An Interview with bgod

This interview is the first in a planned monthly series of interviews with players and talent in the tier two North American DOTA scene.

For anyone who doesn’t know, who are you?

Yeah, I’m bgod. I play position four for Team Plasma. I am a 17 year-old NA player.

So you are playing in the BTS Pro Series Season 2: Americas. How has that been so far?

It’s been pretty cool. I wasn’t really expecting to be invited. Another team dropped out so we got to play in it. It’s been a cool experience.

So when you found out that you were invited, was there a team you really wanted to play against and maybe take a game or series off of?

Yeah, definitely [Evil Geniuses]. EG has been considered NA’s best team for a while. We didn’t win the series, but it would have been cool too. I kind of look up to the org as the fathers of NA Dota or something.

So for a while the community was complaining that the Tier Two scene, and specifically North America’s, was unsustainable or not viable. What do you think about the scene as it stands right now?

It’s definitely not viable… there are very few tournaments. Like, Underdogs (League) is the biggest tournament I think, and it’s only like $400 (per player) for first. Then, on top of that there are only, like, two sponsors in NA: EG and CRaZY, and CRaZY is an EU org sponsoring an NA team. 

So Valve shared information* back in February about a new DPC season, obviously this has been delayed due to COVID. Has the break made it easier to find tournaments to play in? Has it helped or hurt your team?

*Information about the new DPC changes can be found here.

Well I don’t think it has really effected the tier two scene because most tournaments were already online. It kind of effected the tier one scene though because there are no open qualifiers. You have to be lucky and be invited, like we got invited (to BTS Pro Series 2) because another team dropped out and we were the next best thing or something I guess. 

So assuming this new DPC season happens, do you think the new prize distribution will benefit tier two teams like yours? I think last place in the league is a few thousand dollars or something.

Yeah, like adding more money will always help. There are less than five tier two NA teams right now. Maybe more teams will develop for this; maybe there will be more tournaments. There would be more streams. Like, you could be a really good mid player, the next SumaiL or something, but it’s so hard to get noticed unless you get invited to a big tournament. There are tons of good players that aren’t pursuing DOTA because it’s too hard. I think they see it as a waste of time almost. 

So that’s all the serious questions I have for you. Ice Frog did say we were getting a balance patch in about two weeks. If you could tell ice frog to buff a hero or nerf something would you?

Yeah for sure. I would buff Skywrath Mage. He is my favorite hero, or that I play a lot. I am hoping Lycan and summon heroes get nerfed so they aren’t so good. Maybe a techies buff [laughs] but definitely Skywrath. 

Is there anyone you would like to mention or anything else you would like to add?

Sure, shoutout to my sponsor plasma1337x.