My name is Andrew, I'm 16 years old, and I hail from Harlem, New York. I have played DotA since September last year. I am currently one of the shaman in the starting 5 in Clan FAG.

What is your starting five?

Me, Fang, DominionWING, p0c and OrganizeD/Daisy.

What teams do you think will present a challenge in CAL?

First answer... comes those damn pluggers but I think I’ll be seeing lots of other good "sleeper" clans during the season. Teams like ADA and MaKe are worthy opponents too.

What strategies do you keep in mind when coming up with a hero lineup?

For both sides, its crucial that you take into consideration every aspect of the game, most commonly divided as lane control, (2 hero combo in a lane), early, mid, late game. I theorycraft with my FAG members and we just blurt out 5 heroes and then we work our way from there asking each other, what if, and it's good but... those kind of questions in the end, we just test it out, and we make improvements from there. Even now, I think we still need some tweaking in our lineups. In conclusion, experience is the most essential ingredient in coming [up] with a solid lineup.

What changes do you think need to be introduced to make the game more popular? Public game-wise and League-wise?

Personally, I think DotA as a whole is a tad bit slow to my taste. An average game is around 1 hour; most of it is consumed in the process of tedious farming. Of course, time passes by quickly when you are on a killing spree, but if you are dying it is a painfully agonizing death. But then again, there is the mode -SM which I see in pub games a lot (yes I've been to some of them to kill time) but I think using -SM in league mode will destroy the fragile balance DotA has managed to obtain.

What sort of weaknesses did you find in your previous hero lineups?

Hmm, I'll talk about this one example: Our former sent lineup was Morphling/Centaur/Enigma/Roof/Silencer. It was a decent strategy, very versatile and easy to win with but in certain games we played, the whole combo-execution took too long. The Hole/Root combo took way too long to kill, and certain clans managed to completely nullify our strategy by going mass Linken’s Spheres. We scrapped that strategy altogether after some disgusting runs, and created a lineup centered basically on a more fast-paced lineup, especially Tauren's ultimate, Echo Slam.

We never managed to find a perfect lineup, and as all league-players know, every lineup has a weakness. You just need to separate the poor-playing with the poor-matchups to evaluate any future changes.

Can you describe, for some of the readers that have not heard of it, FAG's notorious Keeper/Earthshaker combo and generally how you came up with the idea? Was it seriously considered as a league strategy?

Haha, I wasn't actually involved with this process, it was all p0c and Fang. Basically, Walter(p0c) wanted to play KotL, and Fang decided that no one could dodge or endure constant Fissure spam, and that's how it just rolled up. We decided to try those two specific heroes in a friendly scrimmage match, and that's how our Taruen-focused Sentinel strategy grew. Basically, the other three heroes complimenting KotL/Taruen were put into the game and we enjoyed some level of success^^;

For ideas, we don't have a specific time where we sit down and only chat about this stuff; new ideas are just stirred through experience and knowledge of the game, just like anything else in life. You try it a little, and if it doesn't work, you fix it, etc, etc. It's a great learning process, and as for the KotL/Tauren combo, there are no heroes at early level on Scourge that can handle that much punishment T_T.

Concerning CAL, what is your opinion of their stand on pooling and backdoor? Do you have any suggestions to improve league play, whether it be rules or game mechanics?

Let's start with pooling. I think it's GREAT that they finally got rid of pooling, except the understandable circumstances of ring sharing and etc. It has been frustrating to know in the past that the other team pooled certain items to one hero, even shifting the balance of the whole game. The rules are generous about sharing of regeneration/wards/gems, so I see no problem in that aspect.

Overall, the pooling rule should NOT change at all. As for backdooring, although I do not support it actively, it is a part of the game. So people stop bitching it and buy some damn TP scrolls if backdooring bothers you so much =o. To restrict backdooring completely is to strip any chance for a comeback for the losing team. Also, backdooring is a risky business, and if people want to take their chance, let them be.

The fundamental rules on games are set; the only thing CAL admins should worry about are the external factors: abuse of drops/disconnects.

Do you believe there should be some rearrangement of Scourge and Sentinels heroes to allow more options in hero lineups?

This has been a looooong ongoing issue that has been debated many times. Most people would argue that the Sentinel has a greater number of choices to formulate the respective lineup, with many stuns/disables. The Scourge lineup however, as seen from countless league games, are made up of the core 3-4 heroes. Although I don't think any radical hero arrangements are possible or likely, simply because it will take many more months to "redistribute" the respective powers of each heroes (IceFrog). The only REAL problem I see with Sentinel vs Scourge is the Silencer, more specifically, his ultimate, Global Silence. Some sort of alternate nerf on global will make everyone happy again =[

Any ideas on a nerf for it?

Wow nice question. POSSIBLE *THEORETICAL* solutions (don't flame me please) can consist of a combination of or an exclusion of but not limited to, (excuse my technical language) shorter duration, longer cooldown, a fixed range on silence, (Not truly global), more mana cost... or hmmm channeling?

If you had to introduce a hero for the next version to fill in gaps for league mode, what side would it be and what gaps would you be trying to fill?

Well, this is a tough question, since I would not know any impact this new hero would have and other balance issues. But putting that aside, I think it should be a hero from the Scourge, that hopefully fills in the lack of stuns/disables that Sentinel so enjoys. But for any definite details... I can't really think. I begin to understand what IceFrog has to go through, dealing with countless demands. But that's all I have for now

Any imbalances you see in this current version? Many believe Necronomicon needs to be nerfed once again.

As a disclaimer, I have a strong affinity to use necrobook, so bear that in mind. Anyway, Necrobook is not imbalanced AT ALL! It has gone through countless nerfs, (remember when the recipie was 700 gold) and now the price has risen to 1300. It takes a whole bunch of micro to use, (trust me, it's not a simple click the book and manaburn) and when used correctly, it can be seen as "imba". For other imbalances, I think IceFrog actually did a superb job in distributing out the skills' powers. Of course there's the imbalanced global silence, but that mostly concerns league play. OH! How can I forget. There's a place where you can creep the super-golems with a ranged hero, without getting hurt at all. I'll leave it at that.

So why do you think DotA is more popular than other AoS type makes?

I believe the most important factor with DotA's popularity is constant support. From the start, as a custom map, DotA had an edge over all other maps simply because there was a whole site/forum dedicated to it and the constant improvements/updates it received. As for the strong points that DotA should incorporate, I believe that those positive attributes were already mixed into DotA in the many updates it enjoyed

For all those Shaang fans out there, what is the secret to a good chronosphere?

First of all, shift+chrono doesn't work because timewalk cancels any previous shift+memories. Essentially you want to be hidden as you start your time walk. What I like to do is I previously "measure" out the AoE of the sphere by hovering my cursor to the ground. When I find a good solid place to timewalk and land, I wait about .5 second until my Void lands on the spot, and cast it. And the killing starts from that point on...

You steal a creepwave from your teammate; what do you do to make them forgive you?

Ok this is for your redemption: You can start by going down on your knees, and opening your mouth and raising your tongue...and say sorry.

Shoutouts?

All my Clan FAG boys: DominionWING, p0c, Only)Fang, OrganizeD, daisy143, Bp-, kiLLz, vR.Muffins. Also to my cousin UNIT_ and Kusajishi Yachiru, and all my mutuals! If I didn't mention you, "srynotime"!