Castaway on Neon: "Two individuals could have worked harder"

Neon Esports announced on June 27th that they will leave the Dota 2 scene and release their roster. Despite nearly making it to multiple LAN events, the organization ultimately decided that it could no longer support its players.

We sat down with Travis "Castaway" Waters to discuss his departure from the team, why they struggled in the last few months, and what it takes to succeed as a Dota 2 professional.

Castaway: " I'm very critical of myself because I want to improve"

Neon had four top-three finishes at Major Closed Qualifiers. (Credit: Neon Esports).

In the last few months, Neon Esports has been consistently making it to the top three in closed qualifiers for multiple major Dota 2 tournaments, such as Elite League Season 2, PGL Wallachia, DreamLeague Season 22. and ESL Birmingham.

Success was clearly in view, but unfortunately during pivotal matches, the team just couldn't make it. Part of that problem stemmed from the way Neon drafted, with a lot of emphasis being placed on Castaway to pick play-making supports such as Clockwork and Winter Wyvern to clutch it for the team.

When asked about how the team drafted, Travis shared that he felt forced to be a playmaker because their other support was a little too passive.

"I don't want to air any dirty laundry. But a lot of how I played for the last six months in this roster of Neon, was because of certain things that arised in the team. We did some checking on ourselves and we realized, "Okay, we like this, we like that." For example, our pos four was not very active and didn't want to run around and make moves. So then if we played against good teams that did do that, and I played a backline like CM or Rubick, We couldn't play the early game. The 3v3 rune fights are hard. The transitioning on the lanes is hard. From laning phase to breaking up the lanes, Defending catapult waves is hard. So. I would have to play stuff like Tuskar."

What's wrong with Tuskar?! (Credit: Valve)

A big part of the current Dota 2 meta is the transition from the laning stage to mid-game skirmishes, often involving three or four members of the team making moves across the map.

Castaway stated that due to a slight lack of effort from some of his teammates, Neon never improved in that area, despite his feedback.

"I'm very critical of myself, because I want to improve, if I want my people around me to improve, I'll always be critical, but not in like a bad way. I'll never put people in a bad way, but I will be very honest to them. And I'll always be honest with my feelings about them. I have expressed this before, to the individuals, but there was two individuals, one for sure, that should have worked much harder. And that's the thing, you can't have three or four people on the team that are grinding super hard and really trying to make it, and then two that are like, I'm not saying they're not working, but they're definitely not giving 110, 150%. "

"Everything comes from your hard work in Dota"

Castaway competing in WESG. (Source: WESG).

Travis was blunt about how close the team was to success, as a couple of wins in any closed qualifier would have granted them a spot at a million-dollar event. Had the team made it, they might still be together.

"We were always talking, "Guys, we are consistently top three in these close qualifiers, imagine if we put in a little bit more work, learn some new heroes or something like that", and then Bam!, we're going to a major, maybe we wouldn't even disband if we went to two or three Majors. We'll have sponsors, bigger salaries. Everything just comes from your hard work in Dota."

In the end, despite his best efforts, Castaway stated that part of the problem is the mentality some professional players have when it comes to their careers.

While some grind and want nothing less than first place, others are comfortable being in the middle of the pack with a solid salary and some tournament experience.

"The payoff is massive, it's life-changing. Like if you make it as a tier-one player, it's absolutely life-changing for the better. So just put in a little bit of work, maybe be a bit uncomfortable for like six months, and you'll be so much better at this game. You can go and play at these cool tier-one events, make lots of money. But I don't think a lot of SEA players understand this. They're very chilled with just a cool salary and some Dota and playing some tournaments and seeing how it goes. But for me, that's not really how I am. I want to be the best, and I'm willing to sacrifice whatever I have to be the best."

This is part one of our interview, please check parts two and three here.

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Featured Image Source: Neon Esports