Community Interview with Pedro - Brazilian 7100 MMR Top Player!

Hello everyone and welcome to our latest interview! We haven't had an interview for quite a while, but we're happy to be back and even more excited to have Pedro as our guest!

Pedro is a very high skilled player and we thought the community would be interested in his expertise. You can find more information about his DotA stats here.

Below we have covered a few questions about himself and his DotA endeavors, but feel free to also ask your own questions that you're interested in and Pedro will gladly answer! :)

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Q: Hello Pedro and thank you for accepting to answer a few of our questions. Before moving on to the DotA related questions, may we know a little bit about yourself?

A: Hello, I'm Pedro, a 18 years old Brazilian DotA 2 player. I study administration, outside of DotA I like reading, working out, drawing and getting into small projects like this. :p

Q: That's great! For how long have you been playing DotA 2 and what is your highest MMR achieved?

A: I started playing DotA 2 in 2014 but since then I have taken some pretty long breaks with the longest one being almost 2 years. I play mainly on the South American server and my current MMR is 7100.

Q: Have you previously played any similar games to DotA 2 or was this your first ARTS?

A: DotA 2 was my first interaction with an ARTS. Before I started playing DotA 2, I used to play CSGO and TF2. I got to playing DotA 2 because it was a free game and it was from the same company as CSGO and TF2, it had to be a good game.

Q: What was your MMR when you first calibrated? I’m sure it was a road full of all kinds of matches until you’ve reached the MMR you are at now!

A: At first I calibrated at something around 2900~ MMR, to get out of 3k was pretty easy, I think I was already better than that when I calibrated, I only started struggling at 4k. I tried many heroes and different roles until I found out that position 4 bounty hunter was working very well for me, once I got to 5300 I sat there for a long time, had to do the same thing. This time I changed my role to offlane and started picking based on the enemy lineup, then I started slowly learning and going up in MMR from 6k to 7k. I changed my role to mid and I just kept playing and learning pretty much, you just gotta stop looking to your team's mistakes and focus on what you can change.

Q: Do you prefer climbing MMR by playing your favorite heroes or by spamming meta picks?

A: After I got past 5k I never really spammed heroes, sometimes I pick to counter, sometimes I pick to have fun, depends on my mindset that day, it doesn't really matter, if you are really good at a hero you will get the best from him even in a bad situation.

Q: Which are your favorite heroes to play and which is your main role?

A: My main role is midlane but I’m a versatile player. My favorite hero is Pudge and I play him on mid too, I have a pretty decent winrate with him on mid at immortal games and I have been using him for quite a long time, it’s the most fun hero in dota.

Q: Did you ever consider playing professionally or have attempted to do so?

A: I have considered and I actually had a very short tryout in a really good team from SA but it ended up not working out, no plans for the moment though.

Q: Since we’re on the topic, who is your favorite professional team and player?

A: Currently my favorite professional team is Nigma. I really like their playstyle and how they play around Miracle, if I would want to play at a team level I would want to play like that.
I don’t have a favorite pro player but there are a few ones which I really like to watch like: Sumail, CCnC and W33, I feel like their playstyles are similar to mine.

Q: How do you feel about the latest patches and the neutral items, have they had a noticeable influence on your play style or MMR?

A: Yeah, at first I didn't really like it and I lost quite a bit of MMR, but now I think I got used to it. I like the idea of outposts but I feel like neutral items needs some sort of change, some items are way too good and some are way too bad and very often I see myself without slots because there are so many neutral items.

Q: What general tips would you have for players that struggle with increasing their MMR?

A: The best tip I have is to stop blaming your team and focus on what you and only you can change, after every game look at you could have done better. Try to have an stable mindset in which you don't get negative thoughts easily, focus on learning.

Q: Which was your preferred way of getting better at the game?

A: I learned a lot by watching tournaments on Twitch and also high MMR players like Gorgc, Khezu, Mason or pro players who stream. Watching replays helps a lot too if you are looking for something specific.

Q: Is there something else you would like to add for the readers?

A: Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoyed it. :)

Hes GoD!