KheZu

Maurice Gutmann · @KheZu

15th Nov 2016 from TwitLonger

Post LAN blog, Time in Escape, Joining Secret, afterthoughts


Blog ~~~ boston major qualifier – Time in Escape - Explanation joining Secret – After thoughts

Boston major pre qualifier -

I'll start off in this blog at the point of the boston major when I was still in Escape.
We had bootcamp in Berlin for about a week to prepare for the qualifier, we were also quite fortunate to be able to get a very good coach for this tournament two days before the qualifier started.
Speeding things up a bit, the qualifier didn't work out that well for us. We tried drafting like we practiced, and coming together as a team in both draft and play but we just didn't manage to do so.
I also felt that I could have played better myself in every single one of those games. We kept our cool, our focus and tried to learn from our losses to perhaps turn it around and end up in the top four which would have advanced us to the playoffs.

Anyhow, we didn't make it in the end and we ended up watching the rest of the games and just using the bootcamp as a goodtime and studying stuff together. We all felt like Secret was the strongest team in the playoffs, out of VP; AD Finem
& Liquid.

But then the playoff day happens, and AD Finem and VP both take the series against Secret. You could tell if you watched closely that they weren't quite onpoint as the days before (atleast that's what I thought as a viewer).
Still really strong, but if you really paid proper attention, you saw a few things uncharacteristic stuff from them, I won't go much into detail, but there are atleast 1-2 games where you can see small things. Anyhow, the qualifier is over.

Team Secret poaching -
I'll first explain how it went down and then I'll explain my thought process as to why I considered and then ended up joining them.

It's our last day in Berlin before the travel. I go to the bootcamp early morning with Adrian, because we roomed together at the bootcamp, and I log into Steam.
I see that Forev is messaging me, asking me to read my twitter cause Puppey wants to talk to me. I go ahead and read it and one things leads to another, turns out I'm being poached by Team Secret.

In the moment I wasn't really sure what was happening, I was slightly confused beacuse, I was asked to join Secret, replacing Forev. Yet he was the one messaging me to read Twitter cause Puppey is trying to reach me.
But I guess it's because I've been talking to Forev about overall Offlane stuff (he's been very helpful to me, even before this Lan). Moving forward, I was really excited just in the moment, even if I wasn't fully sure,
wether or not it'd be the right, I had Puppey approach me to join them. It's just a good feeling, many things combined that I don't think I have to mention at this point.

So alright, I told Adrian instantly what was going on and he seemed very excited and like 'damn' gotta see what he'll say. 1-2 hours later Yapzor and Synd arrive (I like to be very open with my teammates about most things, whether it's individual play, something I think is right/wrong, anything that should be discussed or some team related situation as this one.

So I tell them about it, I tell them that I'm definitely considering it and I will think about it the next few days, and that I'll be having conversations with Puppey concerning this situation.
They all were very understanding and told me to just think about it, and were happy for me. Qojqva wasn't there anymore as he had left the day before to go back home. So I can't put him into this conversation, just incase you guys go crazy and say I hate him or he hates me bcuz I didn't mention him.

During this day I mainly just ask Puppey alot of questions, regarding the EE blog, overall Dota stuff, the reason as to why I'm being asked to join them & how the team functions.

He was very open about all of this, and the more I read his words and talked to him, I could read it out of the conversation that he wants to win & that he's telling me the truth & change this whole situation that very much changed his image at this point.
During this + the next few days, I also tried to gather more information from outsiders to give me some more input whether or not it'd be a good move.

Few days go by, I'm still intouch with Puppey, asking him questions constantly, about Dota, his team; how he wants his team to function, why he thinks I'm a good fit and so on. We end up skyping and having an enjoyable conversation to just talk furthermore & making me try to finalize my thoughts on the whole situation.

Anyhow about 4-6 days before it was made official, I knew and told everyone that I will join Team Secret.
Reminder; I'm still playing with Escape during this situation as there's a few qualifiers going on, that Elimination Mode, ESL Genting quali and Dreamleague & I'm still under contract with Escape.
I will now go into the reasons as to why I decided for Team Secret.

I will sum up my stay in Escape real quick.
I'm and always was very thankful for them letting me play in their team and helping me improve as a player and give me the chance to do so.

I learned alot in Escape, I had a great time in that team. Probably one of the most fun times I've ever had in a team. Good discussions, overall a great time, learning experiences & just a very enjoyable team atmosphere where it's mostly very easy to talk about stuff.

But it came to the point where I felt like we were stagnating abit (ofc I was also a big reason that we weren't as good as other T1 teams, being the least experienced player and so on, also my individual skill isn't as high as the others) So I'm not saying it's their fault at all. But I felt like as a team and I as an individual that we sortoff stopped learning things. Atleast compared to the months before, the learning curve really took a whole different direction; atleast that WAS a HUGE reason for me. And then there were just a few things I disagreed with personally how overall we sometimes played Dota; approached specific scenarios & situations some people were put into. And once again, I'm not saying I'm right with this mindset, maybe I was wrong all along, and they were right about these specific things I'm mentioning, but evenso, I wanted to experience a new perspective and learn and see how DotA should/could be played in a different way.

This is where Puppey & Team Secret come in.
Puppey, probably the best if not one of the best and most iconic Captains in history who 100% will teach you endless things. Sure there was drama around him, but there's always two sides to a story. I don't like to judge players that much before I play with them, because only then you fully know how they are. (and yes I do judge some players just by play, which is bad. But I try not to bandwagon those attitude bandwagoning like the one Black had.) That guy for example I love him, and maybe he was bad a longtime ago, but is there REALLY NOWAY any of you believe he can change? Anyway back to the point. It's not only Puppey.

