Virtus.pro Offlaner Reveals Why the Team Enjoys Criticism from Russian Fans

Virtus.pro's offlaner, Dmitry "DM" Dorokhin, recently mentioned how his team relaxes between games of Dota 2. A bit out of the ordinary, he said all of his team’s players read the Russian fans' comments, which they find quite humorous. Russian fans are quite sarcastic and comical in their criticism, so it is a good time-pass for the Virtus.pro squad, he explained in the post-match winner’s interview after the team’s win over Thunder Predator in the ESL One Fall 2021: Bootcamp Edition. Furthermore, DM compared how fans from Europe and Russia criticize them differently.

DM explains why Virtus.pro enjoys the criticism it receives from Russian fans

After the 2-0 victory over Thunder Predator in the group stage of ESL One Fall 2021, DM was asked how the team relaxes after a long day of practice. Despite everyone enjoying their own pastimes like listening to music and watching videos, one thing they all enjoyed was reading and laughing at the comments of Russian fans, DM mentioned.

“Basically everyone is reading comments from Russian websites because some people are crazy. It’s just fun to watch when they flame or stuff like that. It just feels really fun to watch bad comments because when people in Russia flame, they flame in very good and sarcastic ways, many of them. Some of them are stupid but some of them flame in good ways. I just enjoy reading these kinds of comments.”

Virtus.pro's current roster excelled in online events but failed to perform well in the two offline Majors of the previous Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season. He said European fans flame them in this regard, but Russian fans do it much better and in a more comical way. Additionally, he stated that none of the players on his team are sensitive to this stuff, and they all enjoy it.

“In Europe, people just talk like, “Online poggers, LAN KEKW.” In Russia, people flame much better. They do really good comedy and stand up stuff when they are flaming. I guess none of them (Virtus.pro players) are sensitive to this kind of stuff and everyone enjoys reading them. When we got the coach, everyone in Russia was flaming him. 90% were flaming our coach and we were coming to our coach and saying, “Read this comment, this guy is a big joker.”

Virtus.pro recruited Anatoly "boolk" Ivanov as a coach for their Dota 2 team prior to ESL One Fall 2021. Boolk has previously coached top CIS teams such as Gambit Esports, Virtus.pro, and EXTREMUM. Currently, he is helping the team with their drafting alongside carry Egor "Nightfall" Grigorenko.

In the end, DM said they had only worked with their new coach for a week and he was helping them with new strategies. He expects his team to improve more as time passes. Virtus.pro has not lost a series so far in ESL One Fall 2021. In Group A, the team has three wins in three series and will face Tundra Esports and T1 in its final two series. Virtus.pro will also potentially use this event to prepare for The International 10 (TI10) in October 2021.