Dota-League Presents: SK|Loda

[-ANubis-]

Our special goes on! After Drayich, slahser and Chris (#1 SIG) being interviewed we proudly present you one of the best players in the world: SK|Loda!
Whoever does not know Loda, does not know DotA! He's a long-time player and for sure one of the most successful ones. Loda's most famous teams were T_T (Team Team) and JoY which was the forerunner of MYM.DotA. There he played together with Maelk, Mania, Levent and Hanni. After this he recreated T_T and they were even more successful - they won the PriDe #5 for example. Later on this team joined SK-Gaming which is the team where he plays today - together with Bogdan, Akke, Tompa and the newly added members hailo and ARS-ART.
Loda also plays an important role in the Swedish national team where he is one of the key players.
Where does the majority of Swedish people work? Yes, exactly - in IKEA - so does Loda!

The following episode consists of an interview where Loda also answered questions of the community. Furthermore we present you some replays and pictures of Loda.

How everything began...


RuFFy: To start off, could you tell us something about your "development" in computer-gaming? With which games did you start and how did you find out about DotA? Do you play any other games besides DotA?

Loda: Hm, as well as I remember I started playing computer games with my brothers at their amiga :D At that time I played games like bubbel bobbel, indiana jones etc., so mostly adventure games! After that I played some oldies like age of empires, starcraft etc.. During the younger part of my life I mostly played console games like goldeneye, zelda and so on, but when WC3 was released I really started to play games a lot and I started to play normal WC3 and some random maps like tda, ringwars etc.
After this I was introduced by a friend to the map DotA and I thought it was really funny. At the beginning I didn't play it that much, but it began taking more and more of my time behind the computer :P

RuFFy: Where did you play DotA in the beginning and now? (Pubbies, IHCS, etc.?) In which teams?

Loda: I started playing DotA with some friends in some random clan on battle.net. I think I was first in clan ttc, later I made clan rawr that was a semi melee semi DotA clan because I began to love dota at that time :D It was at this time that I met Akke in real-life and we started playing together online. We played in a vast number of clans together and at that time it was mostly on pubs and later DL SIGs. Nowadays I play some ihcs, but most of the times clanwars.

SK - the new and old member


RuFFy: You have removed Renji and Kwom, who have been in SK a long time - Can you tell us the exact reasons for that?

Loda: Well, the reason why we removed Renji was that he just didn't have the time to play! He moved to another city some time ago and started working a lot to earn some money :D But he'll move back to gothenburg in the future so we will see what happens then! I wouldn't say he is removed - he is our honorary member! Since we are really good friends in real-life and I like him really much becauseh he's a really nice guy.

RuFFy: I heard that there was something about ASUS, too...You wanted to go there but it wasn't possible. What are the backgrounds?

Loda: The reason why Kwom had to leave was that we all put a lot of time into getting visas etc. to go to ASUS and just one day before everything had to be done, Kwom told us he hadn't fixed his stuff... This all resulted in us not being able to go to ASUS in russia and SK lost money due to this. They had payed our hotel for some day in advance so they got really pissed aswell. It just felt as Kwom didn't want to put as much as us into the game. At the time all this happened he had problemes with his internet + real-life so we couldn't keep an inactive player that didn't want to stay sorta. That's my point of the story atleast, I still like Kwom though, so I don't have any problem with him!

RuFFy: As we all know ARS-ART and hailo joined SK-Gaming. Let's talk about hailo first. He isn't very well-known, where did you "find" him and why you've chosen exactly him as a new player?

Loda: Hailo is a swedish player that tompa found when he was playing in Nihl(Nordic inhouse league). Tompa told me a bit about Hailo and that he thought he could be a good addition to the team and tompa saw a lot of promise in Hailo as a player. I trusted him and we started scrimming a bit with him and soon I noticed that he had some really good qualities and talked to him about joining the team.

RuFFy: Do you think ARS-ART would have joined the squad without the problems in VP? Why did he join?

Loda: No im pretty sure ARS wouldn`t have joined if he didn`t have problems with VP. Why would he leave one of the best teams around that includes his real-life friends?The situation was that he left due to internal problems, he didn`t find it funny to play with those guys anymore and since we are friends - me, ars and bogdan it didn`t feel that wierd for him to join us.

RuFFy: ARS-ART is the first and only non-swedish player in SK.DotA. Did you switch your whole communication now to English? Isn't it strange to talk English with four Swedish guys and does it maybe even weaken the teamplay a bit?

