To start off our interview series for the Digital Youth Awards event, Asway of GameAche.com managed to briefly catch up with the well known player Kim “PapaDrayich” Larsson of the Swedish representatives TS Gaming.
After reading the interview, be sure to check out the newly release TsoG Tribute video HERE
Greetings Drayich, thanks for doing this interview with us! How are you doing?
Hello Asway, I’m doing great! A lot of great stuff happening right now, and it feels great to be me!
To get right into things, about a month ago you made an interesting blog calling the community to action. Can you expand on that a little? What do you think Heroes of Newerth needs in order to establish itself in the eSports scene?
There are alot of levels in that discussion. First off the normal pub games, it seems the anonymousness of people makes them behave as they never had a proper education. On a clan level, showing up in time. For organizations, forcing dates, not allowing famous teams to reschedule, etc. There are tons of things, but overall being more professional.
It came as a bit of a surprise when the Digital Youth Awards Heroes of Newerth tournament announced they would be moving from DreamHack in Sweden to the GameFEST in Singapore. What did you think about these changes?
I’m not gonna put any value in that. Dreamhack is a beautiful event and amazing in all matters, but getting the shot to go to Singapore… It’s so hard to be objective. 
TS Gaming recently played in the Fnatic PLAY tournament, in which you guys didn’t do so well. You lost to Roam and Kill in round three, what went wrong in that match? Do you think that they out picked you?
That game was one of the most important games for our bootcamp, we learned a lot from it. The picks mattered, but also our too defensive play.
Teams like TCM, Fnatic and Empr will be participating at DreamHack Winter. How do you think the tournament will pan out, which team do you think will come out victorious?
LAN means nerves, means ability to cooperate under pressure, and you need a strong team for that. Up to a certain level it’s about individual skill, but in the topfight it will come down to who got the warmest or best climate in their team. I’m guessing Fnatic will do it. They have most confidence in it too.
A ton of really good teams will be competing at the DYA event, including the likes of Evil Geniuses and KDe. How well prepared are you guys for the tournament?
We did our bootcamp, we did our share of losses both online and offline. We are a pretty solid team when it comes to being one unit, having that climate. Player wise I don’t think we are the strongest team, but if we can keep this teamspirit alive i think we have a really good shot at winning that event. If we cant, we have a really good shot at ending that event as last team.
Going into a big tournament like this, what do you guys do to prepare? When you practice with each other, what are some of the key things you guys try to work on?
It’s so hard, because at the same time as getting 4 creeps more in a lane might give you the bottle beforehand and might give you firstblood, a friend coming in stunning the enemy can create the same result. It’s about individual skill, playing pubs, watching replays on your own. But its definitely about teamplay, knowing what position you need to have, knowing where your teammates is. In one way you cant plan that practice, you just gotta figure it out
I said it before, I can say it again. The biggest threat for my team is my team, we need to find our ability to perform as we WANT to perform. But the Asian teams are good, they have roots in DotA too many of them, and they seem to have nice teamspirit the little I saw from them.
Out of all of the teams that will be attending DYA, which ones are you most worried about? Why is that?
Again, going back to the cheesy answer, I’m most worried about TsoG because our performance is what will matter most, not the other teams’. However, any unknown team is worse than the others since you can’t do your homework on them.
There are four teams left in the upper bracket for the GosuGamers World Cup tournament, EG SK MSI and KD. Which one of those four teams do you think will make it to the finals and why? When the tournament originally started, did you think that SK and KD would be in the final four?
I actually don’t know, I knew Gosugamers tournament would also require organization from teams, I mean it’s also about fielding 5 players at the right point, so I figured some teams would fall out failing to do so. In the end the top 4 teams are really good, even so I think we underachieved a lot versus SK. They definitely look strong, same thing with the other 3 teams.
Thank you so much for your time Drayich, its been a pleasure talking to you! Any final words?
I would like to take the chance to thank our sponsors, Q-Pad, Kaspersky and ofcourse Ts-gaming. And make sure too not miss out on our HoN team’s new song that will be coming out anytime soon on Youtube. And of course thanks everyone that supports us, each one of you is important.
