Shopify Rebellion SabeRLight: “We’re getting ready to smash some noobs”

Just a few days before the start of DreamLeague Season 22, we got to chat with SabeRLight about the tournament, down time and his ideal new mechanic in Dota 2!

Sophie McCarthy: DreamLeague season 22 is going to be the first time we’ve seen Shopify in a tournament of this scale for some time.

How have you guys been spending the downtime between qualifiers and DreamLeague?

SabeRLight: So after the qualifiers ended, I took a break. I went to Italy with my family, do some skiing, eat some pizza and pasta. Amazing time. Then I was chilling at home. Theo and Kitrak, they stayed in Toronto some more, and then they came early to the boot camp. So they are on the grind. Just playing pubs and getting ready, and yeah now we’re here. Now we’re all here in the Netherlands and we’re getting ready to, you know, smash some noobs.

Sophie: I mean, I gotta ask about the Italian food though. What’s your favorite, the pizza or the pasta?

SabeRLight: I’m a pizza guy, but unfortunately, when you go skiing on the slopes, the pizza is, kind of mid. It’s like you have to go to a good restaurant.

Sophie: So, back on to Dota. We’ve just seen that the groups have been announced, and you guys are in group B with Team Spirit, Liquid and Tundra. There’s some pretty big teams there.

If you could choose an opponent for your first matchup, who would you pick?

SabeRLight: I mean, I want to play Liquid at some point because I think it will be funny if we beat them. So, yeah, I want to beat Liquid, but I would probably start with some, you know, easier opponents, maybe Team Secrets. Someone like that. I mean, the thing is, whoever I say now, I have to beat them. So it’s like extra pressure. So, no team specifically. And then eventually, we’ll work our way up to Liquid.

Sophie: I wanted to ask a little bit about your three new-ish members that you’ve got in Shopify.

How have you guys built up a relationship and the synergy in the team ready for DreamLeague?

SabeRLight: We’re just playing, working every day. BuLba’s helping a lot with that. He’s just watching replays with the with the new guys, and we’re just talking about Dota. We play some scrims, then we watch what should happen in certain scenarios and stuff like that. So it’s hard to say if we’re there yet, but we’re certainly heading in the right direction.

How long have you guys been boot camping?

SabeRLight: Not too long, I think, like three days. Yeah, we have a one week boot camp before the tournament starts, and then all hell breaks loose.

How much does the boot camp affect your performance? Is it really helpful or would you rather have that downtime?

SabeRLight: I think you have to balance it out. It’s good to boot camp, especially if it’s like a nice boot camp, which here in Utrecht, it’s super cool. We can walk outside and it’s nice vibes. At least for me, if I play too much Dota or even if I like to spend too much time with the team where we’re together for months on end, which it’s not too bad, but it’s like there is a limit to it where I think it’s good to decompress. Just like do your own stuff, go home and just relax. So just trying to find that balance.

Sophie: I was going to ask you because obviously we don’t have the DPC anymore. Perhaps you guys aren’t jumping from the DPC to Major and back to DPC.

Do you prefer this kind of structure?

SabeRLight: I think the problem with DPC is it’s way too long and the opponents are too bad. For lack of a better word. I think it’s good because now we play better teams and it’s more exciting at the same time. I think we’re actually playing more Dota this year than last year. We boot camp for like a month for the qualifiers like BetBoom and then the two ESL tournaments.

Then we took like a two week break and now we’re boot camping for a week. Then it’s going to be like two week DreamLeague. And then we’re heading straight to Toronto for another boot camp to play two more qualifiers. If we qualify, we might just fly straight from Toronto to one of the tournaments.

So we’re just going to be on the road for 1 or 2 months. And who knows, maybe from that tournament we fly to another one. So it’s like, it’s a lot of Dota.

Sophie: We’ve had some pretty massive changes in Dota in the last year. Rumor has it that Ringmaster is going to be dropping very soon.

Do you have any predictions about the hero? What role do you think he’s going to be in?

SabeRLight: Let me think. I haven’t put much thought into Ringmaster. I kind of forgot about that entirely, but I think it’s going to be some disabler type of guy. So it’s probably going to be either mid or support. It doesn’t look like a carry hero. I’ll try to make it work on offlane, obviously, but yeah, we’ll see. But, exciting stuff. Can’t wait for the next update.

Do you guys get to take part in the in-game events or are you just playing captain’s mode?

SabeRLight: Depends. I think it’s just like when it’s a fun one, then yeah. Then we just kind of do it on our own. And then if like two or more people enjoy it on the team, then we just do it together. But to be honest, last time that happened was Aghanim’s Labyrinth, the original one that was like the best game ever. And I always tell Valve people to just do it again. And they did not. I mean, they did it again once, but the second time it was like without the rewards. So then it’s like, that is boring. So I’m still praying that one day they will like reintroduce like something similar to Agh’s Labyrinth with like rewards and stuff.

Sophie: I couldn’t agree more! Just one last question – if you could design a new Dota hero and put anything into the game:

What new hero would you design?

SabeRLight: Something new, it needs to have a new mechanic or something. For example, I think like with the Bane Nightmare spell, you lose vision right or I think Bushwhack does it too, even though I’m not sure right now. The point is to have a hero that throws a spell at someone and they just lose vision and they have to rely on other people’s vision. I was gonna suggest to IceFrog that Ravage on Tidehunter should also have that blind effect. So if you Ravage an entire team, suddenly they don’t see anything for like 2 seconds. Just some new mechanic, they need to spice it up a little bit.