Ivan 'VANSKOR' Skorokhod: "Na`Vi have nothing special in comparison to other top teams."

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Where did your first taste of competitive Dota stem from? There’s barely any information on you during WC3 Dota, did you ever play the game competitively?

When I just started playing Dota, nearly 4-5 years ago, I was trying and really wanted to play competitively. At the start, I only played in some non-pro cups (Iccup, Darer) with real life friends. I got new teammates and friends in the Dota community due to this, but none of my early attempts at playing competitively were successful.

Your initial position, before joining your first recorded team, Rox.KIS, was that of a stand-in for the team throughout an extended period of time.

Russian Dota has always been very unstable. Usually players get replaced pretty quickly as soon as the team experiences a difference in opinions or when a member’s skill level or style of play doesn’t suit the rest of the team. The player in question just gets kicked off the team and you need somebody to replace him as soon as possible. And that is why Russians teams have stand-in(s) before anyone officially joins the team. RoX was my first real professional team and I didn’t have any other way to enter the pro scene, so I couldn’t decline their call for me to stand-in.

The first event you competed in with RoX was EMS One. Empire and VP were present in your EMS One online stage group. Were you afraid of either team at the time you faced them, or did you consider yourselves equals?

We did not fear anybody who played in the EMS One qualifiers. We were feeling very confident in our abilities.

Yaroslav ‘NS’ Kuznetsov’s VP was making a comeback during that period of time and had also returned Sergey ‘Ars-Art’ Revin to the support role, effectively recreating the legendary VP 2007 pairing. Did this impact your play against them in the series you played in the online portion?

I really don’t care whom I play against, because fame doesn’t make players hard to beat. All I need to know about my enemy is what he will do in in terms of his own playing style, common movement patterns and ward locations. So their stature in the community didn’t impact me at all.

When you eventually did attend the LAN portion of the tournament, how did you prepare for the environment since you were still new to offline competition at the time?

We just played scrims every day from home. Our team was still new, but all players but me had LAN experience. But I didn’t really feel uncomfortable at the LAN, and I was playing the game with a level head.

Andrey ‘Dread’ Golubev featured in RoX during your period with the team, was he the driving force behind the team during the time of EMS One, given his long history with the title in a professional setting?

Yes, he was. But he was the driving force of our team’s spirit, not the actual game. Every single one of my ex-teammates were all involved equally as much in every game we won.

Upon reaching the grand finals of EMS One, you had left both DD.Dota and Absolute Legends in the dust in two 2-0 sweeps. Half of each squad currently make up the Sigma.Int roster, who have enjoyed plenty of success in the European scene. Did either part of the AL/DD rosters scare you at all at the time, or did you consider them easy opposition?

You can’t fear or underrate any teams, because Dota is a team game and a single player from a team can’t win without his teammates. So I can say I wasn’t afraid of ex-AL/ex-DD, but I can’t say that I could take an easy win versus Sigma.int now.

In the finals you faced Na’Vi, this was the first LAN tournament the team played with Kuro ‘Kuroky’ Salehi Takhasomi and Gleb ‘Funn1k’ Lipatnikov. How was the impact of Kuroky felt during that final?

Kuroky has had great cooperation with Clement ‘Puppey’ Ivanov ever since they played together in the old Dota squad Gosugamers. So they are really used to working together and at EMS One I felt that they performed way better as a duo than their old line-up that featured Ars-Art.

Only one month after that you probably had the toughest game of your competitive career, a Bo3 against DD.Dota for a spot at TI3. What thoughts went through your head before the series?

I was quite excited, I really wanted to claim a spot at TI3, me and the team were focused 100% for this bo3 game. But some in-game mistakes took down our chances and hopes for the spot.

DD at that time featured Artur 'Goblak' Kostenko. Goblak is held in rather high regard by the English-speaking community due to his unusual drafting style he fielded with this team. Did you consider Goblak to be the result of these two wins at the time? Did his drafts push them ahead of you, due to you not knowing how to handle them?

