Interview with Saksa. «With Nightfall I felt like there was no space for other people to talk on the team»

Interview by George Yadvidchuk.

Editor of KIBER George Yadvidchuk visited Serbia for the FISSURE Playground 2, sponsored by BetBoom.

He conducted several interviews during the tournament, and one of his guests was Martin «Saksa» Sazdov, Team Yandex’s new player, who is already in the top 3 of the tournament. George talked to him about:

• The role of Dota in his life;

• Why Pajkatt and MidOne are the best teammates;

• What it’s like to be the tallest Dota player;

• And why he was against Nightfall in Tundra.

– Martin, do you like Serbia?

– Yeah, it’s very close to me, I got here by car – it’s very convenient, but all is nice, I’ve been here before. I won a tournament here before, so everything is nice.

– Once I was flying with a female volleyball team and they were so tall. Is it hard to be 2 meters guy?

– Sometimes. When you’re traveling by planes... Sometimes it can be hard, but overall it’s fine.

– What about sitting on the desk with PC 24/7? Is it challenging?

– It can be, yes, especially when I’ve been doing it for so long. I’ve had some back problems from it – so, definitely not easy. Having a nice chair – it’s important. Ergonomic chair, so you don’t have back problems. Which I’m going to buy soon [laughs].

– Any kind of physical activity that helps you with the back problems? ‘Cause I have it also, but mostly with my neck. 

– I think stretching is important. It sometimes helps with my lower back pain that I have. I went to a place where they used to do decompressions, and they worked on some of my back stuff, and they told me what stretches to do to eliminate some of that pain. And I’ve been doing that. Walking is important, as well, it helps a lot.

– What kind of other stuff can you recommend?

– Food is an important one. No junk food. Try to eat food, not snacks. Eat as little bread as possible. Mostly protein, as much as you can, to build muscles. It helps – just typical healthy stuff.

– I mostly see you happy here, in Serbia. Are you a happy person?

– It’s a complicated question. 

– Why are you playing Dota and what do you find in this game that cheers you?

– Playing this game gives me some place to put my focus on. ‘Cause I feel like I don’t have a purpose in life – I’m confused, and I’m not sure what to do. Because if you have a lot of free time you can be unhappy, crazy even. So it’s good to have a purpose in life, for a man especially – need to have something to do and Dota is great for that. It’s also enjoyable, when you’re in the team, you’re playing together, you’re trying to win. It’s like you trying to achieve something together, that’s nice, it helps a lot. Pubs, not so much. It’s hard to play with people that are trying to ruin your day. You have to be very mentally tough to go through that every day for years. But Dota helps me a lot. And it’s the biggest thing I keep my focus on. That is nice.

– I wonder why people argue with each other in Dota and especially in teams. Why is it so difficult to be on the same page? 

– Dota is a complicated game and there’s more than one way to win. And there are five people, and they all have one idea how to win, and if one other guy doesn’t do your idea, people can get frustrated. And it happens a lot even in teams, happens in pubs too. For some people, like non-pros, Dota is a way to vent: they have a shitty day, they’re coming to Dota, and they just sit and leave all these frustrations.. And because one guy relaxes, the other guys are going to get mad – it’s like a snowball effect.

– Today I heard an opinion that «when Russians talk it’s like always arguing to each other». How do you rate the language and how does it sound to you? 

– It does sound, when people are talking, even if they are not trying to be, the words they used sound more aggressive than they really are. It’s not so bad, but maybe it falls off from pubs – people learn this behavior from other people. It sounds a bit more aggressive, but it’s not like that at all.

– How are things happening with Team Yandex guys? 

– After I left Tundra, it was a decision between taking a small break or trying to join if I saw a really good offer. At first, I’ve decided to take a break, because I barely see the best options and then I’ve talked to Watson and the Team Yandex opportunity came up. We decided we are going to try it out, to see how things go. So far, things are going even better than I’ve expected. I like the guys on the team, they are very easy to work with.

– And communicate?

– Communication is fine. Sometimes they talk in Russian with each other – It’s fine with me. I know when they talk in English, they’re talking to me, so it’s pretty simple [Laughs]. The guys have been very great, and they try to talk in English more, try to make it easier for me. For sure, they speak good enough English, and it’s very easy to understand each other. There are no problems, I don’t really see that big of a difference.

– You have a really long career, and you’ve played with a lot of great captains. Who was your best captain, and what did you learn from him or them? Cool features from each other?

– Maybe, Sneyking. He’s the captain that has not too strong opinions. What I want from my captain – he’s somebody that listens to others and is ready to accept their opinions. And tries to use it and tries to come up with something that’s best for the team. 

You can play with some players, and they are dictators – I don’t love this style. Usually, captains also play pos 5, and maybe they don’t understand what carry player wants or what some mid player wants. They don’t understand what their game is supposed to look like and when they force their opinion – they can be wrong a lot of times. That’s why I think the captain needs to be open-minded and try to see what’s good for their game and how to make it the best way for a team.

– Speaking about dictators: what was the most frustrating thing for you?

– When it comes to these people, it’s like… It’s either their way or no other way. And you have to listen to it and if you try to do something else – then there will be an argument, there will be fighting, you cannot get on the same page.

– Fighting like Puppey?

– [Laughs] No, not like physical fighting, but arguing mostly.

– Who was your best teammate in your career? N0tail?

