DRB Qualifiers #4 and HiiB Spotlight

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Article Link - DRB Qualifiers #4 and HiiB Spotlight

DRB Qualifiers #4 is planned to take place on February 4^th and 5^th. We have six North Americans teams in total participating in this tournament (Skill Difference, GDT, WIDS?, It's GoSu, HiiB, and WWCD), as well as Team FIRE, who are already in the finals for the DRB tournament. Today, we had the pleasure of interviewing inK^, the captain for Team HiiB (Hop in inK’s Backpack), and learning more about his team. Remember to tune in for the DRB Tournament Pre-Qualifiers tomorrow and cheer on our NA DotA teams!



inK^
Name: *Corey Roell
Age: *20
Location: *Batesville, IN
Past Teams: *None
DotA Experience: *7 years, 2 years (competitive)

Favorites
Team: *Ks.Nirvana
Player: *Yamateh
Hero: *Kunkka, Meepo
Item: *Necronomicon
Food: *Chicken
Drink: *Chocolate Milk
Song: *Elliott Yamin - Wait For You
Other Interests: *Starcraft 2, Football

Can you please introduce yourself?

Hi, my name is Corey Roell. I have been playing DotA 1 on and off for about 7 years now. About 2 years of that was playing with my team for fun and in competitions. I just recently bought a new computer so that I could start playing DotA 2.

What role do you play for your team?

Back in DotA 1, I was ganker/semi-carry. As of now though, in DotA 2, I play as support because I am still getting used to the game and my team is way better than me.

How did your team come together?

The team started back around 2009. I first met Ephraim and he introduced me to Koreya and Powernet. The four of us just started playing a lot together and decided to make a team. People along the way that helped our team a lot and played with us to fill in the roster were Saga, DeadPrez, Jubei, and Daisy.

How confident do you feel for the DRB pre-qualifiers?

Sadly, I can not make it tomorrow for the match because of work, but I am pretty confident in my team's skill.

Who will be filling your spot? Do you believe that your team can play at their best without you?

Daisy will be filling in for me. She has been playing the game for a lot longer than I have, so I am sure the team will be fine without me. Actually, it will probably be better without me. ^_^

That's good to hear. Are you usually in the drafting seat?

In DotA 1, I would do the picks and ask the team what the thought about picks/bans just to make sure everyone felt confident with our picks. But in DotA 2, because I am very new to the game and the game is different because of the amount of heroes in the pool, so Koreya normally does picks for us all the time and he will be doing the picks tomorrow for the matches.

Your team's first match tomorrow is against Never Back Down, a South East Asian team. Do you know this team's playstyle?

We actually have no idea how this team plays. But the team has been playing a lot of games together recently and I think as long as our team picks something they are comfortable with and play smart they have a really good chance of winning.

What kind of strategies does your team usually run? And what kind of heroes does your team usually pick to fit that lineup?

Well, our team has really never run any sort of strategies in the past. We usually just try to counter the other team’s line up and pick heroes that fit each of our players. Sometimes, depending on bans and what has been picked early on, we may decide to do a pushing strategy and our last two or three picks will fit that, but for the most part we don't run any sort of strategy.

There are three other Americans teams attending the pre-qualifiers (co9.GDT, Skill Difference, and We Watch Chinese DotA). Do you think they're as strong as your team?

I do not know who is on Skill Difference or We Watch Chinese DotA but I do know GDT has been around for a long time and continues to get better as a team, so I am sure they will have a good chance at winning their matches tomorrow. I can't really compare my team to any of the others though because it’s DotA 2 and I honestly haven't played against any of them yet.

What kind of heroes do you think are exceedingly powerful? Does your team plan on instantly picking or banning the "overpowered" heroes?

Heroes that I feel are worth picking or banning right away are Furion, Dark Seer, Chen, NS, Void, AM, and Invoker. Each of these heroes, from what I've seen and experienced, is all very strong in DotA 2 at the moment.