Whilst I agree completely about Goblak utilizing very unusual drafts, I can’t say that his drafting was the main reason for their triumph.

In the end, mouz, who you had beaten earlier in the tournament, ended up defeating you 2-0 in the loser’s finals. Following this, Alexei 'Solo' Berezin, ROX’s midlaner, was also found guilty of match-fixing and was subsequently excluded from the team. As this was still within your first year as a professional Dota player, how did it feel for you personally to reach such a high in taking a game off of Na’Vi and almost qualifying for TI3, to then be left in a situation like this?

I felt very satisfied about my results with the team, and I felt that I could reach much higher heights in the competitive realm despite Solo match-fixing. It made me a little upset, but I knew that it wasn’t the end of my career.

Was the situation that had arisen with Solo’s match fixing what led you to leave the team overall?

Solo’s actions were one of many reasons that lead to me leaving the team.

Team Empire became your new team, where you joined former Quantic Gaming carry Silent. Since he switched from the support role to the hard carry position, does he play the carry in a way you’d consider influenced by his previous support role?

Not totally, but sometimes, depending on the draft, I consider playing in a similar fashion he did when he was still playing the 5 role.

Whilst your roster did seem stable during these first few months, Empire’s longest lasting member in Roman 'Scandal' Sadotenkov decided to leave the team for an offer extending from Rox.kis. How did this in particular influence the team before Resolut1on officially joined?

First of all I want to say that Scandal didn’t leave Empire. The rest of the team, which included me, decided that we wanted to try out playing with a new midlaner. We decided to talk to Roman about us wanting to recruit Roman 'Resolut1on' Fominok first, since he’s an extremely good player and was already familiar with half of our team due to Andrew 'Mag' Chipenko and Andrey 'Alwayswannafly' Bondarenko having been on Iccup together with him previously. Resolut1on accepted our invitation without hesitation.

What different attributes does he have in comparison to Scandal, who is still considered a top tier player?

Resolut1ion is much more active around the map. Unlike Scandal, his map awareness is also much better, he’s very cautious about what transpires on the minimap.

Your post-Scandal phase has so far been one of the most impressive in 2014, as you are currently sitting on a 18-0 winstreak in organized competition, including an impressive 3-0 sweep of Na’Vi in MLG TKO. Na’Vi is always an interesting topic to discuss as a team, and I want to know how you feel about them in their current shape, and who the true superpower in CIS is currently, given the impressive performances of Power Rangers, yourselves as well as Rox as of late?

Na`Vi will always be a very strong and serious opponent, no matter the period. But if their performance will keep on sprialling downwards, the team isn't afraid to change the roster like they did with Ars-Art and Dmitry 'LightofHeaven' Kupriyanov, and will once again keep their place amongst the top 3 global Dota teams.

Power Rangers is a standard CIS team, that has the ability to play amazingly in streaky circumstances, but who will never be solid enough to ever be counted as a top tier team, in my opinion.

RoX got Solo back and now every game versus them is a really hard fight. They can really reach top placings now. Regarding us, if we can keep our momentum going, we can hope on a TI4 invite. So it is hard to tell who the superpower in CIS really is, but I can pretty confidently say it is either Na`Vi, Empire or RoX.

Looking at Na’Vi closer again, we quickly realize that they have personally been the deniers of your two greatest LAN successes so far (EMS One, defeated you in the finals, StarLadder 7, defeated you in semi-finals). What is their x-factor, if you will, when the situation truly calls for it?

Na`Vi has nothing special in comparison to other top teams. When I and my team lose to Na`Vi, it’s only because we had mistakes during the game.

StarLadder is expanding rapidly in 2014. Is StarLadder 9 the most important tournament for you in 2014 aside from TI4?

Yes it is, along with Dreamleague and ESL One.

Thank you for doing this interview, any final shoutouts?

Shoutout to my friends, my girlfriend, my teammates, and our sponsors Razer, Seagate and Twitch.Tv.

Image Credit: vk.com, team-empire.org, gosugamers.net, prodota.ru