Team Liquid support player Aidin "iNSaNiA" Sarkohi reflected on Team Falcons' dominance in the competitive Dota 2 scene. In an interview with eScoreNews, he shared why many teams and esports athletes are trying to emulate the lineup led by Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak.
"It's always the case. Last year, when Gladiators were winning, many teams were keeping an eye on them, trying to steal some ideas and learn. It's natural: whichever team wins a tournament, it will attract many eyes, people will analyze their game and try to imitate," iNSaNiA remarked.
"It's pretty cool. We've started seeing a lot more Mars, Timbersaw, Razor—heroes that many people really like and that have been studied more. This helps to determine whether the heroes are broken or if it's just that the championship team is really good with them. In this case, probably the heroes themselves are very strong, because many teams are showing good results with them," Aidin "iNSaNiA" Sarkohi added.
Sarkohi doesn't see anything wrong with copying strategies. In his opinion, to successfully apply them in practice, it still requires a large amount of training and a good understanding of the game.
"[Why don't teams come up with something of their own?] We try to stick to that approach. But sometimes it's just easier to watch and see: 'So that's how you do it. Alright, I can just copy that,'—rather than trying to understand: 'Why is this strategy good? How do I counter it? And how do I counter it in a way that's successful?' In most cases, you can come up with creative solutions, but the challenge lies in executing them at a level better than your opponent," iNSaNiA explained.
"ATF has played a thousand games on Huskar, and maybe I know some way to deal with it, but in this situation, I won't feel as comfortable playing as he does on Huskar. So finding answers can be difficult sometimes if you don't have an understanding of Dota and the right players with a wide hero pool. So for the majority, it's almost always easier to watch what the winning team is doing and try to do it better or simply mimic it to the best of your abilities," Aidin "iNSaNiA" Sarkohi concluded.
You can read the full interview with iNSaNiA at the link provided. In it, the esports athlete assessed patch 7.35d, discussed his team's problems, and highlighted the strengths of Neta "33" Shapira.