Gaming
Ahead of the Shanghai Major Amer ‘Miracle-’ Al-Barkawi speaks about his rise through the pub scene.
A year ago he was relatively unknown, playing on a small European Dota 2 team that never managed to break into the upper tiers of competitive play, but a year on he is one of the one of the hottest commodities in the pro Dota world. Amer ‘Miracle-’ Al-Barkawi’s rise through the Dota ranks has been one of the quickest ever seen; the teenager from Jordan was playing in low level competitive games, until he managed to rise through the ranked leader boards to become the player with the highest solo MMR in the entire world. His success in pubs, online games of Dota 2 played in teams of five strangers, where a win will boost your MMR score and a loss will lower it, brought in interest from a number of pro teams and in the post TI5 reshuffle he joined (monkey) Business, who later became OG.
OG enjoyed some limited success in their early days, but it was at the Frankfurt Major where they really established themselves as one of the best teams in the world. After being dumped into the lower bracket they went on an amazing run, knocking off the likes of Evil Geniuses, EHOME and Team Secret on their way to claiming first place and over $1 million in prize money.
Throughout the event Miracle- was one of the best players in Frankfurt, with his Shadow Fiend and Alchemist performances proving exactly how good he is in the mid role. This was the tournament where he broke out as a true Dota superstar, no longer ‘just’ one of the best pub players in the world.
Despite being in full preparation mode for the upcoming Shanghai Major, Miracle- took the time to speak to Red Bull eSports for the first part of our new series, and tell us the secrets of his success in pubs – and how you can replicate it.
Tell us about your gaming history. Have you always been a PC gamer?
I used to play games casually on PlayStation, and I also used to breakdance and play football before gaming. I played Dota 1 and then played Dota 2 after it came out. I also tried Counter Strike: Global Offensive for a while, but that’s about it in terms of my gaming history.
How did you discover Dota, and do you remember when you first got hooked on it?
My brother used to go to the net café, and I was curious about what was going on. I said I wanted to go too and they played Dota 1 there, so that's where I first learnt about it. They pretty much taught me how to play Dota and that’s how it all started, I got hooked when I was around 12.
You managed to become the #1 MMR ranked player in the world in the middle of last year. How did you manage it?
I spammed pubs for a long time. During my climb I used three heroes a lot: Bloodseeker, Leshrac and Shadow Fiend, but now I think Invoker and Outworld Devourer are the best to climb with. I played Leshrac in the game where I first hit 8K MMR, that was when I was playing around 10 hours a day and I was just focusing on pubs. I was pretty much spamming pubs because I never thought I’d join a pro team.
What would you say to someone who is aiming to hit 8K MMR? What tips would you give?
I’d say talk a lot to your team-mates, communicate and try not to tilt or rage. Do your best and you’ll be fine. That’s something Johan ‘BigDaddy’ Sundstein taught me. When I played pubs before I joined a pro team, I used to rage a bit. When I joined OG Johan taught me how to not rage and tilt like that. I also think you need to put in a lot of hard work; you need to play a lot to be super good. Simply put, you have just got to play a lot and you’ll get better and better. I started to play a lot at 6.2K MMR and played more and more from there until I reached the top.
On your road to 8K MMR, you must have encountered some less-than friendly players, both on your team and in the opposition. What’s your advice for dealing with these types of people and still winning the game?
If they are on my team in a pub, I try to talk to them if they’re super negative, stuff like ‘calm down, we can still win’. If they are still being negative I just ignore them, I don’t mute, I just ignore, even if they are on the enemy team. If they’re a team-mate, I think it’s pretty much on the rest of our team to do well, if they're negative or tilted it’s pretty hard to win. The best solution is to talk to them about it, to fix that negativity, or else it’s not going to work out.
Tell us about the differences, as you see them, between play and strategy in your ranked games compared to a pro team you’ve played with for a long time?
When you play pubs there is no strategy. Maybe there is a bit if you talk to your team, tell them to pick this or pick that, but most of the time they don’t listen and pick what they are comfortable with. In competitive, it's way better as you pick five heroes that always work well together. It’s way better compared to pubs, in pubs you just play and people don’t listen, they just farm and don’t want to fight.
When you signed for the newly formed Business team, did you envisage the success you would have as a team?
Yes, because I believed in Johan ‘BigDaddy’ Sundstein’s idea, which is that you need to have five really good friends that trust in each other and believe in each other. I knew that the team would work out and be really good. It’s been great – before that I was just at home, having just finished high school. Now I travel a lot, get to play Dota all the time and I take pubs even more seriously.
Playing live in front of 10,000 people at the Frankfurt Major must have been a great feeling. Did you feel any pressure?
I used to breakdance and play football so I was used to people watching me, but it’s not the same. There are so many people watching that it can’t be the same, but I don’t feel as much pressure as some people.
Tal ‘Fly’ Aizik, captain of OG, drafts you a variety of heroes in OG’s matches, including playmakers like Invoker and lane dominators like Viper. What’s your favourite hero to play and what’s your least favourite hero to play? Do you have a say in what is picked for you?
My favorite hero to play is obviously Invoker and my least favorite hero is probably Venomancer or Viper. Sometimes I do have a choice in what I play in competitive games, but sometimes a hero is so good for our draft that I just have to play it.
Do you still play in pubs much these days?
Nowadays I prefer to play with friends in party MMR and just have fun, but I have just started to play solo pubs quite a bit again.
For more eSports coverage, follow @RedBulleSports on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