– N0tail was good, but I won’t say he was my best. I think Pajkatt, actually. Pajkatt and MidOne, I would say. Pajkatt because he was one of the first people I’ve played with in a team. And he has helped me a lot in the beginning – he understood that I have potential, and he tried to show me what’s the best way to be a teamplayer: how to act and, to be honest, at the beginning I thought everybody was going to be like him and everybody was going to be good. But I realized years later that this guy knew what’s good, he knew how to be a good teammate, how to be a good person.

– Don’t you think that he was always underestimated?

– Yes, for sure. He could’ve easily been a TI-winner, I think he’s one of those great Dota-minds. He knows a lot about the game, but he didn’t get to show it, sadly. And he was really good, but he didn’t get the same success other people got.

– And what about MidOne?

– First of all he has great vibes. He was super easy to get along with, no problems whatsoever. And his dedication to Dota – it’s admirable, he’s always trying to get better and better, even now. That’s something I can learn from – and I did learn from him. And even now, after OG, we’re still friends and we talk. We almost played together again, and I like playing with him.

– How would you describe your play style? Who is «Saksa» in Dota? 

– As a player I play the best when I have a lot of freedom to do what I want, when people are not forcing ideas on me and I get to freely experiment. I think I’m a player that takes a lot of the map, I put pressure on the enemy team in that way. The pressure that you don’t really see on the map. Maybe I’m not an insanely high skill player – I’m decently high skilled, but I have a very specific play style that not many players do on pos 4.

– People talk about Gh: that he is the calmest, coolest and kindest person. I would say the same thing about you because I’ve never heard about any conflicts. How do you stay so cool and calm?

– I don’t always [Laughs]. Gh, for example, I’ve never heard him say anything bad in the pub, I’ve definitely flamed people in pubs even worse. As I get older I get calmer a bit, but when I was younger when something pissed me off I would argue back and won’t let it go. But as you get older even if somebody is annoying and is trying to argue with you, I’m like: «OK, you’re right», and I back off, just chill. Move away from conflict.

– When did you notice this transition in your attitude?

– 3–4 years ago maybe. Definitely after I won TI I cooled off a lot more, because I achieved my goal and was trying to be a bit more chill. Understanding that it’s important to also be a good teammate. It’s not always just about playing as good as you can, you also need to know when to back off and try to let people chill and try to be more positive on your team – that has a huge impact.

– I’m OK if you say «no» about the next question. What happened in the beef between you and Nightfall?

– To be honest, I don’t really dislike him as a person. It’s admirable that he’s really trying to win – of all the players that you notice, he wants to win the most. But I think his approach is kind of feckless, he wasn’t a good fit for Tundra, that’s what I thought. For example, when you’re playing on Tundra, an important part for us as a team is to have good communication in the game. People are silent a lot of times and when they make calls it’s kind of important and there’s no small talk, there’s no saying what they want. And with Nightfall I felt like there was no space for other people to talk on the team simply. And we worked with him a bit on that, but we didn’t really get anywhere. So I felt like he was maybe a bit stubborn on that, and I was unsure if It’s going to get better, because he seems like that type of person, he’s going to talk a lot and I just said that he wasn’t going to be a good fit for us.

– For winning in tournaments do you need luck, or do you just need more skill, preparation and proper mindset?

– Mindset is very important. There are a lot of teams that try to win tournaments, but because they were tense, they were afraid, they were not in a good mindset – they don’t play their best Dota. For example, OG TI8. They were definitely not the best team, but just because of the mindset they’ve won that tournament. 

And also experience. Once you get to that top level, and you get some experience playing and people understand that you don’t need to stress out so much – it can help a lot.

– How do you see the condition of a Dota pro-scene, and its future? And what do you think about TI’s losing its greatness, as it was before?

– First of all, I think it’s good there’s no DPC. For us, the pros, it’s nice there are tournaments all the time to play, because now you get to play, you get to make more money, and you get to travel. That’s good for us. 

I think, the thing is about Valve: they could make TI the biggest tournament still, but they just don’t want to put the effort in it. It’s definitely not as prestigious as before, but it’s still the biggest tournament of the year and people still put some value in being a TI-winner. If Valve puts a little bit of effort, puts Compendium, – people are begging for a Compendium, for a Battle Pass. It will help a lot. But there’s still a lot of interest in TI and, to be honest, I thought the Dota pro-scene was going to be dying out by now. But it’s still going strong, and it could very easily go for 10 more years.

– What and when did you feel when you won a TI? Did you realize at the same moment when the final was over, or maybe you needed some time to process that?

– I needed a few days to process it fully, to analyze. I felt relieved and I have this opinion: «Is this it? We just won TI, was it this easy?», because it felt easy, the way it happened. 

But we put a lot of work into that tournament: for a month and a half, we practiced non-stop. Winning TI – it’s not luck, winning TI is all about a preparation you do.

– So what’s the next big step? How do you see it?

– For now it’s trying to get Team Yandex to be as good as it can, like one of the top tier-1 teams. I think, I can bring impact to the team from my experience, I can show them how they can get better. For example, some habits they haven’t here as a team. It’s maybe not good, and I can bring some of them for the first time. It can kind of help with some things. In this team, there’s a lot of skill and potential. And I’m just trying to get them to the next level.

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We would like to thank BetBoom for their help in organizing the interview!

Photo: FISSURE.