Mousesport's MiSeRy: "I still consider Team DOG to be one of the best team names of all time"

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Yesterday Mousesports announced the official signing of Dota's Team Dog, featuring team Captain Per Ander 'Pajkatt' Olsson Lille along with teammates Rasmus 'MiSeRy' Filipsen, Adrian 'FATA' Trinks, Pascal 'paS' Lohmeie, and Arif 'MSS' Anwar.

onGamers sat down with Filipsen for an exclusive interview on why the team decided to join Mousesports, playing in the The International 2014 qualifiers, and what lies ahead.

You initially indicated that Team Dog was just a team to play with for the time being. With the sponsorship from mouz, has this changed at all?

Initially it was just a casual team. We signed up for some tournaments to just continue playing after coming home from China in December. After a while we realized that it wasn´t much fun losing due to lack of practice or commitment, so we decided to put more effort into it and we have done so the last few months.

So even prior to the sponsorship with Mousesports, we had a serious approach to the game, but now that we are going to play for a professional e-sports organization and sponsors like BenQ, EpicGear and XMG, it is official to the community as well, that we are competing to win and becoming the best.

There were rumors going about various organizations having an interest in your team. What made you decide on Mousesports in the end?

We had plenty of offers throughout the last months, in fact it was a really hard decision in the end, since the offers were insanely good. What gave Mouz the advantage was the fact that their facilities for boot-camping were really close to all of us except for MSS obviously - paS and FATA were happy to return to mouz. On top of that, mouz was the first to give us a concrete offer that caught our interest for real, which gave them an edge over the other organisations.

Did having two former mouz players on the team help assure you that mouz would be an organization you could work with?

To an extent it did, they had a good experience with mouz in the past. Both FATA and paS trusted mouz as an organisation and that made our decision a little easier.

Has there been any talk of hiring a coach of some kind. You had Ducky come in before TI3 for LGD.Int to help with teambuilding, is this something that you think could be good for Team Dog as well?

I think the subject of having a coach is highly underrated, but as of now, it is not something that we have thought about. For now we just need to practise more and get to know each other even better. Maybe in the future, who knows?

Was the real reason because the mouz tag is a good luck charm for the qualifiers?

Nah, I still consider "Team DOG" to be one of the best team names of all time.

Has there been discussion of a bootcamp? What details can you give us about times and places?

One of our criteria from the sponsors was bootcamp facilities, so that is set to kick off the 16th of May and throughout the European TI4 qualifiers. It will be in Berlin.

During their previous bootcamp mouz arranged a meet and greet for their fans in Berlin. Have you talked about the potential for such a meet with Team Dog as well?

It is not something that we have talked about yet, but probably something similar is going to happen this year as well.

You've said you consider RoX.KiS your main threat going into the qualifiers. What makes them dangerous, and does the format help or hurt them?

We are going in to the qualifier with the same mind set regardless of whom we meet.

Which other two teams do you think are going to make it into the top four in the qualifier?

I don’t like making any predictions, anything can happen.

Speculation has generally been that Europe or China will take the 16th slot in Seattle. Would you agree with this, and if so which regions runner up do you think will be stronger?

It is not my concern right now. Time will tell.

You were a heavy proponent of Chinese Dota before joining LGD.int. Has your time back changed your outlook on the scenes? What are the major advantages and disadvantages as you see them for each scene?

I don’t think there is a big difference between the scenes anymore, teams have different play styles now, not east/west.

There's also been a lot of talk about the East vs. West divide losing some of it's meaning within the scene. Do you think this is true, and why is that?

I think the whole east-vs-west discussion disappeared years ago, at least amongst pro players, both sides has really strong teams and the respect in between the scenes are mutual.

Before heading into the International, there's a few more big events on the calendar. You've qualifier for ESL One Frankfurt, ASUS ROG DreamLeague and you're still in the running for The Summit. How does the looming International change your approach to these tournaments?

It doesn’t. We take one tournament at the time. Our main focus is the next game we are going to play.

You only barely were left out of a return to WPC ACE. What would it have meant for you to go back there, this time with a team that had played and practiced outside of China?

It would definitely have been fun, there are times where I definitely do miss china, so going back there for a visit would be nice. I think the time-ruling is ridiculous, and it shouldn’t ever be an option in tiebreakers.