Wildcard coach Ionut BliNcc Musat gave an interview to Players correspondent Sofiia Pikhalo after The International 2025.
So you're the young coach, but you're already working at the top level. What has been the biggest challenge for you in this role?
I think the biggest challenge is actually learning what my job is actually supposed to be. It's not like very recently you started hearing other coaches what they do in a team more exactly and how abstract it is, how different it is from team to team. It's not very specific. It's also like I'm trying to learn from all others sports, like different traditional sports, not only just esports. And the biggest, hardest thing to do, I think, is actually understanding your players.
Like from inside, like mentally.
Yeah, because the way I see it, I'm not in the position that I have to put my ideas and they have to follow my ideas. It's not how we work. It's more like I have to find a way that everyone's ideas kind of get heard and they get jelled together. And that's basically, I feel like, my job.
What sports did you catch up with the most?
Just team sports. Any team sports, like when you hear coaches or whatever, people that talk about team sports, psychologists that talk about team sports, that's what I was looking at. Because solo sports are sometimes helpful. Like poker, for example, poker psychology is like, you can look at that for a bit, but yeah, there's something different when there's a dynamic between team members, I think.
Did you read some literature on this difference between sport and esports, or did you find something on the internet?
Just mostly internet. I didn't really read the psychology on this. I feel like anything that you read is going to somehow help you. I did read the psychology books for myself. I do think in some way they may have helped me have it easier communicating with my team, but not specifically for the sports environment necessarily. For that, I just watch videos, and I talk to some psychologists, and they have helped me understand more and what to watch more. They just put me in the right direction, kind of.
I had a question later, is the coach in Dota more of the psychologist, strategist, or father of the team? I understand that a psychologist and psychology are a part of being a coach, but what about a strategist and a father figure for the players?
Well, you said I'm young. I don't know. Some people consider me old. It's a funny term. The perspective of this age is just funny. I don't know, a father figure, I don't think anyone sees me as a father figure in this team. I know some other teams where you can see the management, for example, team spirit, I feel like the coach and manager are viewed as very highly off, I'm not saying I'm not necessarily viewed that highly off or something, but we're like siblings more than father figure, you know.
And about a strategist, do you feel that it's also a big part of it to be a strategist?
I think a lot about Dota, the way we should play Dota. I think that's what every coach does. I don't think that's the biggest challenge. That's why I didn't mention it. I also play something, I try to keep up in rank because we also have scrims. There's a pub time. And I try to also keep up with my rank because I do like the idea of... I think in Dota, even though it's a lot of strategy, a lot of pre-thought moves and stuff like that, we play a lot based on feelings. And I like to understand what the feelings are when you play the game, because it can shape strategists more like that. Something feels bad; you don't want to force it on your players. You want to understand why it feels bad. And if my players, for example, don't express themselves well enough, why it feels bad, I'll try it myself in some pubs. I'm fortunate enough to be able to play at a reasonably high level in pubs to get a more genuine experience on why it feels bad.
There's a mix of psychology and the feelings inside the strategy.
Therefore, from that moment on, I will try to talk to my players, figure out how to actually find the solution.
The team has both experienced and very young players. Who is more difficult to work with? Veterans or rookies?
It's a hard question to answer because everyone is just like... nobody's perfect. Everyone has flaws. So it's just... One day, somebody can really annoy you really hard, and then it can be somebody else, and then it can be somebody else. It's how you approach it.
Okay, I have another version of this question. Do you feel that you can teach or show to younger generation more, and it's easier to educate them on some new things or new strategies, for example, but older will not be so easy to manage?
No, I find it very similar. It's all about how I approach the subject. It's my skill that I have to improve to know how to talk to people so that they are actually eager to listen to me.
You're from Romania and work in the NA region. Do you feel like an outsider in this region or in other ways?
No, full American here. No, it's a bit... There's some pride, I guess, when... I mean, I don't know how this is...
Romania mentioned?
No, no. I'm part of the team that is like NA last pride, NA, you know, stuff like that. I'm not from NA, but I do feel like I felt really proudful when we beat Shopify, when we got to actually represent the whole region ourselves. We didn't do that bad, we didn't do that good either, but we represented a full region. I'm happy I got to represent it with my friends. I don't know. I'm proud that there's also one more flag on Wikipedia showing Romania there. It's always nice, a warm feeling. But yeah, I don't know. I'm not fully a NA. I'm not really representing Romania either. I'm just...
Somewhere in between.
I was there with my friends. Yeah.
Next team that was also close to... In TI, in Latin America, it's Heroic. They're like South America and North America. So, still, you're like a representative of America. Do you have any analogy for how they're doing, how you're doing? And you're like, they're good, they're great. They move even closer to the finals in the international.
I told them this as well. I was happily surprised to see them perform so well. They improved a lot. So we played them two weeks before TI started. And I feel like their shape, their form, their speed in Dota improved a lot. And I was very happy. I have friends there. And if we're out, I was rooting for them all the whole time. I was really hoping they would go the distance. Yeah, I don't know. It's a team of the future stars, the way I see it. They actually keep proving they're also generating heat or passion through interviews, which is something I believe is desperately needed in Dota. And I genuinely wish them all the best. I hope they get to improve themselves.
Do you think there's some difference between how they're preparing and how you're preparing because of the regions?
