TSM Timado: “Every time you get cocky in Dota, you get smacked by life, so be always humble”

TSM FTX is off to an amazing start so far in the NA DPC. Tonight's match was no different. TSM laid down the law and demolished Simply TooBased in a short 2-0 beatdown. Even with an unconventional Bounty Hunter pick for Jonáš "SabeRLight-" Volek, the team made quick work of the opponent. Standouts included Jonathan Bryle "Bryle" Santos De Guia on his Ember Spirit in both games, and Enzo "Timado" Gianoli O'Connor on his signature Morphling.

We were treated to a rare interview with the carry player for TSM FTX after the series. the panel first asked him about all of the stuff he was doing during the drafts of the games. TSM Timado explained that "[he] had a lot of laundry to do" and that "[he] went on a small vacation after he got back from Dubai, and then got home", so he "decided to do it while [the game] was happening. The small vacation was to hang out with his girlfriend, so they "did shopping" and "visited some museums." He noted that "[he] hadn't taken a break... for Christmas or New years, since [he] really wanted to win season one."

The panel then asked about how he felt about not playing Dota for ten days, the length of his vacation. He said "I feel like I've been playing bad... with the new patch I was like, freestyling." Timado followed up: "I feel I'm a little behind these ten days and now I need to play for like ten hours." He continued, "you always need to know what you need as a player, for me I need to play a lot." Comparing himself to his team he said: "I have things I need to work on right now, my team played pretty well, Bryle popped off."

The panel next asked about players that Timado watches. He noted that "[he] respects people who do the same (play lots of pubs), like right now I'm watching a lot of watson, I always watch like iLTW, like I just watch everyone." He continued: "I don't view this person and be like 'oh I'm gonna do what he does', like I know certain players are really good at certain heroes, and there's always players that are better for the patch. For example, like skitter and dyracho are like really good this patch, so just paying attention to [them], like I think like Yatoro is kinda struggling with the patch from what I've seen."

The panelists then asked TSM Timado if and how the team or himself develops the mental and team side of Dota. He responded that "[he] thinks life itself makes you grow up and see things differently, like now that I'm older I see very clearly that I had the wrong approach and mentality to a lot of different things now... so that one naturally comes to me." He followed up: "I like to evaluate not only how I play but how I act... sometimes I just question myself on really pushing myself to the limit, and being the teammate that I want to be."

Timado next talked about a conversation that he had with Team Liquid's coach. He said: "They value Matu and Zai a lot because it's just nice to play Dota with them." He noted about his own playing "that it's not only the aspect of being a good player, but like what you can show to your teammates."

Speaking about team captain David "MoonMeander" Tan Boon Yang: "He's a very smart guy and I think he puts a lot of effort into a lot aspects of his life. So I'm always trying to be like a sponge around him and just applaud all of his wisdom."

The panel then asked Timado if there was any hero that he wanted to bust out to send a message. Timado joked: "I don't really care about leaking honestly... I was looking forward to playing Chaos Knight a lot... I just think this hero is strong... but my confidence is a little hurt cause I have like a 30% win rate out of like 50 games." When asked about what his win rate was with Morphling on the team, he noted that "me and Bryle really like the hero so we were like building up each other's ego.

So you can say that wow, these guys have like a 100% percent win rate with TSM. But at the same time we just pick it really well." The panel then brought up the fact that the win rate was ruined, at least for Bryle, at the Dubai tournament. He quipped: "We had that one coming. We talked about the 100% win rate and then the chicken tendies incident happened." Timado continued: "every time you get cocky in Dota, you get smacked by life. So be always humble."

How will TSM fare the rest of the season? Will Timado keep his own 100% win rate on Morphling. Stick with us here at esports.gg for more coverage of the NA DPC!