Loda: Haha yes - well, that has been the reason why we never added a foreign player before, but when it comes to smile(ars) we felt that it was worth it because he can add a new perspective to how we look at DotA! We don`t speak english all the time anyways, during the games we talk Swedish on the Swedish lanes and English on the non only Swedish lanes :P When it comes to things concerning the match in a whole we talk English etc. We`re all good in English so I see no problem. Of course it takes time getting used to, but we think it`s worth it.


SK - in general


RuFFy: You have already had some clanwars with the "new team" - Did everything go as you hoped?

Loda: Yes, we have had a couple of scrims with the new team and it feels very good already! Of course there is always flaws in the teamplay but those are some things I was already waiting for, so nothing suprising there, no. We played a game vs eMg in ESL and won 1-0 with the new team and it felt pretty good, I`ll attatch a replay for you.

RuFFy: What are the exact aims for SK.DotA in the future? Do you want to participate in offline-tournaments like ESWC?

Loda: Our aims are to win some online tournaments and get back some of our lost belief to be one of the top 3 teams in the world! But mostly we as a team and SK as an organisation are looking forward to the offline events like ESWC, Dreamhack, ASUS and hopefully a next fire in ice(the american lan hosted by eMg). ESWC is the number one priority for us and we will go far there!



RuFFy: What are your biggest opponents at the moment? Tell us the top five!

Loda: Hm, well - MYM, VP, KS, eMg(well they are the ones we hate atleast :D) - last one I don`t really know to be honest - either mouz or XsK.

RuFFy: Could you give us each 3 words to every player of SK? Just something what pops into your head!

Loda: Gah, I hate these things :P But ok:
Bogdan: shouting, help me bogdan, judo
Akke: Friend, leshrac, guinsoo
Tompa: Whiner, harasser, warlock
Hailo: Warder, insomnia, new guy
ARS-ART: Crazy, partyboy, ganger

Prime Nations #2


RuFFy: How are your feelings considering the Prime Nations #2? Are you happy with the results of Sweden?

Loda: No, I am not happy at all with the results of the Nations Cup... In the game where I dropped we should have won so that made me a bit sad. I don`t think we should have lost vs Ukraine in the looserbracket either, but that game we got outpicked. Im allready looking forward to the next nations :D

RuFFy: Did you think in the beginning that the final will be Ukraine against Russia? Who will win in your opinion?

Loda: Nah, I didn`t think ukraine would reach the finals from the beginning, but after we lost vs. them I saw the team in them and I was expecting them to barely win vs denmark.

Real-life

RuFFy: Tell us a bit more about your real-life activities. What do you do besides DotA?

Loda: A life besides dota? Ehhm... I like sudoku? Haha, nah - but seriously I`m pretty much an avarage guy. I`m working at IKEA, playing floorball, hanging with friends, partying like the extremely coolboy guy I am. And girls, I`m still single so send my manager some pics of you (lesser clothing the better) and I think he`ll be able to squeeze you into my time table :P

RuFFy: How does a normal day of you look like?

Loda: I really hate these questions! Usually I wake up, take a walk(ocasionally), drive to work, come home, chilling playing DotA, maybe go out and meet some friends for a while and then I get home and play DotA in the late evening/night).

RuFFy: Which hero and/or hero-skill describes your personality/character the best?

Loda: I think Shadowfiend is the hero that describes me the best! I`m a semiganker/Semifarmer (in real-life as well). I`m often mean which can be best seen on my dark crispy skin, but I do have my moments and when I do something I like you can see that fire burning within me brighter and brighter! Pretty good explanation if you check out the shadowfiend model :D

Old and new DotA

RuFFy: What do you think about the map-change of DL pick-league to 6.49c?

Loda: Actually I was a bit surprised when we played our first game vs. avid and they hosted 49c etc but it wasn`t that different - that orchid needs an itemrestriction in my opinion though!

RuFFy: Do you like the new version 6.51? What is good and what is bad? Please also describe your feelings about the new version considering competitive play.

Loda: It`s hard getting used to, but it will bring some new things to the game. I really like the way some heroes were reworked etc., but the pathing is just - hmm well - for scourge it sucks! It`s impossible to creeppull which makes it a bit imbalanced for the sentinel side. I don`t think the new version is ready for competetive play yet, but if you rework the sentinel terrain as well I think it`s all gonna end up well.