Dark Seer is a hero that's only recently been considered to be exceptionally powerful.* What is your personal opinion on Dark Seer?

I personally always thought DS was a strong hero even in DotA 1 and our team picked him for a couple of our matches. I think right now the hero is very strong because of the lack of heroes in the game and because teams are just not used to seeing the hero a lot so people haven't figured out a way to counter or deal with him.

American teams are showing strong results in recent tournaments. Do you see this as the beginning of a bright future for NADotA in DotA 2?

I hope so and hopefully we begin to see more sponsors in North America helping out these strong teams so that they may continue to get better. Hopefully these teams can stick together and not let little things split them up, which has always been a problem in the past for North American teams.

If you could implement the next few heroes into DotA 2, who would they be?

I would say to add Visage for an Intelligence hero because I think the hero adds a lot to the game. The hero is a very strong support hero in lane and is capable of pushing lanes and ganking across the map with his ultimate throughout the entire game. For an agility hero I would want Geomancer just mainly because he's one of my favorite heroes. Lastly for a strength hero I would want Pandaren Brewmaster added to the game because again like Visage he is a powerful pushing and ganking hero and is capable of carrying.

If there was a LAN in North America, would you attend?

Yes, if my whole team is able to make it. We would for sure attend any LAN including outside of America.

Have you attended a LAN before? How do you think performance will differ in a LAN setting?

I have been to two LANs before but they were nothing serious. I went to the Toronto LAN just recently and then before that I went to the IU (Indiana University) LAN they have every so often. I hope to one day play in a MLG or something like that just for the experience at least.*For the second part of the question, I think if we were taking it 100% serious as a team we would play at our highest level, but honestly I think because of our personalities and past we would probably mess up a lot and goof around.

What are your goals, both as a player and as a team?

My goals as a player have changed a lot recently. If it was ever possible for me to put all my time into gaming I would set my goals very high to be honest. I would like to see myself going to every LAN possible and becoming the very best team in the world. However, right now because of a few different reasons, I haven't spent all my time into the game and because of that I have almost changed what I would do for my team - like go more into just managing the team and all that. As for the goals of my team, we would honestly first just like to attend a LAN such as MLG.

Thank you for your time and good luck tomorrow at Team HiiB’s opening match! Any shoutouts?

Shoutout to Kittens and Wulfang. And of course the entire team of HiiB, you guys are the best!

Team HiiB (Hop in inK’s Backpack) Roster:

*Corey "inK" Roell
*David "Koreya" Kim
*Jaron "Monkeys-Forever" Clinton
*James "DeadPrez" Nguyen
*Misha "imp" Kurbatov<a href="http://nadota.com/1006/drb-qualifiers-4-and-hiib-spotlight/canada/" rel="attachment wp-att-1060">
</a>*Diana "Daisy" Kuang

Comment on this article

[HANNAH_MONTANA]

DDDDDDDDD

[IcyLogik]

lot of extra views

[Phazed]

should throw daisys pic on there too youll get extra views

!vouch

You'd get at least one view per night from me.

[nitestryker]

good luck corey!

[HANNAH_MONTANA]

should throw daisys pic on there too youll get extra views

!vouch

You'd get at least one view per night from me.

DDDDDDDDDDDD

[Arteezy]

ya daisy <3

[Live]

This team is gonna make waves yo

#deadprezrapes

[Risk]

james nguyen is cute :3

[mikey]

good luck America, unfortunately we signed up too late and are unable to compete for a chance at the final four. rooting for Its GoSu to pull through!

[MiGGy]

GL!
nice interview
and good luck to the team, seems really strong, and ive played with most of the people on it

no shoutout

[Demise]

gl to you guys

what happened to ben?

[imp]

dang no shoutout to kitty, damon, miggy, mono and dima wut is this???

[m0rphl1ng]

Good luck HiiB!!! We love you guys (and I'd sleep with most of you.. or in ink's case already have)

Much better pic than the Toronto ones Corey!