Jonathan "Loda" Berg is currently a member of the No Tidehunter Dota 2 squad. Following their win at Dreamhack Winter and a second place finish in the Thor Open 2012, No Tidehunter came to be regarded as one of the top teams in the Western Dota 2 scene. So far in 2013 they have won three straight EMS Cups and are ready to take on the competition in the main tournament. As one of the leading members of No Tidehunter, and indeed as one of the most experienced DotA players on the scene today, we wanted to delve deeper into the thoughts of Loda with this interview + Q&A. Today, we learn more about his new teammates, their current run, and his general thoughts on the scene.
First off, your team has been riding a hot streak recently, leading StarLadder and winning multiple EMS Cups (thus securing the top seed in the group stage). What can you attribute the team's recent play to?
Loda
I would say our recent success is a combination of hard work, great team spirit, and good ingame synergy. We have the perfect combination of personalities on our team. This is what I've always been striving for. We are a team of friends, we have fun when we play, we handle losses well and we don't flame each other when we make mistakes ^^. It is also a huge plus to be able to speak Swedish within the team.
You brought up being able to communicate in Swedish. What else has EGM been able to bring to your team? Also, how did you end up adding him to the mix?
Loda
Well, I've been playing with EGM for quite some time, I guess after niqua introduced him to me sometime last year. EGM is an awesome addition; he has high individual skill and he fits really well into the team, not only as a player but also as a person. He is confident in himself and the calls he makes and works well with me and Akke. I mean, what doesn't he add to the team? :D
Teams have been experimenting with lots of different heroes recently, including your recent dominating performance on Spectre. What do you think we can expect over the next couple months?
Loda
Well I'm not sure if I would call it experimenting. I mean, we pick heroes that we believe are the best in the situation. The Spectre pick was kinda my suggestion, and s4 asked me if I was confident in it and I am, so ^^. I honestly feel that most heroes are viable in the current meta. I feel teams are too afraid of practicing rarely picked heroes. Usually they try it once, fail and then give up on the hero. Most of the carries at the moment are very situational, but that doesn't mean they don't work.
Your team has recently been seeded into the second phase of the G-1 Champions League West Qualifiers. How do you feel about their outreach to Western teams? Do you think Western teams stand a good chance in the tournament?
Loda
I feel it's great of them. By reaching out to Europe and North America they help all the regions improve their play and make the competition more interesting. I think there should be more tournaments where the West can play vs China, so this is a great step in the right direction. I think it's up to every team individually ^^.
First of all we have the qualifier. After that, well then we can focus on analyzing China.
Fair enough, one step at a time. I have to ask this, as I know if I don't, many members of the community will: Is there anything you can reveal about your still mysterious sponsorship?
Loda
Haha, nothing much yet. We are close to announcing it though. Not even Blizzard soon, it's seriously soon. :D
I'm sure that will make everyone pretty excited. My last question is something a few of the staff have been wondering, and we need some of your expertise on. How did Gollum get out of Moria and continue to follow the Fellowship after Gandalf destroyed the Bridge of Khazad-Dum?
Loda
HAHA... Sigh... Well you should all know that Gollum is an expert wall/mountain climber, and most likely he just climbed on the ceiling :D
Seems like my past still haunts me...
It all makes sense now.
Thanks for the interview! See you again on Saturday to answer the community's questions!
Loda
Npnp.
Community Q&A
By the TL Community
Loda will be back tomorrow to talk directly to you. Starting at around Saturday, Mar 23 1:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00), No Tidehunter's Loda will answer your questions right here in this thread.
Have a question you'd like to ask him? Just go ahead and post it right here!
You have often been critisised of being the weak link of nth or at the very least being someone with too much influence on the team for the team's own good, how do you cope with this critique and what do you think of it, as is it something you need to work on or is it complete gibberish?
Also, what's the largest difference between being on nth and on SK?
Hi Loda, when are you moving in together into your team house, are you waiting to announce your sponsor and then move to the team house or will it be before? Any chance we might have a bootcamp in China prior to TI3 like EG did last year?
