Interview with Kaffs: "We are doing something different, something that has never been done before in South America"

HEROIC have constantly put South America on the Dota 2 competitive map and are no longer entering tournaments as underdogs.

They are coming to PGL Walachia Season 6 as true contenders for the title and one of the most feared teams. At the beginning of the previous competitive season, they claimed the trophy in Bucharest, bringing the first Tier 1 tournament championship title to South America. A lot has changed since then, including their team line-up.

Hello Kakffs, I am happy to see HEROIC in a new season of the PGL Wallachia. This is the place where HEROIC won its first South American Tier 1 title. It was in PGL season 2, right at the beginning of the previous season. Once again we are at the start of a new season and you arrive here after finishing in the top 4 at the BLAST Slam in Singapore. What do you think of your chances of repeating the feat of season 2 here?

Honestly, I feel very good. We are confident. I think we were a bit lucky with some of the pairings in Singapore to get us into the top four. I would say we were no match for the Falcons. Maybe if we had faced another team, like MOUZ instead of Aurora, in the quarterfinals, it would have been tougher. Sure, we could have won, but against Aurora it was easy.

In the Wallachian PGL, we don't have Falcons; in Singapore, we didn't have PARIVISION, but here we do, and we also have more teams in this tournament than in Singapore, so it's a bit of a change.

I think it's going to be a tough tournament, but I would say we're in a good position. I'm used to not being the favorite, so it's rare that I come into a tournament with the feeling that we can win it. But I think we've done it here. So it's good. We're going to take it one game at a time, because I think, as good as we are, we can also lose to any team.

We have a very busy season, with many tournaments, and you have traveled a lot between continents, so it can't be easy. It can't be easy, how do you combine rest and recovery with the need to be in shape for every tournament?

You can't. You lose too much. Last year we messed up and exhausted ourselves trying to play everything. Then later we took too long a break because we were trying to deal with exhaustion. And then we weren't ready for tournaments, so it's really hard to know exactly what we need to do. But right now, honestly, we have to accept that we have the advantage of not having to play the playoffs. The playoffs are the thing that tears us apart the most. When we have to go to the playoffs, it's really bad, because it adds a lot to the travel, and for us it's always a long flight. All this while all the good teams are resting, while we are playing the playoffs.

At the moment, we are in a good position because we did well in the IT, which allowed us to skip the playoffs at the beginning of the season. So now we just play tournaments. But still, we all play, don't we? A lot of the top teams are taking breaks, not playing tournament after tournament. We'll see how we do.

I think we will have problems in January if we have to play the playoffs, because our year-end break is two weeks. And there will be no more breaks during the year.

If we perform well in the tournaments until the end of the year, we will be able to rest in January. Let's hope so.

I didn't get a chance to talk to any of you after IT, so I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your top six finishes. How do you and the team feel about this year's IT result?

I think everyone is satisfied with what we have done. But at the same time, we would have liked to at least beat BetBoom, because we had the game and played better than them. We had better ideas than them. It was a very close series, and we could have finished in the top four. I think we all would have been 100 percent satisfied with the top four, and then anything else would have been a bonus, wouldn't it? Also, if we had won one more series, it would have been the best result in a TI for South America. We are tied with Thunder Awaken. They also finished between 5th and 6th in 2022, so in many ways it would have been great to secure a top four finish this year.

Do you think HEROIC and South African teams in general are gaining more and more international respect, or is there still a gap between perception and performance?

I'm not too sure, but people should be smart enough to realize that we are no longer an exclusively South American team. Yuma is Nicaraguan, but he lives in Europe and has been playing there for a while, and we also have Davai Lama. We also do a lot of camps in Europe and have basically changed the way South American teams play Dota.

We have our own things, of course; we have our own style and we bring our own ideas to the game. However, we are trying to establish a similar structure and culture to the best teams, which historically have been Western and Eastern teams. We are doing something different, something that has never been done before in South America. I would say that we are completely different from all the other teams in the past and, at this moment, there is no other team in South America that can compare with us. Also, we have the backing of a European organization, HEROIC.

They must see us like that, as a mixed team that is getting stronger and stronger in every tournament. We still have a lot of potential, a long way to go. There are still a lot of tournaments left this year. Let's see what we can achieve.

Whisper changed roles after IT. How has the move to the middle line affected the dynamics of the team and your overall work as their coach?

I used to play a lot in the midfield. I was very used to that role. What changes a bit is the communication and moving around the map in competitive games. Sometimes mid laners have to do certain things in the game. We knew this could be a problem, and it's still not perfect, of course, but it's been going very well. I think everyone is impressed with the way it works, and honestly, it hasn't changed our way of working that much. I would even say it's easier in some ways.

The biggest change has been that we had two coaches and now it's just me. So I'm trying to find my way to do things on my own, because we had the work divided and now I do it all by myself, so I have to find the right balance. I have to accept that I can't do everything that we did before; I'm just one person and I have to find what works for this group and for me.

Do you have anything to say to HEROIC fans to conclude our interview?

Whenever I get the chance, I like to remind everyone that we are always watching, we see who supports us and we are very grateful for that. I hope we can bring more pride to South America. Normally, I am more concerned about winning a tournament for South America. I want to do well to give South America more opportunities. I am a different nationalist. I just want to give them the opportunity to improve conditions for everyone, so they can pursue their dreams. Winning tournaments helps that.

No other team was getting real opportunities to play international tournaments and was not getting any support to do so. So, after finishing in the top six of the IT and starting to do well right after the IT, I would say we are giving a little bit back to South America, and that's important to me.