“If anyone’s gonna cheese, it’ll be me” – Quinn at BetBoom Dacha Dubai

Gaimin Gladiators enters BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2024 as a serious contender, and midlane maestro Quinn Callahan has a second trophy to fight for. The triple-Major champion will enter as a favorite in both the main event and the $100,000 1v1 tournament. Quinn graciously granted esports.gg a few minutes to talk in person about the American's expectations in the United Arab Emirates.

Join us from BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2024, as we interview Quinn from Gaimin Gladiators.

Esports.gg: How’s FISSURE treating you? What do you think of Dubai?

Quinn: It’s been nice so far, I had some good food the weather is pretty close up there, like nice kind of cool. I just got here last night so I haven’t seen very much. (laughs) 

Were there any pro players who inspired you to pursue Dota 2 full-time?

I don’t know if there were specific people, necessarily. I think the biggest catalyst for me trying to go professionally was, I was finishing high school, I really didn’t want to go to college, I didn’t know what else to do. So I was just like, “Maybe this works”. It was just kind of not wanting to do anything else that got me into playing professionally. And then it just kind of worked and I was like “Okay! It’s alright then.”

What do you think about the DPC dissolving and third-party events like this taking its place?

I think it’s nice. The DPC got really, really old. I don’t think the idea was bad, but the execution was probably sub-optimal. It just devalued all the hype matches because Europe was a pretty dominant region at the time so it was always us versus Liquid a hundred thousand times throughout the year, so every individual time you play is kind of whatever.

Are there any heroes that you wish were stronger for this tournament?

Leshrac and Necrophos. Probably the worst heroes in the whole game. It’d be nice if they weren’t.

Do you ever abuse your fame in pubs? If someone were to take mid, would you ever tell them “Hey, I’m Quinn. Gimme mid.”?

They see who you are, so if someone’s staying mid then they are doing it because they just want mid. It is what it is. They see your name in pubs so if they are gonna fight for mid, then they’re pretty hard set on it.

If you could only play one hero for the rest of your time playing Dota, what hero would you pick?

Probably Ember, I think so.

Do you like the new Mage Slayer build?

Yeah, it’s a pretty decent hero. There’s a lot of versatility and variants in what you can do. It’s my most played hero as well.

Even after the TI loss, do you still see GG as the team to beat?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen us as the team to beat. I think you need to be careful of thinking of yourself too highly in modern Dota. The gap between any team and any other team is not that large these days. You’re just one moment of complacency away from being dethroned. We lost the last couple of tournaments so, at the end of the season, we weren’t really that dominant. I think you have to remain hungry and... not scared necessarily, but you need to be quite defensive of your position and really look out for people. Any moment of taking other teams for granted will bite you.

Do you still see Liquid as your biggest rival? Or has Spirit taken that title?

Yeah right now I think it’s Spirit. Liquid is definitely a very good team, we haven’t seen them play with us for this year, this is the first tournament so it’ll be fun to play against them. And it’s their first patch too, it’ll be nice to see them with the new roster. Like how different it is, how the rivalry shapes up with the new roster.

How do you expect to perform in the main tournament?

I don’t expect anything. I’ll be unhappy with anything besides first. You can’t really go in thinking that anything is headed to you or you deserve something or whatever. You go to a tournament, you don’t get +2 damage because you won the last tournament, you don’t get any of those. You need to play really well, and if you don’t, then you lose. I don’t think I expect anything.

Related to the 1v1 tournament, William "Blitz" Lee has announced his intention to cheese you out. How do you feel about that challenge?

I mean, there’s no cheesing. I’m pretty sure the way they’re picking, from how it works, is you pick a hero and then you take turns banning again for the last hero. We’re just going to end up on Shadow Fiend. If anyone’s gonna cheese, it’ll be me, because my team's got some nerds so we’ll figure out some stuff. I don’t think he’s going to be the one doing the cheesing.

I see you and Aske "Cy-" Larsen both signed up for the event. How well do you think your coach will do?

He’s better than a few other people in the tournament. There’s a lot of non-mid players on there. He’s a mid player, and he’s around rank 500 or something, so he’s not that bad. It depends on the seeding though. It should be seeded where the mid players are playing the non-mid players. Then all mid players will probably win, and then it’ll just be all the mid players left. But if it’s seeded improperly, then he’ll probably go far.

Are there any other players in the 1v1 tournament that you’re scared of?

I don’t think so. I think [Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak] is very strong right now. [Michał "Nisha" Jankowski] is very strong. [Danil "gpk" Skutin] is a pretty good laner, and I think he thrives in a isolated format like this.

A special thanks to Quinn for taking the time at BetBoom Dacha 2024 to speak with esports.gg.

Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest updates on all things Dota 2.