Do you think Koreans will be as good in Dota as they are in other RTS games like LoL or SC(2).Currently there is only one notable korean in SeleCT. Give your thoughts and opinions!
You got a lot of flame for kicking eternalenvy (off his own team!). Do you feel it was justified the flame only seemed to hit you and not the others on the team? How do you feel about the whole thing now after the dust has settled?
Hi Loda, what do you think is be most underrated hero in the current meta? I don't know if you saw clairvoyance's breaking the meta post, but he said that Zeus is really good. If you cast 4 spells in a fight you don't loose. Can you add to this please? Thanks
Hiho everyone. I know TL has the smartest fans and forumers out there, so now impress me with you intelligent questions! And ill do my best to answer them
Wanted Tephus to ask this in the interview but he didn't get round to it...how did you meet KellyMilkies? And how did you feel being thrown into the Singaporean culture? What's your favourite dish from Singapore?
When you say "Most of the heroes are viable", do any jump out as never being viable? It's one of my dreams to see rarely played heroes like Medusa or Timbersaw in a professional game :D
TPL seems to have messed up their recording though, and the Spectre game is missing (only picks+gg for some reason) Here is the Russian VOD, which seems to be the only one available if you don't have an in-game ticket.
TPL seems to have messed up their recording though, and the Spectre game is missing (only picks+gg for some reason) Here is the Russian VOD, which seems to be the only one available if you don't have an in-game ticket.
On March 22 2013 22:43 Loda wrote: Hiho everyone. I know TL has the smartest fans and forumers out there, so now impress me with you intelligent questions! And ill do my best to answer them
Do you enjoy practicing one game as much as you do or is it more of a job?
I believe it would be interesting to see high level players play a different game mode with more varied picks, do you think random draft is suitable for high level play?
On March 22 2013 22:43 Loda wrote: Hiho everyone. I know TL has the smartest fans and forumers out there, so now impress me with you intelligent questions! And ill do my best to answer them
Cheers
how can you be so beautiful and still so good at dota ?
I have watched a lot of NTH's games and I have the feeling that Akke is an extremely good support player, possibly the best in Europe, but I remember him playing heroes like PotM, Necrolyte, SF, and other semi-carries in the past during the old SK days. How did you decide to rotate his role, and how did you figure out your current roles? Do you experiment with roles when you practice?
Midas seem to be a very popular item with you, even on Luna(A hero who has strond migame teamfighting presence, Midas does delay this). Why do you think Midas is so good?
At TI2 you played alot of offlane Dark Seer, currently you are always on the safelane putting Bulldog on offlane even with a Lone Druid. I have no problem with this. However, why is this never switched around? It feels like some games could benefit from putting Lone Druid on safe and you taking the offlane role without an aggressive trilane. Why have we never seen this?
I'm asking because I feel that most games where your LD pull ahead you also win the game. NTH as a team plays the LD really damn good, but never as slot 1, because Sylla is "Bulldogs hero" and he is stuck on offlane..
Q: Following the great success of your first single (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnBuj9gdKrM), when can we expect the next one to come? Been waiting for ages now.
@Loda: You can probably guess from my username that we share a common interest, have you ever played The Lord of the Rings Online? If not you should try it out, it's much more casual and relaxing compared to DoTA.
My team also struggles to win in trilane vs trilane situations. What tips do you have to improve success for tri vs tri's? I think our failures might have to do with not being aggressive enough when the opportunity presents itself but are there other things you look for as well? Keep up the good work! Been a fan since 08.
- You feel that Western teams have too much respect for the Chinese, when facing them, thus losing a bit confidence in their own abilities? - Do you think you have learned something from past mistakes, when it comes to communication within the team? - Do any of you meditate? - Can you feel in the pit of your stomach, when you are in the zone, before the match, or does that become a realization when it happens? - How high is continuity on the Nth list? - You have said that you are the one that often speaks up. Is it something the team has worked on, so more people chips in? - Did you think you did enough to make it work with EE in terms of communication? - Do you believe in Karma? - If you were an animal, which animal do you think you share the most traits with? - You scrimmed very much, but felt the results lacked with the effort. Do you think you could have made it more effective? Did you learn something from it, that is now used/worked on in Nth now?