Pieliedie, a support you surely can learn alot from, I've learned alot by just playing vs Team Secret, vs their safelane. And just overall if you watch him you know he's very knowledgable about his position and dota overall.

MidOne, who I didnt know much about other than that he's good and that he supposedly has a good attitude. And now I know that both of these things are true.

MP, a player who if you just watch, without turning on your brain, you won't think he's the best, he won't stand out that much if youre just watching to watch dota. But if you look at the movement, his decission making, and the position he's being put into. He very much reminds of N0tail. Remember how everyone talked shit about N0tail? He was one of the few reasons OG worked so well. Just because you're the 1 position, doesn't mean you have to/should afk farm all game and have #1 networth. Watch N0tails's movement on his heroes and his farming priority and his ganking priority and you will understand. He and his supports with Moon's spacemaking enabled the **** out of Miracle. And no, I'm not saying Miracle is not good. But his team enabled him to his strongest. So I know that MP is great, I've watched alot of Secret replays before joining them.

So combining all of these things, it led up to my decission in ultimately joining Team Secret. I hope that I explained myself clear enough so that you guys can perhaps follow my trail of thought.

Feelings during the decision and after it was made official.

I wasn't fully sure until the end, but day by day I was tending more and more to decide to join Secret. The more advice I asked for and the more I thought about it in the long run it just seemed like the smarter move for me as an individual because I just want to learn and catchup to the other players.

Announcement was made, overall mixxed opinions were recieved. Righfully so, mostly I think.
The most obvious comments and the one thing I knew myself. Forev is crazy good. He looks like a monstrous player, his skill is very high, I've studied his play alot. So the line I read the most was 'Downgrade, discount Forev, Tier 3 player, worst in ESC, joke'
So, it depends on the specific person how they react to comments like these, I usually take different things from stuff like his.
F.example I like to be the underdog. Especieally for me, I've played since last year September, so barely 1 year now. I know that I still have time. I know that a player like Forev is better than me. But hopefully with time, I can be just as good if not better. So people thinking I'm bad or a discount Forev does not bother me. It makes it easier for me to prove them wrong as they believe I'm just worth nothing.
It also gives me a small thrive to work harder because obviously I have let more people down compared to impressing them.
But on the otherhand it does make me question some things, not so much but along the lines 'hmpf, does my play really make me look that bad?' Luckily I do have some confidence and I know I can do it. And I don't get affected by most comments, but we're human, I do think about it. Words are strong.
But one thing people have to understand is that, it's not always only about your skill, but how well you fit within the team. Your playstyle, your personality, the way you view the game. (I touched abit on this before and will again abit further down).

ASUS ROG Masters LAN

This was my first time in Malaysia. We were in Kual Lumpur, in a 5 Star hotel (Sheraton). And they took very good care of us (The organizers and staff members). I would like to thank all the staff, and the people that ran the event, for a smooth event and trying to give us just whatever we asked for. It was very enjoyable and I always feel very well seeing happy people and wanting others to also be just that.
We had some signing sessions and it was just incredible really, everyone screams Puppey when they see him, or overall 'Team Secret!'. And every fan was just so nice, some small comments like 'Good luck on your journey in your new team, nice puck, nice clock, nice shaker, like whatever it was, it just brightens my day and makes me happy. So thanks to all of you who were there and came to us. And to the ones who didn't, do it the next me you have a chance, none of us will bite or punch you. No kappa, I personally really like interacting so come find me! THANKS MALAYSIA!

Overall thoughts so far on Team Secret

They welcomed me very nicely into the team. I don't know Kemal so well yet, but he seems like he does try to do what's right, atleast that is my read right now. Cyborgmatt is a very good manager and in my opinion he does his job very well. He does everything for his players, and not only that, but he's also easy to talk to and just fun to be with. So overall a very healthy situation. I've now played with this team only for this one lan event, in Kuala Lumpur. But already I can say that I've very much enjoyed myself so far. I'm learning new things everyday. Even when we don't play, I ask alot of questions and get alot of helpful answers that widen my view on the game and try to help me understand. Everyone is very nice in general & to me as a teammate. I'm getting alot of help in general with my gameplay too, considering im the least experienced player, I can very much use input that will help me develop. I can just say I'm looking forward to the next months. Even if we don't win. We will get better and I will grow as a player in this team.

Last thoughts I'd like to throw out there.
I really want to thank all my boys in Escape for helping me improve and making me a better player and the owners of Escape (Till & Zak) for a great time. Try to not only notice the things you see. But think more deeply into it. There's some players who do way more than you think. Sure sometimes you cant tell who makes the calls in the team and so on. But I'm talking about the MP/N0tail situation right now.

Also, there's 2 sides to every story & we're all humans, don't just bandwagon everything you see. Try to get abit more intel before you ultimately make up your mind on something.


With that said I hope you guys enjoyed this blog and I'll keep doing these in the future. There's a few things I couldve touched on more but, my flight is about to land and my computer is running out of battery.
Sorry for grammar mistakes, Matt was going over the blog but I had to go catch my next flight, and I'll just be posting this blog when I arrive in Munich at the airport. I'll have someone ready the next time I write a blog to make sure it's easy to understand.

Thanks for reading and hope it was worth the read.

Feel free to follow my twitter if youre interested in my thoughts & future blogs.

www.twitter.com/KheZzu_

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