Team hi2u is currently competing in MYM Prime Defending 8 and Battle for the Throne as well as other tournaments. The team was previously led by Fanta but is now being lead by Ish. Standing as one of North America's top teams, hi2u has an extensive roster and participate in all major tournaments and leagues.

The Players

Name: Jimmy 'DgAF' Ho
Age: 17
Location: Chino Hills, California
Past Teams: jCp, mL, somewhat tPD
How long have you played DotA: 1.5 years
Role: I play a lot of roles but mainly support.
Team: MYM
Player: Merlini and hit0mi
Hero: Lina
Item: Blink
Food: Spa ghettI
Drink: dr pepper
Band: Drake Bell lol

Name: Alex 'wtfmate' Nguyen
Age: 19
Location: Davis and San Francisco, CA
Past Teams: none
How long have you played DotA: 1 year+
Role: anything, but USUALLY the solo/ricer
Team: VP
Player: Fear, Throzz, and Merlini-
Hero: QoP
Item: Stygian
Food: Sushi
Drink: Tea

Name: Orie 'BlowouT' Guo
Age: 20
Location: Berkeley, CA
Past Teams: ADA-->tPD, KFC-->eMg-->xMs-->x6, hi2u
How long have you played DotA: 3 years
Role: Lina or whatever is needed
Team: VP
Player: DaRkShEEp-
Hero: Lina
Item: Bottle, Blink, Ptbooster, Dagon, BoT item-set
Food: Uohz
Drink: Fanta
Band: Within Temptation

Name: Eugene 'Chouji' Sung
Age: 21
Location: San Diego
Past Teams: Xile, NoK
How long have you played DotA: 3 years
Role: i used to be support and ganking and now i'm...farm...support...ganker...fearless leader etc. I never EVER buy wards.
Team: It USED to be MyM *glare*
Player: hi2u.DGAF
Hero: Void
Item: Battlefury
Food: Korean
Drink: Ownage Juice
Band: Postal Service

Name: tEa
Age: 17
Location: California
Past Teams: None
How long have you played DotA: 2-3years
Role: Mainly support heroes. Two heroes that I use the most are Viper and sven.
Team: MYM
Player: hi2u.Night
Hero: Lion, Kotl, Lina, and NA.
Item: Chicken and Chicken
Food: Don't care
Drink: Tea
Band: Don't care

Name: Tim 'iSH' Chin
Age: 19
Location: Davis, Ca
Past Teams: hi2u
How long have you played DotA: 2 years
Role: in game leader, semi-carry, support
Team: hi2u
Player: hi2u.NIGHT
Hero: potm
Item: tp scroll
Food: all food is good
Drink: all drinks are good
Band: D12

Name: Jeff 'Fanta' Tang
Age: 19
Location: Cailfornia
Past Teams: FTR x6
How long have you played DotA: 2 years
Role: feeder
Team: Team Hi2u
Player: All hi2u players
Hero: My mom
Item: Power tread
Food: Hot pot
Drink: Fanta
Band: none

Name: John 'drf' Pham
Age: 22
Location: Arcadia, CA
Past Teams: KFC-->eMg-->xMs-->x6, hi2u
How long have you played DotA: 1.5 years
Role: who knows
Team: VP
Player: HI2u.KIKY
Hero: N/a
Item: Bottle
Food: pizza
Drink: pepsi
Band: n/a

Name: Richie 'kiky' Woo
Age: 22
Location: san gabriel, CALIFORNIA
Past Teams: kfc-emg-xms-x6-hi2u
How long have you played DotA: too long
Role: anything that my teammates dont want
Team: lakers
Player: fachh[p]
Hero: naix
Item: dagon
Food: chicken
Drink:
Band: s.e.s

Interview with wtfmate, Ish, tea and DgAF

Thank you for sitting down with me to answer a few questions, can you introduce yourselves?

wtfmate: I am wtfmate of team hi2u, currently my role is manager and player. I have been playing dota for a little more than a year, and I have a lot of fun with this team.

Ish: I'm Tim aka iSH, current leader of team hi2u. I have been playing dota for 3 years, competitively for 1.5, and hi2u is my first professional dota team.It has been fun.

Tea: I am tea of team hi2u, currently my role is as scheduler and player. I have been playing dota for a little more than two years, and I have a lot of fun with this team.

DgAF: Hi guys, I'm DgAF of team hi2u also known as demon. My current role for the team is BENCHING. I've been playing dota a bit over a year and I think I deserve more then benching, but this has been the best team I've been on and enjoy staying.

Can you tell us the members of Hi2u, and their roles on the team?

Ish: Our members on the team as of now are wtfmate, dgaf, tea, kiky0ass, merc, Yoda, Fanta and chouji. My role on the team is in-game leader and I usually play anything i choose to play. Wtfmate usually plays our ricer/solo-er. Tea is our ward-bitch and main support player. kiky0ass, chouji, and merc normally play anything and are pretty versatile aka semi-carry or lead ganker. dgaf aka demon is our bench JK, he is also a versatile player and can play anything. Yoda is usually a ganker, but DONT LET HIM DRAFT EVER :) Fanta was our previous leader, but went inactive for a while, thus i took his place as captain.