In his G-League commentary, N3komata said that his only memory of playing against you was a practice match where you tried to show off by farming at low HP with Armlet, and accidentally killed yourself by toggling Armlet at the wrong time and getting killed by a ranged creep. Do you have any recollection of when this game was?
while having an all-swedish roster you've enjoyed some incredible results and also made the team to seem like more of a cohese dota unit,
How much have the all-swedish roster conrributed to this?
Do you feel that it is easier to mold a team when you share the same language and timezone?
Did you recruit EGM with the vision of him beong a pure support or did you think about rotating admiral bulldog and him, seeing as he was mostly known as an offlaner earlier? (vague i know)
Who do you think should make the calls in a game? With my team I often see us drifting way too much because everyone says it's own thing and that has cost us many games. I would like to know your input on how to direct a team, what calls are the best calls to make(like, should you make calls for a fight/chase you are not currently involved in?). Thank you very much.
What games did you play as a child that lead to your current passion for team-based strategy games? What games did you first play on the computer to make you drawn to that medium? Did you play lots of board games growing up? Chess? Go? Did you play lots of sports?
On March 22 2013 20:44 Iplaythings wrote: I suppose I ask the questions here..?
You have often been critisised of being the weak link of nth or at the very least being someone with too much influence on the team for the team's own good, how do you cope with this critique and what do you think of it, as is it something you need to work on or is it complete gibberish?
Also, what's the largest difference between being on nth and on SK?
Haha well critique like this is obviously annoying to read or hear, but the public really has no clue whats going on within the teams, they like to guess and presume but its usually far from the truth Me having too much influence in a team THAT I CREATED is a weird oppinion. Especially since the results speak for themselves. But obviously I have flaws that I have to work on. But in our team we strive to be better and therefore we are not afraid to make mistakes.
Actually the difference between SK and nth is not so different. Ever since the SK days ive been trying to build a team of great synergy, trust and pretty much... friendship! Though I believe nth has a higher skill cap.
On March 22 2013 22:53 Firebolt145 wrote: Wanted Tephus to ask this in the interview but he didn't get round to it...how did you meet KellyMilkies? And how did you feel being thrown into the Singaporean culture? What's your favourite dish from Singapore?
Me and Kelly have some mutual friends whom I met at eswc 2008. Somehow we got in contact and started chatting. Pretty much we became really really good friends, but we never met up. long story short we met at DH winter 2011, i begged her to let me stay at her hotel room (since we got scammed by sponsor), and from that moment ive been in love with her.
I love the Singaporean culture, it reminds me a lot of Sweden in some weird ways. And my Favorite dish would prolly be... Hm SALTED EGG CRAB!
On March 23 2013 22:47 Kipsate wrote: What do you think about SK gaming in the future?Maelk once said that they are a relic of the past if I am not mistaken, do you agree with this?
Very hard to say, I agree to an extent with Maelk. I feel SK has made questionable decisions in the past etc, but I mean atleast their lol team has Ocelote!
I was just wondering who is the one team and or player that you just hate playing against? not for personal reasons but just because of in game skill. For instance I would think most players would hate having to lane against Admiral Bulldogs Lone druid because he can control the lane so well with the bear.
On March 22 2013 23:29 Confuse wrote: Cool interview.
When you say "Most of the heroes are viable", do any jump out as never being viable? It's one of my dreams to see rarely played heroes like Medusa or Timbersaw in a professional game :D
Im not sure about Dusa, but Timbersaw should alrdy be viable.
On March 22 2013 22:43 Loda wrote: Hiho everyone. I know TL has the smartest fans and forumers out there, so now impress me with you intelligent questions! And ill do my best to answer them
Cheers
how can you be so beautiful and still so good at dota ?
Ah my favorite kind of question! Its a combination of genes, confidence and being fabolous.
