Zyori Plus One

Brax has been a full-time Dota 2 competitor since 2012, with experiences playing both in China and North America. Although soft-spoken at times, Brax and Zyori dive deep into recent issues in the Dota scene, like: player conduct, regional bias, match-fixing, and covid. Warning: not for the faint of heart.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:50​ What’s it like playing with EternalEnvy
3:10​ Current mentality of a 3rd place NA Dota team
5:50​ Dota Regrets?
10:20​ Did you ever consider giving up and going to university?
15:15​ Maintaining physical and mental health
19:40​ Playing vs Casting, Which does Brax prefer?
24:55​ SA Racism Call-out / Player Code of Conduct
33:50​ Jericho / 0-900 lingering questions
39:18​ 4Zoomers, a player-run organization
43:55​ What happened to J.Storm’s DPC Points?
49:40​ Will slots be adjusted based on Singapore results?
54:00​ EU vs NA “banter”; is it destructive?
1:01:55​ Beastcoast Stinger gets fined for breaking quarantine rules
1:05:40​ What’s coach ixmike up to?
1:10:50​ Repetitive Stress Injuries. How do you play POE?
1:15:28​ Who is the anti-thesis of Brax?
1:20:35​ All Dota players don’t play under the same rules
1:21:50​ Team covid press release, Zyori vs Kelly on Twitter
1:31:10​ We have close to 0 influence over Valve
1:38:30​ Brax the therapist
1:40:30​ FOLLOW BRAX

Sunbhie is currently the coach for Team Fnatic, that has recently qualified for the Singapore Major. He has a long history as one of the early players competing in Korea and then became a full time coach in 2016. He helped lead Team Secret to seven top-3 finishes during his tenure and has no shortage of perspective on the competitive Dota 2 landscape.

TIMESTAMPS:
2:10​ SunBhie coaching from Korea
4:55​ TECH ISSUES / FIXING SUNBHIES MIC
15:00​ Show resumes
15:25​ Risks of going to Singapore, 60% of teams unpaid
17:30​ DPC prizing distribution
22:15​ Why doesnt Dota have an Esports Director?
29:00​ One series per week per team; any advantages?
34:00​ Does every team really need a coach?
38:05​ Sunbhie’s coaching resume and long history with few teams
41:45​ Why did Sunbhie leave team Secret?
45:25​ “True Dota only gets played at TI”
48:25​ Do you ever look back at 2014 and think “We didn’t know how good we had it?”
54:10​ Sunbhie’s thoughts on living in Canada vs Korea
1:02:00​ Sunbhie reacts to his angry tweets about South American Dota
1:08:20​ Thoughts on Jericho/0-900 situation
1:09:30​ Matchfixing culture in Korea
1:16:05​ SA as SEA, just 6 years removed
1:20:00​ NA Dota – “Dota is rough everywhere, man”
1:25:36​ Saudi esports and marketing dollars
1:28:44​ ANIME TOUGHTS

Gwen Montgomery is a full-time twitch streamer that was able to launch her broadcasting career by going viral on twitter earlier this year. Candid in her approach as a transgender woman, Gwen’s “From pro gamer to e-girl” tweet caught the attention of major influencers and jumpstarted her fanbase. In this episode, she talks about how to handle going viral and strategies for silencing hurtful trolls.

TIMESTAMPS:
1:37​ How’s overwatch?
7:00​ Fixing role-based matchmakinging
10:16​ Balancing games for casuals and pros
16:15​ Gwen’s professional Call of Duty run
20:42​ How Gwen went viral to start streaming
29:57​ Dealing with trolls and toxicity
40:41​ Which game is the most toxic?
46:16​ Representation matters, especially in Dota
53:46​ Is Twitch doing a good job?
58:46​ Voice profiles and competitive gaming
1:08:36​ Captivating twitch content

Jackie Mao is a long time Dota 2 player that has played in multiple regions and even owned his own team organization. EternalEnVy holds the record for the most professional games played that last more than 60 minutes- a chaotic mastermind that lives his life mostly in the moment. In this episode, EnVy gets introspect and speaks in detail about many of his past decisions, as well as his plans for the future.

TIMESTAMPS:
01:20​ Team Fight Tactics vs Dota 2
08:30​ Do you regret not playing this DPC?
16:00​ Are you worried about Dota in NA?
22:59​ Regrets on Disbanding Team NP
30:48​ Working with Loot Market & FYM Hot Sauce
38:00​ Improvements for DPC
43:08​ Envy’s most proud Dota moment
52:30​ BTC, DOGE, GME
59:59​ Envy’s future plans
1:10:05​ Outro

Robson “TeaGuvnor” Merritt is a Dota 2 analyst and coach that recently worked Omega League and Epic League in the fall of 2020. He joins Zyori for a candid discussion about his commentary career so far, the challenges of being full-time, and how it feel to be left out of this first season of DPC.

