Matt Marcou: North American Lans and the DotA Community

North American DotA might seem to be a bit behind on the Competitive eSport scene, but with a man like Matt Marcou... we might be able to see even more changes soon! Leading the way by creating epic LAN events and pushing for more representation in major eSport events, Marcou has done a lot for DotA.


A Little Bio:

Name:Matt "d00bi0us" Marcou
Zodiac Sign: Leo
Past Teams You've Worked With: verGe
Play DotA? How long have you been playing?:Yes, on and off. 5 years+
Team: EG obv ... aside from that KS
Player: Whisper

Hero: Earthshaker
Item: Blink Dagger
Food:Spaghetti/Sushi
Drink:Bubble Tea
Band: Muse



Sunie: Hello Mister Matt Marcou, and thanks for participating in this interview. I'm going to try and make this THE BEST INTERVIEW EVER! Could you please tell the DotA community a little bit about yourself?

Matt: I'm originally from Milwaukee, WI and soon to relocate to Chicago. I'm 26 years old, and I played in my first competitive console tournament when I was 9 years old where I got first place in coolspot for the sega genesis. About 9 years ago I decided that it was more fun to run tournaments than play in them.

Sunie: How did you get involved in the gaming world, and more specifically why did you choose DotA?

Matt: Sometime during college after my war3 ladder days were done, I got hooked on the wonderful mods that permeated Battle.net. Along the way I discovered dota ... I loved it so much that I started a DotA league for CAL around 2004. I recognized that it was very similar to Counter-strike, which I also loved. It was the first time that I saw a real way to play a team based RTS (2v2 War3 just doesn't cut it).

Sunie: Could you tell us a little bit about your involvment with EG DotA?

Matt: I found myself joining EG in 2008 as part of their management. I helped bring along my old DotA team from verGe and a Counter-Strike team that I had been working with in 2007. Initially I helped introduce DotA to EG and help them realize how important it was to the developing eSports scene. Now a days I work with marketing iniatives (specifically DotA) as I have stepped away from managing the team on a daily basis.

Sunie: When you're recruiting players for a pro team, what sort of skill/personality aspects do you look for?

Matt: The most important traits within a team are a strong work ethic, adaptability, and maturity. Too often I encounter players who are talented, but are immature and take the easy way out of things. Sponsors and team management will not put up with that for anything. Most competitive players are young with very little professional experience, so it's very difficult to find these qualities in every singled rostered player, but as long as they are willing to follow the lead of their team captain, then they usually learn quickly.

Sunie: How do you think the maturity level of the DotA community differs from the rest of the eSport scene? Do you think this is a contributing factor or a detrimental one to the creation of lans and teams?

Matt: I've met a lot of highly mature & intelligent dota players (sometimes too much for their own good). It's very noticable compared to other communities and there's a lot of players in higher education. On the flip side though, a lot of these players haven't held jobs and haven't experienced as many events as say counter-strike players. So there's more of a naivete in the dota community, which sometimes emerges in the form of really ignorant forum posts ignorant forum posts and misguided (but well thought out) rants.

Sunie: I understand that you play a pivotal role in the production and creation of DotA tournaments (ie Fire & Ice), how do you think this could help promote DotA in esports, and where would you like to see it go?

Matt: In additional to working with CAL and the F&I series, I have also worked with ESWC (sadly gone) and KODE5 on their DotA efforts. My main role really is to convince sponsors that there are millions of people playing DotA and investing their marketing budget into eSports (specifically dota) DotA will help them with their brand awareness and sales (IF THEY DO IT RIGHT!).

Sunie: Do you have any favorite experiences from running one of these tournaments? Any funny stories to share with the DotA Community?

Matt: Probably too many. My favorite things are (A) to meet new people and ( be a witness to awkward encounters: (1) At the ESWC Grand Finals in San Jose, the SK team proved that Europeans are as weird in real life as they are depicted in movies like Eurotrip. I think this was well documented in pictures, so I'll leave it at that. (2) Meeting Kingsurf and their managers in San Jose was really awesome. They were very, very nice and extremely excited to be there. It always makes me happy to see players have a positive first experience with tournaments cause I feel it's my job to provide it since I was graced with awesome tournament experience when I started out.(3) I conducteded an interview with MYM at the first F&I in Chicago (video here - http://www.sourceradio.com/fni/?id=7). It was a really cool experience and hanging out with h4nni after the tournament ended led to some hilarity.

Sunie: How do you think the United States compares to the rest of the world when it comes to DotA, ie awareness and tournaments?

Matt: It's hard to answer that as I haven't been to a DotA event outside of the US, yet. My opinion is that the United States is behind Europe and Asia in every aspect of gaming except for console gaming. There is certainly a larger player base in Asia and Europe and there's been some crazy activity in South eastern Asia.

Sunie: Do you have any future plans or hints for any upcoming events in the US? Or even outside of the US?

Matt: I posted a poll on the DotA Allstars forums that will probably give away some of my immediate plans: http://forums.dota-allstars.com/index.php?showtopic=290434. There are a few opportunities that I am working on both inside and outside the US. I assure you that I will post more information as soon as they are finalized.

Sunie: I'd like to finish this interview off with a couple speed questions, are you aptly prepared?

Matt: Born ready.

Sunie: Crysal Maiden or Lina Inverse?
Matt: Lina

Sunie: Sven or Arnold?
Matt: Unless Sven becomes president of Kalimdor, then I gotta go with the Governator. I just watched Total Recall last night as well, lol.

Sunie: Favorite DotA Mode?
Matt: -rd

Sunie: Boxers or Briefs?
Matt: boxers

Sunie: Sweet or Sour?
Matt: sweet

Sunie: Healing Pots or Tangos?
Matt: tangos, om-nom

Sunie: lol, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule for this interview, do you have any shoutouts you'd like to give?

Matt: To my team for winning the F4F and to Whisper for being an awesome online cheerleader and hopefully a decent roommate when I move to Chicago. Also thanks to Team EG's current sponsors Intel, SteelSeries, Peregrine, Kingston X, and Ventrilo.org. Finally, a big thanks to Icefrog and his team of testers for keeeping dota so fresh and soooo good after all these years.