA pubs recently. How did you like the experience?

Ghostik: I think they are really fun. What was wonderful to me is that, if someone pauses, no one is going to unpause it, if someone is disconnected. Even for 5-10 minutes. But if no one is disconnected, they will unpause immediately because they don’t want to waste time. That’s a really nice difference between the Europe and SEA region pubs.

Pawn: Players just keep unpausing in EU pubs?

Ghostik: Yep, even in China pubs players unpause.

Pawn: So, The Pango placed 5-6^th at ESL One Mumbai. What were your expectations coming into this tournament?

Ghostik: We had a discussion and we realized that we can get really good results here. But sometimes it just happens you know, things don’t go as planned. But it was really good experience.

Pawn: I see.

Pawn: Any shout-outs to your fans from India?

Ghostik: Thanks everyone for cheering for us. We had a really good time. I loved the Indian fans! I hope we get to visit India again.

Pawn: We hope to see you guys again as well! Thanks for your time Ghostik.

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