VooDooSh explained why there's so much toxicity at high ranks in Dota 2

Streamer Alexander "VooDooSh" Shalchinov reflected on the process of climbing the ranks in Dota 2. He believes that higher tiers are filled with excessively toxic players, which is why he doesn't aspire to climb higher on the ladder.

"Stray, Cake, and others always tell me: 'Don't even think about raising your rating.' We talked to LenaGol0vach, and he said: 'On stream, I always say I'll pick "Deity" now, but in reality, I intentionally ruin games to avoid raising my rating. I should've been in "Titan" long ago.' I understand that.

Everyone says: 'Don't raise your rating; matches become awful, there are idiots in every game, items are destroyed, and people go AFK.' All those guys who couldn't make it into pro-Dota sit at 'Deity' and 'Titan' ranks and hate each other for it.

Do you know what the thing is about 'Deity' and 'Titan'? These are people who've spent a ton of time but achieved nothing. It's doubly hurtful for them. There are a lot of embittered people there, you can feel it. They've spent half their lives, but besides Dota, they're good at nothing. They've been kicked out everywhere, and if there ever was a girl, she left long ago, and that's it. The guy can only play Dota, and even that's not great. It's the most painful thing.

Do you know how this crap hits your self-esteem? You open that damn page, you've got 15k hours in Dota, but in reality, nothing in life. It's horrible. That's why there's so much negativity there, so many idiots.

All normal guys play at 'Legend.' Who's a 'Legend'? It's a guy who has his own business. Meanwhile, he plays from time to time. He doesn't need to argue with anyone in the chat, prove anything to anyone. He just wanted to play Dota, like in his childhood; if he gets stomped, he's like, 'Well, damn,' and leaves. That's why the top-notch matches are on 'Legends' and 'Heroes.'

The worst thing in life is having ambitions but no opportunities. It's very hard. You start blaming yourself, others, bad luck, teammates. You start hating those who succeeded and look for excuses for their success." - Alexander "VooDooSh" Shalchinov

On March 16th, Shalchinov reached the "Legend" rank in Dota 2. The streamer accumulated 3097 MMR and stated that he would continue to improve in the game. He joked that his next goals would be achieving Global Elite status in CS: GO and the maximum rating in League of Legends.

At the end of April, VooDooSh claimed that he could easily catch up in rating to Rostislav "rostislav_999" Protasenya and LenaGol0vach. The streamer is confident that he could reach 8k MMR within a year if he started training. However, Shalchinov doesn't want to pursue this because Dota 2 isn't his main discipline.