3:12 Dota Newcomer Struggles
7:08 Dota is Largely Half-Assed
8:27 DPC Thoughts
11:54 Balancing Viewers, Players, and TOs
21:13 Third Party Events During DPC
25:53 Getting Hired as Broadcast Talent
29:19 TeaGuv’s Talent Experiences
34:40 Up-and-Coming Talent
41:36 Worst Broadcast Memories
55:59 Hype Play by Play
1:03:58 TeaGuv’s Future Plans
1:09:04 Waiting for Someone to Break Their Leg
1:16:34 TeaGov’s Banana’s Backup Plan
1:22:31 Creating Better Content

Bowie is a South American Dota 2 analyst that makes educational content for new Dota players and will be covering this upcoming season of SA DPC.

TIMESTAMPS:
10:08 Dota Pit Talent Announcement
12:55 DPC Season for 2021
16:52 What the DPC might mean for TO’s and Teams
30:50 New DPC in relation to Tier 1 and 2/3
36:40 TI in 2021
40:55 Talent invites to TI
51:16 First Casting Experiences
59:25 What Purge Means to Dota Fans
1:08:11 Reaching Your Audience
1:23:44 Content Rights in Dota
1:35:28 The D2BOWIE Rant for SA Dota
1:49:42 Outro

Effy is an independent professional wrestler and full-time streamer on Twitch. He talks to Zyori about parallels between Wrestling and Esports, Arkosh Gaming, wrestling on Twitch, physical sustainability, LGBTQ in wrestling, and DEATHMATCHES.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
0:49 Effy Awards Hijacking
2:18 Dota Exposure
3:23 Arkosh Gaming Showmanship
9:02 Creating Content on Twitch
13:40 The Indie Wrestling Scene
19:50 Indie vs Industry Wrestling
29:39 Pushing Your Limits in Wrestling
41:32 Paying people what they are worth
49:47 Profitability of Wrestling Orgs
53:30 Marketing Yourself

Gabriel Nassif is a Magic the Gathering Hall of Famer, professional poker player, full-time twitch streamer, and Dota 2 enthusiast. He joins Zyori in this episode to talk about competitive Magic, how it relates to Dota 2, balancing RNG vs Skill in games, Artifact, and the struggles of NA Dota.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
2:43 Love/Hate Relationship with Dota
5:40 Playing and Streaming MTG
11:41 How the MTG Pro Circuit Works
15:56 The Economy of MTG
26:38 Preference for Paper vs Online MTG
28:48 Balancing Skill vs RNG
38:34 Professional Poker
45:12 Looking Back at Artifact
54:26 The YellowHat Biography
1:10:09 The Attention Market Share
1:17:47 Playing and Content Creation

Andrew Jenkins is a full time Dota 2 content creator, in-game analyst, and former professional competitor in North America. Known as THE Dota 2 Degenerate, Jenkins comes on for a very raw chat spamming psychology in gaming, earnings as broadcast talent, min/maxing youtube, being ok with being yourself, challenges with Twitch chat moderation, and thoughts on Plasma’s DQ vs Beastcoast.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
4:45 Creating content for Dota
10:20 Growing your Youtube audience
30:30 Jenkins psychology through dota
41:15 Earnings and dick pics
47:06 The quirks that make us dota people
59:22 Psychology behind the MMR grind
1:03:28 Being your true self as a talent
1:13:38 Twitch Moderation on subjective topics
1:38:11 Running side businesses
1:47:15 Plasma’s disqualification vs Beastcoast
1:58:10 Producing content from raw creativity
2:14:32 Outro

Jack ‘KBBQ’ Chen is the manager of NA Dota team Quincy Crew and has worked extensively as broadcast talent for major Dota tournaments in both English and Chinese. He chats with Zyori about the history of Quincy Crew, the next generation of Dota players, Demon’s situation, Arkosh Gaming, memories from Captain’s Draft 4, and life after Dota.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
1:49 Covid life & Dota
8:30 NA Dota from a manager’s perspective
13:32 History of Quincy Crew
18:59 Being a player run Org
22:00 Are Dota players doing enough to build their brands?
31:06 The next generation of NA Dota players
41:18 Demon’s redemption
46:53 What it takes to be a dota coach
51:17 Arkosh Gaming
54:47 Jack missing the fun of talent work
59:08 Jack asking about life as talent in 2020
1:01:20 Reminiscing about Captains Draft 4
1:08:40 Prospects for talent after Dota