Insider Gaming spoke to Nightfall as Aurora enters the Lower Bracket of ESL One Birmingham after a dominant Group Stage gave way to a 2-1 series defeat to Tundra in the Upper Bracket of the Dota 2 event.
The Aurora carry spoke to IG about his voice in the team, his in-game philosophy, and his excitement about playing in front of the ESL One Birmingham 2026 crowd.
“I’d say my hero pool got affected more than other people’s roles.”
Nightfall on Dota 2 patch
You started really hot in the group stage of this event. Why did you have so much momentum in the groups?
I think we just played better than most teams, at least in our groups. We understood the meta very well and knew what heroes to pick and how to play.
Moving on to your upper bracket match yesterday, Is there something specific about Tundra you think is harder to play against for you guys?
I don’t think it’s necessarily because of Tundra. It’s just a new patch, and I’d say it’s two teams, and which teams adapt faster is important.
I mean, first of all, it’s a super big patch, so Dota is going to become a bit random. So it’s a bit 50-50. Yeah.
It does seem that when you get up and running, you don’t just win a couple of games, you win in one case 26 in a row, or in other cases, like this time, you won 13-1 in terms of games in groups. Is that something really important in the team?
I mean, I just say just kind of play every game and focus on each game and try not to underrate enemies and just play our best every game since it’s important.
Do you feel like you’re in a leadership position in the team in terms of leading how the team plays?
Yeah, I would say so. It’s probably that if we’re going to talk about voices, I’d say I have one of the louder voices, and also the most vlocal role in terms of our comps.
Do you have a specific way that you want Dota to be played?
It’s just some normal stuff, like do not take, just do, I mean, just play kind of good and stable.
What do you emphasize within the server that you want the players to always do?
I think it’s just like everything is kind of important right now in Dota, but I’d say it’s mostly the first 15-20 minutes which are important; how you play your lanes, what you do after these lanes for another seven minutes after the laning phase ends.
Then there are some objectives happening, which are also important to contest. Other than that, it’s also a game, even if you’re leading, which is going to come down to teamfights and you need to play it somewhat decent to win.
How excited are you to be playing in front of a crowd?
I think it’s kind of hype to actually have people watching because I feel like nowadays there aren’t many tournaments happening where there’s actually a stadium and spectators.
I think it adds kind of prestige to the tournament. So I think it will be fun.
Would you like to see more of those tournaments in the circuit?
Yeah, it would be very nice to have more than one tournament for three or four months with a crowd.
In terms of the crowd and the emotion it brings, do you think it will make you play better, or will it not affect your game?
It’s hard to say this, but I don’t think it will make me play better.
Just probably around the same.
How are you feeling about the patch?
I mean, it’s just a gigantic patch. I’m feeling, how to say, unknown. I mean, just not sure yet what’s good and which items, which heroes are good.
So just trying to figure it out.
How would you say it’s affected your hero pool?
It affected my pool a lot, I’d say. Most of the heroes I played, they got like nerfed or some innate doesn’t exist, some Facet doesn’t exist anymore. Yeah, I’d say my hero pool got affected more than other people’s roles.
In terms of the facets, do you think it’s good that they’ve been removed?
Or would you like to see some of them stay? I thought it’s a fun concept where you have two facets, and you can choose one, but it’s fine with me that they change it. It’s somewhat fun anyway to have some new stuff happening.
Do you think Nightfall and Aurora can claim this ‘prestige’ trophy? Discuss that on Insider Gaming’s Discord!
For more Dota 2 interviews, see our interview with Rekonix’s inYourDream.
Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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