As you know, eMg is sponsoring a LAN in Chicago come December, will Hi2u be attending?

wtfmate: Unfortunately we aren't attending the Chicago LAN, although almost our whole team wished to go. For us, it was too expensive and our sponsors at DXD can't really afford to dish out the funds to send us there, since they have their own tournament (TGL) to worry about. Hopefully when the next big US LAN comes out we'll be able to attend.

What has been your most memorable moment about the team?

wtfmate: For me, the most memorable moment was when we played FIDS in the regular season for HTGN. It was a very long and epic game, and they got mega creeps in the end and we managed to do one last throne push and end it. For the members playing in that game, it was probably the toughest, closest, and best game we ever played.

Tea: My most memorable moment is hi2u.night and hi2u.vita aka tinwong !! Two LEGENDS of team hi2u.

Ish: My most memorable moment would probably be when we beat Q to get into MYM 7 playoffs. Yes i know that its not the OLD team Q but no one expected us to beat them let alone get past group stage, since people always think we're all just bad for playing dxd all day. But those teams have yet to play us when we're at our best and I think thats what made it most memorable - overcoming the odds

DgAF: The most memorable thing that happened since i joined this team was when merc and kiky0ass taught me how to play support and ganker. I haven't been on the team long enough for anything else ~_~

How did the team form?

Ish: True story coming up - I pretty much played pubs and tdt/dxds (THE OLD DXD WHEN NO ONE PLAYED IT) and one day Fanta told me to talk with him, He and night were trying to form a team. I talked to them for a while and I told them to also take in wtfmate, my roommate, as well. Thus our team was basically fanta, mate, tinwong and me. It took us a long time to find a decent 5th until we found chouji, who we also found along with spit-wad, and that was basically our team.

How did the name 'Hi2u' originate?

wtfmate: Its a LONG story about how our name originated. Back then, we were all trying to come up with team names. A lot of these names were horrible, and eventually, we settled for "Hilger is too Ugly" since we all decided to bash hilger that day. The tag became hi2u. At first we thought the name was gonna be a joke and we would change it later, but we never did.

How do you feel about IHLs as a whole? Do you feel they are a benefit for the community, why?

wtfmate: I think that IHLs are great for the overall community that wishes to play good dota games without leavers, and making up new strategies. However, I do believe that scrimming holds more precedence then playing games in the leagues, which is probably the majority opinion.

Tea and DgAF: Well, WE think that IHLs have been a good help towards improving skill and teamwork for many new players. It's a great start off, to learn the basics of DotA, but we do feel that IHLs benefit the community because you learn more from IHLs than scrims. Scrims only improve your play with your team, and not with other players.

How do you feel about the current leagues you are participating in?

wtfmate: We are seeded in MYM, and will be ready to play our group stage matches whenever they are. For HTGN, we lost to Fids in the upper bracket, but we are in very good shape to win the losers brackets and make a run for the finals. In ICL we are currently 2-0, but in this league theres not a WHOLE lot of competition (we ran naix twice i believe). We are also participants in the GosuGamers tournament (upper bracket) and the upcoming TGL "Battle of the Throne" tournament.

Ish: In mym 7 we made it to the 1st round of playoffs but lost to VP who went on to win, so that wasn't a surprise. As for mym8 we feel confident, especially since we're seeded, but people tend to underestimate/hate us anyway. As for HTGN, we're currently in the losers bracket waiting for emg/xlo game after beating vts. We lost to fids, who we beat in the regular season, so that was good game, and hopefully we will see them in the finals. ICL has been kind of easy so far; we haven't played any good teams in that league.

Do you feel that Hi2u is one of the top 3 clans in America?

wtfmate: Right now, we definitely think we are one of the top three, along with eMg, and tPD (excello doesn't count, they're canadian, SUP EDDIE). We've been performing very well in our scrims lately and for sure we can all say that we are at the top in terms of American teams.

Ish: A lot of teams tend to underestimate us because they see us in DXD a lot, but we do scrim a lot against emg, xlo and tpd, so we feel the fact that we play in dxd means nothing in terms of how good our team is.

How should new players go about getting better?

wtfmate: Watch replays, start playing in pubs and eventually try to play league games.

Ish: My advice to new players would be to try and learn something from each game. Don't make the same stupid mistakes, and maybe take lessons from someone you know is good. I think scrims are also important to getting better: try to find a team so you can play a lot, especially against good teams, and not just against pubbies/scrubs.

Thanks for the interview, anything you would like to add?

Ish: Shoutout to my roommate mate for diligently learning dota from me when he first started, shoutout to kiky0ass for being the only other true chink on hi2u, and to dgaf, tea and night.

wtfmate: I'd like to shoutout to ish (even though hes doing interview lol), great friend and roommate. Shoutout to TEA aka BEST WARD BUYER IN WORLD, and everyone else in hi2u for helping me to learn how to play dota better. Shoutout to my little brother at home, my friend daryl aka pen_island, and hilger even though I carry him 24/7.

Tea: Shoutout to ALL the hi2u members and to all our fans. And thank you DARKFIRE for doing this interview.