RuFFy: If you were a map editor god and responsible for the map - what would you change?

Loda: Thankfully I`m not the mapmaker - I'm not that good when it comes to those things. I am more a player than a maker :P But if I were the mapmaker god I would prolly try to rework spiritbreaker in some way, add some additional items/heroes and rework the naix into the old naix! Just give the old naix some better statsgain etc. and he would rape!


RuFFy: Thanks much for the interview. Any shoutouts/greetings or anything you always wanted to say to the community?:)

Loda: In the end I would just want to thank you for the interview and everything. It was pretty nice to have someone listen to the great mind of number 4, and you should all watch out the "new" SK in the future!

Questions of Dota-League.com Users

BonE_FletcheR: How did you feel when your long-time friend Drayich left SK?

Loda: First of all you have to look at the situation in SK when you have to understand my answer. At that moment drayich had been somewhat led SK after my long vacation when I was out traveling Europe, he and the team had been playing together without me and they had somewhat come up with a different playstyle when it came to picks executing the strat etc.. We tried for a long time to make me fit into this and I decided to take a smaller role in the team in all but even though I did that we still were able to draw the team in different directions. This worked good mostly, but when you face top teams you need to know who`s in charge and how you wanna play the games. Around the time, when we faced KS in MYM PriDe(I think) we once more played in 2 different ways during the game and this all ended up with the whole team to get pissed at eachother.
After this game we just had a long talk in all honesty and we agreed that something had to change! We`ve been friends for a long time and we still are but all in all we came to the agreement that one of us had to go, we couldn`t have two leaders in one team! This ended up with Dray taking the hard decision to leave the team and me taking over my old role as teamleader. Dray didn`t leave just like that, I knew the exact second he decided to leave and it was for the best in my opinion! Of course I felt sorry since he`s a really great guy and a good player but I knew it had to happen for SK to go in the way I wanted us to. So what I am trying to say is that I was sad, but at the same time happy because it was sorta the dawn of a new team!

calcul8er: Why are you not playing SIG anymore?

Loda: When it comes to SIG I used to play it a lot and there is where I first came to the conclusion that I was one of the best, but regretfully at that time SIG wasn`t as good nor had the same good system with hosting, so it was a lot of abuse and some leavers. I was invited into the newly created IHCS and ended up staying in that channel when they moved to the ggc platform. I`m not used to playing at battle.net anymore so I don`t like it that much :)

Kosovo_je_Srbija: How long have you been playing DotA and what can you give us on our way to get one of the best DotA-Player in the world?

Loda: I played DotA for a long long time, but I didn`t start playing it as much and at an proffesional level until about one and a half years ago. That was when I met some of the guys I ended up making the funniest team around with T_T (Team Team) and that was where I was newborn into this game :D I found it really interesting and funny to play clanwars on an higher level and I loved playing DotA in tournaments. After this I met the people that later would be my new clanmembers and we (mostly me and maelk) created JoY which later was picked up and made into MYM.DotA - playing with these guys: Maelk, Mania, Hanni, Levent gave me a new perspective of the game and I was taught a lot of new things about the game.
But all good things has their end and I lost some of the spirit that made DotA funny so I decided to leave. One of the reasons was a bit like the one with me and Dray in SK but mostly I felt that the rest of the team didn`t believe in me as much as I believed in myself. Sometimes you have got to do radical things to move forward! I sorta went back to the old gang: Bogdan, Akke, Tjoffen, Kwom and so on. We decided to remake T_T and this was where I completely understood that the most important part of DotA is to have fun and to make the teamwork good. I felt at ease being a leader and we added up some new players during this time, one of them being Drayich. This ended with T_T winning PriDe 5 and me getting a ridicilous amount of fame when I solo'ed etc.. But what people didn`t see at that time was my team playing around me and made me own most of the games we played. Haha - I know this wasn`t supposed to be a "this is my life" story about my dota career, but I guess my ending words would be that sometimes you will have to make hard decisions to move forward in the game and that all experience is good experience. Most of all it`s about having fun while you play (:

Daffy-Duck: In your opinion, which hero is the most effective in competitive DotA and why?

Loda: Gaah, I can`t answer that question at all. It`s been different from version to version. Once it was visage, then chen, then shadowfiend... The game is going in circles and I think the best way to win is to use strats never seen before. But if you want an easy win? Play 48b and pick bristle - If you are good it's the easiest way to win!