For sure, for sure. I think even in the same region, there would be huge differences on how we prepare. And it's just because of the small intricacies of what makes a person interested in spending time with somebody else. Yes, they find other activities than we do to gel together. And from that moment onward, you have to build a full strategy on how to evolve, I would say. Yeah, it's different. We can't just copy. It's not just Dota. We cannot just look at their games and say, we're going to play heroic from tomorrow. No, it's like they have these personalities that made this Dota possible. And yeah, they got to prove it. We have different personalities. We're playing different Dota. We didn't get to prove it fully, but we proved a bit of it.
You finished in 9th-13th place. How do you personally assess this result? A step forward or disappointment? I understand you lost to pvision. And they were in the finals, so you can probably see them as a strong team. But do you think you're still doing well or disappointed in some way?
Well, coming into TI, we kind of saw almost every team as equal. I was very pleasantly surprised during our scrims to see how even everyone is. We knew that it's going to be... We have to show up. We have to play good Dota. We have to be in a good mental state to actually go, you know, at least through the full group stage and then actually win more to go playoffs. We didn't do it, but we think pvision is one of the stronger teams, obviously. Everyone was like having them high up there. I also thought some other teams were going to be strong, but they fluked, and they didn't even make it to the playoffs.
No one guessed, like zero guesses on the full list of teams. Very surprising for everyone.
I think maybe if we would have had more experience as like... I think TI just makes you more nervous, more emotions. If we had more experience with this, maybe we would have done better. I think we could have won the game two against pvision, and I think we should have won it. But regardless, it's a good result. Just wish... I was wishing for more. Everyone was wishing for more. We did get to play a lot of Dota. In reality, it was six series. It's just really nice that we got to play a lot of Dota.
Do you think you were some kind of nervous or pressured by the game?
Yeah, I mean, first day, I think you could really see it when you watch the replays, you can see people just play scared. It's very different to... Obviously, people don't have access to our practice or whatever, but the way we play in practice, the way we play here is just different. It's a different attitude. We kind of got it back. As the time went on in the series against boom, against Nemesis and against pvision, we actually started playing the way we want to play. But the first day, I don't think it was really us. I think that comes down to experience. If we had more, maybe we could start from the first day, you know, as our Dota.
For you, it's not enough like LAN tournaments when you can beat someone in the face-to-face, not just online versions?
Not sure. I don't know exactly when or how this nervousness disappears. I think it just suddenly goes away. You don't feel it anymore, and you're going to look back in time and you're going to be like, aha, this is the moment. But while you're living, I don't think you're going to actually understand when it happens.
What did you personally want to achieve at this TI? Prove something to yourself, to the region or the entire Dota scene?
Well, first things first, I really wanted to prove I can make it to TI, and I made it to TI. I know I haven't had, I guess, the biggest success as a player. I know that. But I was also playing for a long time. I've been in the scene for a long time. Making it here, it was just a lot of good feelings. I really want it because during this season, we haven't made it to the playoffs yet. I wanted to make it to the playoffs. Would have loved to be in front of the crowd, actually be there in the booths. Everyone describes it as being something different. But I believe we kind of achieved the minimum expectations we set for ourselves. We exceeded other people's expectations. That's what I know for sure. A lot of people had us at 0-4. But yeah, my expectations are at least, I'm very realistic. Like, given the vibes in the team, the way we actually feel, I think we were very on the edge to actually go through. We got a nice result. I don't know. I'm okay with it.
Good. You have Heroic on your list, that you were surprised by their game and you're happy for them. Who else did you notice among the teams that made it to the International? The team or the tactics, strategies, hero picks that surprised you?
Well, I'm not going to be lame and say Falcons. I mean, everyone is watching Falcons replays. Everyone is cheering for them. I'm very happy for them to have won. It's like, I don't know.
I was cheering for Xtreme Gaming.
I was like, I for one had the finals to be XG Falcons, actually. But I thought it's going to be the other way around. I thought it's going to be XG from upper, Falcons from lower. And I thought XG is going to win. But in reality, I really didn't, like from the beginning of everything, I didn't think Xtreme is going to make it out of groups. This was my expectation. After seeing them play in groups, I had trust in them. But the team I was following and I was like really cheering as well alongside Heroic was Nigma. How can you not? How can you not? They play their own heroes. They don't give anything about anyone. They're just going to pick their heroes. They're going to play nice Dota, long Dota, like very exciting to watch. There's Bears taking Raxxes. There's teamfights that are just crazy and you don't understand what's happening. How can you not love watching them play? I don't know.
And what about like hero picks?
Yeah, for hero picks as well. I was expecting some of their picks, but not because they're obvious, but because we played them. I was also expecting some of Heroic's picks, not because they're obvious, but because we played them. It's like they surprised us in practice. I would say fun to draft against, fun to play against, and fun to watch. The fact that whatever happened with the patch when they stopped ProTracker and all that stuff made Dota insanely harder to predict and insanely fun to watch, I think.
In some games, it was really like slow, slow, slow, and then something happened in the moment.
Oh yeah, those games are too snoozy.
What lesson did you learn for yourself as the coach after this tournament?
In Dota a lot. Outside of Dota, I don't know. I don't think it was like a huge stepping stone in my mentality on how to approach people like players. I just did what I did all the time. I talked to everyone in the team, trying to understand what feels wrong and good. And try to fix that. If someone feels more down, I'll talk to them more. I didn't really get a huge takeaway from this TI, I think, other than we perhaps just need more experience. And everyone should do their best to make it here again so that we can get that experience.
Thanks.
