ppd explained the negative tendency with coaches in Dota 2

Peter “ppd” Dager, captain of the recently formed Ninjas in Pyjamas roster has given an interview to Position Six podcast. This year ppd took 8th place at TI as the captain of OpTic Gaming. His current team has qualified for the first big tournament of the season, The Kuala Lumpur Major.

ppd was asked about the coaches on Dotaverse and he uncovered a negative tendency that’s been happening in the scene. If a player sees that he can’t get to TI this year, he might say “Ok then, I’ll just coach for a while”. Six months later he wants to be an active player again and starts a disruption process. ppd sets paiN Gaming as an example:

— Duster gets kicked from the team and MISERY who was the coach is now the player. Was Duster signing his death warrant when he brought MISERY as a coach? And when does that trust end? Because it’s not like in traditional sports where the coach is this 50-year-old guy who, you know, can’t compete physically anymore. There are hungry self-interested Dota players.

The International is still the cornerstone of Dotaverse and all the other tournaments are just seen more as the way to get to the final event, not so much as the other way around.

— These Majors and Minors are more of a part of the process of going to TI. You have to put in the work to go TI. It’s like the ultimate goal. And attending Majors and Minors is just the prerequisite to the easiest trip to TI.

ppd confessed that his team is playing many online cups now, but they are totally for practice and the results don’t really matter for him right now. Squad members agreed that tournament setting is better practice than scrims.