What's your most awesome game u done? even in dota1 or dota2, what do you think that going to change until TI3? and you think that your team will make at least the finals of TI3? (and please don't retire after TI3 :'/)
On March 23 2013 03:08 Kipsate wrote: Midas seem to be a very popular item with you, even on Luna(A hero who has strond migame teamfighting presence, Midas does delay this). Why do you think Midas is so good?
Also, will we ever see Necrolyte?!
To be honest ive started to play less and less with midas in officials. I do think its a good item, but mostly because of the xp boost you get from using it.
Necrolyte is a possibility but im not sure how I feel about the hero yet. I guess it could be a situational pick, but im not sure in what situation? :D What do you think? In push? In turtle?
On March 23 2013 04:00 fuzzhit wrote: Q: Following the great success of your first single (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnBuj9gdKrM), when can we expect the next one to come? Been waiting for ages now.
Haha... Great success. WELL I am working on a new song o// but it needs some time to reach perfection! :D
How about you actually make my first single into a great success and THEN I release the new one!!!? :D
On March 23 2013 03:08 Kipsate wrote: Midas seem to be a very popular item with you, even on Luna(A hero who has strond migame teamfighting presence, Midas does delay this). Why do you think Midas is so good?
Also, will we ever see Necrolyte?!
To be honest ive started to play less and less with midas in officials. I do think its a good item, but mostly because of the xp boost you get from using it.
Necrolyte is a possibility but im not sure how I feel about the hero yet. I guess it could be a situational pick, but im not sure in what situation? :D What do you think? In push? In turtle?
Mass sustained pushing with Necrolyte, Chen, maybe Pugna. You ban out the KOTL. The Pugna constantly makes it impossible for the enemy to engage(and counterpush) because of the ward and the Pugna blast constantly pushing, Pugna also disables enemy phsyical dps carries(like the Naix) to go on you and makes it hard for heroes such as QoP and Puck(popular solo mid heroes) to engage(Zap will hit before phase shift now). Add in a Syllybear for good measure on the offlane if you will. Granted the team doesn't have any fucking disables but fuck that.
Oke so maybe I just think Pugna is a bit underrated, what do you think about him?
Hey Loda, been supporting you since the SK days Two questions: 1. From the dota1 heroes not currently in the dota2 pool, which one do you miss the most? 2. Does anyone from the old SK days play dota 2 now (apart from you and akke of course), like kwom, renji, bogdan, tompa, hailo etc?
On March 23 2013 05:40 Dracolich70 wrote: Hi Loda,
- You feel that Western teams have too much respect for the Chinese, when facing them, thus losing a bit confidence in their own abilities? - Do you think you have learned something from past mistakes, when it comes to communication within the team? - Do any of you meditate? - Can you feel in the pit of your stomach, when you are in the zone, before the match, or does that become a realization when it happens? - How high is continuity on the Nth list? - You have said that you are the one that often speaks up. Is it something the team has worked on, so more people chips in? - Did you think you did enough to make it work with EE in terms of communication? - Do you believe in Karma? - If you were an animal, which animal do you think you share the most traits with? - You scrimmed very much, but felt the results lacked with the effort. Do you think you could have made it more effective? Did you learn something from it, that is now used/worked on in Nth now?
GL Loda and rest of Nth.
- I think this is correct yes. The Chinese are insanely good, but a lot of teams (Was the same thing for us in Zenith) get scared when they play the chinese. They see LGD rape their group without a loss, and suddenly everyone thinks that the Chinese picks are the best. But whats most important is that you stay true to your own playstyle and play your own game. Na'vi did that somewhat in the playoffs of TI2, and it did pay off
- I learn from every mistake and experience in Dota. For about two years ive had this feeling of what I needed in a team to make it truly great. But CLG didnt work out the way I wanted(not due to results), and it made me try out playing with Zenith. When I made nth I still looked for the same things as I did when I made CLG, though S4 convinced me we had to have Envy on the team so I agreed. Here 4 months later im finally here, I have the team ive been trying so hard to create and it feels extremely good. And this is not even due to our great results lately, I can honestly say everyone on the team is my friend, and I love becoming better as a player and as a team together with them!
