Professional Dota 2 player Alimzhan `Watson` Islambekov recently discussed his idols in Valve`s popular MOBA. During a stream, he revealed that the motivation to become an esports player initially came from watching the documentary “Free to Play,” which featured prominent players like Danil `Dendi` Ishutin and Clinton `Fear` Loomis. As his career progressed, he became a fan of other notable players, specifically mentioning Artur `Arteezy` Babaev and Wang `Ame` Chunyu.
[Question: `Who was your idol in Dota before?`] Idol… Actually, I wanted to become an esports player because of the Free to Play movie, where Dendi and Fear were. Then I started to really fan over Arteezy […].
[Question: `What about Miracle-?`] I wasn`t a direct fan of him. After Arteezy, the era of Ame came, and after Ame, I stopped following anyone that intensely.
[Question: `Was Arteezy really try-hard (“potnyy”) before?`] Arteezy was incredibly try-hard. He invented a lot of things in Dota. At one point he was a midlaner, and there`s the concept of the `Arteezy block` — he would position himself by the tower so that four creeps were on one side, he`d go around it and block all four creeps, always being ahead.
This isn`t the first time Dota 2 personalities have spoken about their early influences. Previously, Shopify Rebellion coach Kanishka Sam `BuLba` Sosale also named his first idols in DotA. According to BuLba, even before embarking on his competitive career, he closely followed the matches of players like Ivan `Vigoss` Shinkarev and Dmitriy `LighTofHeaveN` Kupriyanov.
Finley Holt