Seleri at ESL One Birmingham 2026: “Chen is unplayable. Why does Venomancer have 5 spells?”

29.03.2026

Timing is everything in Dota. Unfortunately for MOUZ, patch 7.41 dropped just as they were hitting their stride at ESL One Birmingham 2026.

Before announcing his retirement from professional play, captain Melchior "Seleri" Hillenkamp sat down with us to break down MOUZ’ loss to Xtreme Gaming, what went wrong, why the Facet removal feels "lazy," and which hero he thinks is now completely unplayable.

I would like to start our interview by asking about the series with Extreme Gaming, and game three in particular. What would you say was the missing piece there, or where did you drop the game?

Our coach actually said it was kind of hard from the draft because we need to burst them, but they have Tusk and Dazzle, who both have a save. They were just in a too good position, and when we tried to kill a hero, they always would get a save, which is really hard to play into, unfortunately.

It also didn’t help that there was a patch, because we were starting to get in shape. We were not in shape before this tournament. During the group stage here, we started to get in the groove, so we finally figured out how to move exactly. But then we had to relearn it again. It was unfortunate.

The Birmingham crowd is known for being so passionate and super loud. Was that something you had to tune out while playing on the stage here, or are you a team that takes energy from crowds like this?

To me, the crowd in Birmingham is very fun. I have been playing for quite a while now, and I always enjoyed playing in front of a crowd. I was here two years ago as well, but I didn’t get to play in front of the Birmingham crowd, so I was happy I got to play on the stage now.

People just come to enjoy some nice Dota, so it's fun that you get to show them that, win or lose.

It just very recently hit me that MOUZ has two Dutch players on the same lane. How much does having a fellow countryman in the carry role simplify your lane-calling, and do you feel you've unlocked a version of Remco that we didn't see during his time on Tundra or Secret?

I'm not sure. In the past, we had some national tournaments, and I played with a full Dutch roster, and we would speak Dutch sometimes and just play for fun. We even had a Dutch championship at one point. But this was a while ago. Now, we never talk about Dota in Dutch. We also don't do this outside the game. It's just not something you're used to. But it's still very fun to play together with Ramco because, being both Dutch, we have a lot of things in common.

Did the team atmosphere or dynamics change when you woke up to the 7.41 patch notes? How do you address things when a patch this big is dropped in the middle of a tournament?

Yeah, you need to do your best to deal with changes like this. It happens all the time. Especially in Dota. It's just something you need to learn to deal with. Changes happen all the time.

Whenever something changes, it can be good or bad, depending on how you react to it. Sometimes it feels unfair, maybe Remco's hero gets nerfed, maybe something gets buffed, but you just have to live with it.

In terms of Facets removal, is it a big relief that they are finally gone, or is it a terrible idea?

I didn't really expect it, to be honest. I thought they were okay, they just had to balance or change them a little bit so it was more fair. There were heroes that you could actually choose.

For me, for example, it was Enchantress, where I could always choose. Both Facets were fine. But there were heroes where I feel like they could change it a bit so it would actually work, but they just didn't manage to do it.

My joke is that there were some heroes that didn't have a facet, so they thought, "I don't know, we don't know what to do, let's just remove them all." It’s just how it feels right now.

With Facets removal, they just ran into a different problem where they need to understand which heroes got hit really hard by this. For example, Chen all of a sudden doesn't have a creep anymore. A lot of heroes now got hit really hard by the Facet removal, while some got buffed really hard from this. Some heroes have five spells all of a sudden. Venomancer has five spells. Why does he have five spells?

I was about to ask you how you feel this change impacted the support role, especially because many of the support heroes didn’t actually get any of their facets through Alghanim’s Scepter or Shard, as the cores did.

Yeah, I mean, you can see it in Chen the most, where before you could choose a creep. Most creeps are bad, ok, but it was a big thing that you could have this Hellbear, and once you're level 5, you could have a very strong creep that could help you.

They nerfed Chen through jungle creeps nerfs, through spells, through facets, they nerfed him so much over the years that it has now become fully unplayable. I think they just need to revisit all these heroes and balance them out.

Fire questions

Describe patch 7.41 in one word.

Lazy.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you miss the facets?

Nine

The most broken hero right now is...?

Monkey King.

Which of your signature heroes has just been ruined by the new patch?

Chen.

How many hours of sleep did you get after the patch dropped?

I slept before it dropped. I read the patch notes in the morning, and could not sleep after.