Loot Market recently began sponsoring Team NP. The founder and captain of Team NP, Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao, took a bit of time to give us a little insight into his thoughts. We hope you enjoy this EternaLEnVy interview!
This EternaLEnVy interview covers:
- Thoughts on the DOTA 7.00 patch
- Favorite LAN(s)
- How cosmetic items impact his gameplay
- The meaning of “NP”
- Favorite meme
- Last favorite part of being a pro gamer
What things do you love about 7.00 so far?
I’ve been dealing with some errands recently so I haven’t gotten around playing the patch. Since that patch where Chen could control Roshan and I’ve lost an official to an empowered life stealer (3 years ago you couldn’t do that), I’ve never played after big patches for at least a few days waiting for bug fixes.
Anyway I still have some thoughts. Although there have been lots of complaints about the new UI, I still think it’s heading in the right direction. The old UI was way too large and blocked way too much information when you played. I really liked the talents of Ember Spirit, and with my new Ember Set I’ll be spamming that hero quite a bit. Hopefully it doesn’t turn out like PA and the heroes legit. Either way I’ll try to make Ember competitively viable or die trying. The addition of the BackPack mechanic was definitely necessary. In a lot of competitive games supports usually have to choose between having a good item or just having wards/smoke. Now they can have both. Personally I think this mechanic can be quite broken when used properly, maybe IceFrog will balance it in the future well have to wait and see.
What’s been your favorite LAN / event? Why?
I actually looked through the list of LAN events and couldn’t find a single LAN where I just purely enjoyed it without regrets or suffering -__-. For example DreamHack Winter back with NTH it was my first LAN and we won but had a 24 hour layover.
Still it’s definitely Shanghai Major. Although against OG I had tears falling for the 3 hours in that toxic booth and the other Shanghai Major problems I still enjoyed it the most. Every morning me and Rose would wake up earlier than anyone else by a few hours and just talk about the game. I feel like I learnt the most in that tournament and was able to apply it right away.
As the only remaining “Chinese” player we were by far the fan favorites and the crowd was giant and amazing. It’s also the biggest tournament win of my life. My girlfriend was also the host for some random Shanghai Major reason so she was on stage with me throughout every victory. It was a great feeling. My cousins, uncles, and grandma were also all watching the tournament throughout, making my parents very happy.
What percentage does your game play improve when your hero is equipped with the appropriate cosmetic items? Kappa.
Well it improves indirectly. Sometimes I would like a new set and just spam that hero because of that reason alone, making me better at the hero. One example would be when PA arcana came out I spammed PA non stop (big failure). I’ve done this for a fair amount of heroes, when the Lunar Immortal Shield came out I spammed Luna and when my Drow Set came out I spammed that. I’ll probably spam Ember in 7.00 with my new Ember set (thanks Anuxi!).
We recently got sponsored by Loot Market so I’ll be equipping whatever DotA 2 items I want. We’ll see how that sways me on playing certain heroes.
When will you disclose the true meaning of “NP”?
When I first created this team I wanted something easy to chant. I thought OG was a great name and wanted something similar in the sense that it’s easy to chant and has many meanings. I spent a lot of time looking at acronyms trying to figure out which one would be the best. At one point I came to the acronym No Problem and Over Powered. I chose NP over OP because I believe someone mentioned NP could mean No Puppey and I found that very funny. I also knew Naga Please and other things could be used so we stuck with NP.
What is your favorite meme?
The scariest moment in my time with secret was during our practices, when Puppey would walk around with a machete and talk about how he always wanted to see what the inside of a human looked like. He said he had experimented on animals before and he wanted to go for the real thing. I believed him.
What is your least favorite part of being an elite gamer?
The hate. I’m probably one of the most polarizing pro gamers in the scene so I often get a lot of hate. I remember at Boston Major after we lost to DC someone from the crowd screamed “EternaLEnVy get your fucking ass out of here.” I’ve received a lot of death threats over the years for many instances.
Though regardless I’ve never really thought about changing myself to receive less hate or to be liked. As I have much more responsibilities then when I first had when I started playing (Owned Org, Moved out, Girlfriend) I don’t really have the time to care about such things. It’s generally a lot of bullshit anyway to be honest it’s rare to find hate that actually has relevant meaning.
Outside of gaming, what do you find to be most relaxing?
Watching a really good anime or reading a really good manga. Though nowadays its kinda rare I’m running out of things to watch/read. I’m gonna start watching western shows.
What’s your favorite brand of hot sauce?
FYM Extra Hot Sauce
Any shoutouts? Sellouts welcomed.
Shoutouts to everyone who has supported team NP and myself throughout the times. That includes the sponsors FYM Hot Sauce, ggbet, and Loot Market. But another sponsor we have is literally just the fans. We have been given a lot from you guys and hope for your continued support. Shoutouts to GigaDC, Saylith, and all the other moderators that have been helping out without expecting anything back.
We plan on giving a lot back to the community but the workload is heavy and we haven’t found time to do that yet. Some ideas we have is to show team spendings publicly but we can’t show team earnings as we would need every sponsor’s permission. We can show the donation money though.
I’m also about to move out to my new place (which is also the bootcamp house) and I can show a tour of that. I’m sure at one point we’ll have a tub interview with selected fan questions.
Last thing we have in mind is to host a big event fan session in Toronto. Since our next bootcamp is in Malaysia in late DEC/January a lot of things will be delayed till late jan/early feb most likely. We’ll be having two fan meets in Malaysia so look forward to that if you’re from there!
We hope you guys enjoyed this EternaLEnVy interview! Here are a few links for more Jacky / Team NP goodies: