Interview with Dignitas.Universe

Saahil "UNiVeRsE" Arora played for Evil Geniuses and Quantic Gaming in the past, but is now the long lane solo player for Team Dignitas. Universe is very well known for his incredible Visage and Windrunner play. Team Dignitas has been picking some very unorthodox heroes lately, Universe explains why they pick them and gives advice on forming a Dota2 team.

Hey Universe, how's it going? What have you been up to lately?

Just busy with practice and school.

First place for the 2012 MLG DotA 2 Ladder is $2500 and second place is $1500, a single match is worth $1000. Team Dignitas will be playing against Eosin +4 again on February 19th. How are you guys preparing for this match?

Same as any other match. We stuck to our regular practice schedule and our preparation and experience was better than theirs.

Recently you've been playing a lot of solo safe lane weaver, on top of that Dignitas has been picking some pretty unorthodox heroes such as Spectre and Warlock. What's the reasoning for these unorthodox picks? Do you feel as though the metagame will be shifting towards those types of heroes?

Those picks work and we're pretty comfortable with them. That's all there is to it, we didn't pick them to be unique or for any other reason than we thought we'd win with them. It's too hard to say whether or not they'll stay, metagame is constantly changing and there will be a lot of new heroes introduced by TI3 and teams all have their own playstyles and habits.

If Dignitas allowed you to pick any hero you wanted, which hero would you pick to play and why? Do you have a favourite hero?

I've been liking shadowfiend a lot lately.

You've played 1,984 games of DotA 2 and hold a 74.60 percent win rate, that's incredible. How do you it? What's your secret to holding such a win win rate with so many games played?

Honestly I stack a lot and play with my friends.

A while back, you said in an interview that if there was one team that you really wanted to beat it would have to be No Tidehunter, you've managed to beat them twice this week. Is this a huge confidence boost for you guys?

Yeah those wins meant a lot for us and managed to keep us in the winners bracket for the defense. To not have to play the massive amount of hard teams that are in the defense losers bracket is a huge deal.


Say Valve decided to host The International 3 one month from now, which teams do you think would get invited and which teams will come top 3?

There are too many changes in happening in Western Dota right now to really make an accurate prediction of all the teams that are going to TI3.

Team houses have become super popular within the DotA 2 scene over the last year, what's your take on them? Could we possibly see Team Dignitas open up a team house in the future?

Team houses are a big factor in how well a team performs not just on LAN but overall. It makes everything easier in terms of how a team functions, practices and works together. Dignitas does have a house right now in LA for its League of Legends team and who knows, we might end up somewhere around there to bootcamp.

What do you think is the biggest reason North America has fewer top DotA 2 teams compared to the rest of the world?

The western scene revolves are European time zones, not North American ones. In order to become a high level team, you have to practice against the best and the best teams only practice until around 24 CET. So if you have a day job or go to school in North America, you're practice time is really limited.

Are there any teams out there that, who are not really too known, you feel as though could possibly compete with the current top teams?[

In the western scene, no. I don't know enough about the unknown teams in Asia to comment on them.

Any tips for teams who are trying to break into the competitive scene but are struggling to do so?

Manage your schedule so that you all have time to play around 16 CET to 21 CET and play in as many tournaments as you can. You're going to lose a lot and get stomped many times and you probably won't see results for months, but that's the kind of dedication it takes at this point.

Well Universe, thanks for taking the time to do this interview with me, its greatly appreciated. Any final words?

Thanks to all my fans and Team Dignitas and its sponsors, Alienware, Intel, Antec, Kingston and all the rest.