D0minat0r: How long are you playing DotA in average? It doesnt start getting boring? Why doesnt it start getting boring?

Loda: At the moment I don`t know at all... It`s different from time to time. I mean sometimes you loose the urge to play and sometimes you just can`t get enough of it! I think the best way to not loose interest in the game is to take breakes for some days/weeks and then get back! Keep your real-life stable and spend enough time with the game and it will work out great. But I would say I play a couple of hours a day atleast! If I am not away and for example being awfully bad at doing tricks with my skiis (www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQLwlLChLmc) or something like that :D You`re not good at the game if it`s not funny to play it!SoDead: Which third-party-programs do you use and how did you configure them?
Loda: I use WC3hph, which is a program that makes the units and heroes hp visible during all times. I also use Autohotkey to be able to use itemslots fast and easy. The 2 itemslots on top are linked top the 3 and the 4 on my keyboard. In that way you can blink and guinso one millisec before anyone else and that actually gives you the upper hand sometimes!

MYM|Maelk: How do you feel about only being the 4th best player in the world according to reliable statistics?

Loda: Well, I struggle with this fact everyday and for weeks and weeks after I saw this list I was really depressed! But life goes on and I found a way that makes it all a little easier, I just flame everyone on the list below me and I am working day and night to get top 3 on the list! MY TIME HAS COME! :D

[They are joking about this article: http://www.gotfrag.com/dota/story/40429/]

GQBBE: At PN2, at the 28th of February there was an insane match between Sweden and Denmark, but Loda drops in the last minutes and Sweden lost the game - Why did you drop? What happened? Do you think you had a chance to win against Denmark in that game if you didn`t drop? What was your reaction when you dropped and there was no load? (Guess you might have been a bit mad!)

Loda: The reason why I was dropped was that my internet turned down for 1 second and then I just couldn't reconnect to the host again... We had no savers during that game and I never drop so I got really really pissed of because I was sure we would grab the win from Denmark! I mean I couldn't have been 100% that we would win, but like 70% atleast!

In the end we asked Loda for some replays. Here are two clan-/funwars and three replays of IHCS:

Informacion original en Dota-Leage

[Mixelit0]

asi qe el era Loda.

[Effio]

jamas lo hubiera imaginado skiando xD

[LordRodrigo]

Todo un sabio.
<3 Loda :D
Y ese video demasiado anal xD

[CapexD]

ta que galan ese loda xd! skiando xd O_O ! todavia lo graban xd

[StOnAsO?^^v]

uta q iwalito a draken

[LordRodrigo]

Lo más anal fue esto

haha thnx for the interview ashun =) Gotta love the way my camera fixed my red eyes on that last pic :D And great with a pic of me and my mum. She always told me I was unique when the mean kids in school said I was stupid :(

EL MEJOR xD, esto está en otro topic d:, pero vale hacer una mención especial a esa frase, casi lloro Y_Y porq me recuerda a alguien :(

[LyNuS]

A cholojuanito. Tan estudioso que era : <

[RikrevengeR]

ay me derrito loda <3 T_T

desde 2005 Loda and ARS-ART Fan!

[-ANubis-]

Fancitos detected :P

[jC^^!]

Loda 8) , esa caida con el ski OUCH!!!!!!!!!

[[ZaGaTo]]

jamas lo hubiera imaginado skiando xD

cuando has visto un sueco sin nieve a su alrededor xD

[xthiaN]

Loda utilizara esos programas en campeonatos lan ?

[RaGnArOs]

Alguna vez lei una entrevista al mismo loda en donde el titulo de esta era masomenos: "I'm not gay" parece que en el entorno dotero se cuestionaba su "hombria" .... ñiñi

[P1chu]

ta q galan ese loda <3 se parece ami xD!

[-ANubis-]

Alguna vez lei una entrevista al mismo loda en donde el titulo de esta era masomenos: "I'm not gay" parece que en el entorno dotero se cuestionaba su "hombria" .... ñiñi

Lo mas gracioso es que los que lo cuestionaban con chabones con aritos o lentes de contacto, pero no, el puto era Loda (?)

[jC^^!]

:arrowu: jaja lo keriaN pa su gremiO de toas maneRas dx

[-ANubis-]

JAJAJAJAJAJAJJAJAJAJAJAJA

[ZexOo*]

:arrowu: O_O

Loda ta rico :oops:
esa caida con los skiis xD!

[jC^^!]

:arrowu: es un faN enamoradO :lol: