"In the end, we're just nerds who play videogames". Quinn on beef with RAMZES, burning out, and playing mid in patch 7.33 Exclusive
We've met with Quinn "Quinn" Callahan ahead of his match with 9 Pandas in the Upper bracket final. Gaimin Gladiators mid player talked with us about his feeling on the patch, beef with RAMZES, and if GG is doing something to not repeat Team Secret's path of peaking too early.
— You won Lima Major, DreamLeague and now you're minimum top-3 in Berlin. How do you maintain your form?
— For me personally, I never really feel safe or secure. I feel like if you choke at a Major, you can very easily get knocked out in groups. You can lose to anyone these days. I'm not a big fan of counting chickens. I go into every series treating it super seriously because you can lose to anyone. I think if you treat every series more seriously, you're more likely to win when you don't take everything for granted.
— Dyrachyo said you don't really play scrims during the major. Only pubs and officials. Why and how do you prepare?
— Yeah, we don't play that much. We played a couple of scrims this time, but not too many. We have just been playing a lot of officials for a long time, between DreamLeague and this and DPC season, it's sorta a lot, back-to-back. So we have no shortage of games to draw back on.
I think, especially when you are in the main stage, there's a lot more value just prepping for the teams, understanding what they do and like, and having a good idea of what this matchup is going to look like, things you need to value. That's more valuable over some games you've already played, and we had a lot of them on this patch already. One extra game is not going to change that much compared to understanding them more deeply.
— Did you expect to face 9 Pandas in the upper bracket finals? What are their strongest sides?
— I don't think I expected this necessarily, but I also didn't think it was super unlikely. They are clearly a good team, and got to the upper bracket final for a reason. I think they are in some ways similar to us, they have strong players and they have isolated little groups of things that just do things well. I think Kiyotaka got a lot better. Their safelane is quite strong, their offlane is doing well. They have a stable draft, pick stable things, have consistency, they just sorta do their thing.
— On stream, RAMZES said when you and him took an elevator together, you didn't say a word to him and were staring at the floor. So what differs your trash-talk on socials and in real life?
— I just don't like him very much, but I'm not gonna be mean to him in person. In the end, we're just nerds who play videogames. I just don't like him. So why would I want to interact with him in person? It's fine. He lives his life, I live mine. It's not like I despise the guy, I just don’t like him, but I don't want to spend time around him.
— Is there any chance you'd change your opinion on RAMZES in future? Or maybe even apologize if his team wins?
— I don't know, if the sun eclipses the earth and we all burn from a fireball, maybe. But besides such an unlikely event, it's unlikely.
— In Lima Gaimin Gladiators were using a jacuzzi buff. What’s your buff this time?
— No bathtubs this time, we just chill.
— Since patch 7.33 was released, it feels as if all the focus has switched from the mid to the sidelines. How do you feel about this change?
— I'm chill with the new patch. I haven't felt that it impacted mid super much. A lot of the games feel quite similar to me. And I liked the previous patch, so games feeling similar to me is nice.
— Your team is always doing a lot to ensure you have a good lane. Do you think this change benefits or hurts GG?
— I think it hasn't changed that much for us. We still do a lot of things very similarly. I think overall we are quite good at this patch, just as we were at the last one. It's hard for me to even remember how the previous map felt, because we played a lot in this patch and you sort of forget things pretty quickly in Dota.
— You have already secured a TI spot, and there is still a lot ahead of you: DPC, maybe Major, Riyadh. Aren't you afraid of burning out after such a successful journey this season?
— This is kind of a new experience for me. I've never really won anything or been someone who can win tournaments. I was always on horrible teams that got very poor results. I've never experienced burnout really, ever. I personally am not too worried about it.
I'm curious to see how things develop. You lose eventually, the mighty fall, right? That's how things work. So at some point, we'll start losing. And we'll have to deal with that and fix things to get back to the state we were happy with. When will that happen? It's hard for me to tell. Hopefully we can delay that for as long as possible.
— Dota has a lot of examples of peaking too early, and Team Secret is the most notorious of them. Do you do anything to not repeat their fate?
— I don't know, really. I've never been in their shoes. I don't have an answer. I'm just someone who tries to play every match well and improve and continue to build good habits in the team and have good core things that we value. Everything else revolves around that. I'm sticking to the basics and trying to play the game well. If there's some "peaking" thing, it's not something I really know anything about. I have to experience this for the first time this year.
— So you're not going to slow down before The International and play at your maximum for the entire time?
— Yeah, I don't really intend to take things less seriously. I really hate losing and not going to intentionally subject myself to that.