- I dont think any of us meditate, but ive honestly considered it ^^
- I can indeed feel that pit of my stomach before a game, especially during LAN tournaments, the hours leading up to the final etc. I love that feeling haha, the moment before everything breaks lose.
- Yes its something we have been working on, but lately it has just come naturally.
- Me and Envy will have different views on this, but I feel I reached out to Envy A LOT of times. I told him he had to involve me and the rest more in how he does things for months before he had to leave the team. I wanted Envy to come and ask me for my opinions. This was very annoying for me since Envy was never a decided leader of the team or anything, we let him take the leading role on the team because he had played with s4 and Bulldog before, and it made it easier for us to work as a team. I was supposed to kick him from the team 1 week before I did, but I gave him a new chance to play as a player on the team and not as the captain. He refused to step down as captain. And yep thats about it.
- I think what goes around comes around yes.
- If I was an animal I would probably be a Penguin or a Lion! You will have to guess why yourselves! :D
On March 23 2013 07:26 divinia wrote: while having an all-swedish roster you've enjoyed some incredible results and also made the team to seem like more of a cohese dota unit,
How much have the all-swedish roster conrributed to this?
Do you feel that it is easier to mold a team when you share the same language and timezone?
Did you recruit EGM with the vision of him beong a pure support or did you think about rotating admiral bulldog and him, seeing as he was mostly known as an offlaner earlier? (vague i know)
Haha hard to say how much but I think its helps us a lot as a team, to communicate and just get along better.
Yes I feel it helps a lot, and its gonna make staying in a house together much easier.
My plan for EGM was always that he would play the support. Ive played with him quite a lot and I had great faith in him as a player and as a person. So I knew he would adapt fast. I mean... bulldog not playing sylla when its in the game? :D BLASPHEMY
Thoughts on the current direction Valve is taking the game and how it affects the growth of the scene? I.E no ladder, slow development etc. Also how is the over saturation of tournaments right now affecting you as a pro i.e lots of tournaments but no big prize pools.
On March 23 2013 08:19 RoyGBiv_13 wrote: What games did you play as a child that lead to your current passion for team-based strategy games? What games did you first play on the computer to make you drawn to that medium? Did you play lots of board games growing up? Chess? Go? Did you play lots of sports?
When I was really young I played some strategy games on the Amiga. I believe Warlords or Kings of bounty was the first strategy game I played :D From there on it would go on to be a lot of rpgs, and then Heroes 1-2-3. Those games were damn awesome. After that Starcraft + BW, Age of empires, wc3 etc etc. But all in all ive played a lot of different games ^^.
Ive always played board games aswell, im really drawn to strategic games, and when you can taunt and trick your friends around a table well.. I like that... :D For some reason I never played a lot of chess. I played Tennis, Golf and floorball.
What do you think of the importance of optimizing your play with little things? Like using the available ingame hotkeys to buy your quickbuy items, or the sticky item( usually tp). So many pro's are still stuck with their old wc3 mechanics.
Do you think there are any teams in the EU/NA scene with higher potential then their results? I.e. a current tier 2 team that could make the leap and become a tier 1 team if things start to click or a tier 1 team that could, from your point of view, become much better but just isn't performing up to their potential? Excluding nth of course :p
Edit; classic cases of "better in scrims than officials".
On March 23 2013 23:52 Esoterikk wrote: Thoughts on the current direction Valve is taking the game and how it affects the growth of the scene? I.E no ladder, slow development etc. Also how is the over saturation of tournaments right now affecting you as a pro i.e lots of tournaments but no big prize pools.
I feel that Valve is handling it the right way. Sure it may be slow, but its growing all the time, and the game just keeps getting better and better. I mean just such a thing as the model of the items u put on the ground etc.
I think there should be a better ranking system in dota, but I dont want the hon KDA style.
On March 23 2013 23:55 Aixler wrote: What do you think of the importance of optimizing your play with little things? Like using the available ingame hotkeys to buy your quickbuy items, or the sticky item( usually tp). So many pro's are still stuck with their old wc3 mechanics.
I think this is extremely important. It can just help you in your play a lot. Envy was the one that taught me to use quickbuy and sticky a lot. So im ready to shop before I die. So those times enemies gank you with 3 people, use 2 ults etc you dont lose much at all, and you can even use the fact that your opponents have ulti cds by pushing etc.
On March 23 2013 23:58 Legace wrote: Do you think there are any teams in the EU/NA scene with higher potential then their results? I.e. a current tier 2 team that could make the leap and become a tier 1 team if things start to click or a tier 1 team that could, from your point of view, become much better but just isn't performing up to their potential? Excluding nth of course :p
Hm I had to check the gosugamers ranking for that haha. I think 4fc could become A LOT stronger if they just got a proper ingame leader and game plan. They tend to do well on lane but the rest of the game seems harder to them.
Who's the player you respect the most (not including your teammates), both internationally and those in the Chinese scene?
Among SEA teams, who do you see as potential dark horses for TI3 (excluding Zenith and Orange)?
What's the difference between playing carry back in the MYM Pride days and playing carry now in Dota 2?
Do you think Huskar, Treant, and Spirit Breaker can be used competitively?
What's the most important thing about being a carry nowadays? Survival? Gamesense? Ability to farm even when behind?
Do you think there's any particular difference between the scenes in terms of roles? Like, do the Chinese carries play differently from the EU/NA carries? How about the SEA teams you've scrimmed with during the Zenith days?
Sweden is a strong gaming nation in general, something that holds even more true for Dota. Seeing as we have big tournaments in Dreamhack, and now also Thor open, SVT has started taking steps towards broadcasting esports, Qpandas as well as yourself are wispering about team houses and in general there is a big player pool consisting of teams such as 4FC. What would you like to see as a next big step to further improve on the competitive environment in Sweden? What would further cement Sweden as a growing ground for future talent?
1. How do you think that the meta will develop once more heroes become available? For example, do you think that 5xpush strategy will become more viable? (Currently I think it is hard to make work unless the opponents go greedy).
2. Do you feel the lack of communities is present? For example, in dota1 there was a wide range of communities for noobs, mid skilled and pros to play in when not scrimming. I guess for EU dotapickup, dotainvite and IHCS1+2 would fit this template.
- What heroes do you look at and say: "I wish this hero was as good or as fun as in original DotA"
- I was under the impression that EE "created" NTH, but that's not the case? Could you clear up any misunderstandings regarding this?
- In a game like Starcraft 2, you can't have too many different units because that makes it hard to balance the game. In Dota 2 captains mode you can only ban 5 heroes, and pick 5 heroes on each team. Is it possible to keep adding more and more heroes without making these 5 bans less and less impactful and the strategic depth in picking heroes too big?
Hey everyone, thanks for all the great questions! The Q&A is done for now, but Loda should be back later today to answer some of the questions he couldn't get to.
Necrolyte is a possibility but im not sure how I feel about the hero yet. I guess it could be a situational pick, but im not sure in what situation? :D What do you think? In push? In turtle?
I think Necolyte is a great hero but he is best played as a 3 and can't offlane, so he doesn't really fit into the metagame. That being said he has very powerful heal potential with Mek because it lets you get live for at least 2 of your spam heals, and you can't beat a stun that goes through magic immunity with relatively low cd at higher levels. Maybe he could jungle and protect offlane tower, idk I have never tried.
Thank you Loda for joining us today, and thank you everyone for asking such interesting questions. We look forward to bringing you more Community Q&As.
Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions regarding future Q&A guests, we'd love to hear them!
They're all good though. Would really be interested in someone like Yamateh, but I'm not sure how comfortable he's with his English. Maybe some Singaporean players.
Just wanted to post to say thank you to Loda for taking the time to answer these questions. Q&A sessions are really nice, I feel I get to know the players more GL in all future games Loda
EPT
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/3/30/Loda_TI2.png)
![[image loading]](http://moe.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/chars/5537-836611164.png)
