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This year, in March, in an interview with Gamereactor.eu, you said “Now, women should compete with men, and there should be no difference”. It’s hard to disagree with this sentence but with the amount of tournaments we have right now, your team and other female teams rarely take part in those non female-only tourneys. Why?
I mean our ambitions have been to do so, and we have tried but it never turned out well. Before anyone says that’s not a reason to not do it, it felt like we were not prepared as a team and on the level we should be to compete with the level we tried to do. Women do try in smaller leagues and tournaments where you don’t see them as much though. For us, it was really about that we had so much pressure being the best female team. I mean the community puts a lot of pressure on us and it made us feel like we should pracc hard behind the curtains and then come back really strong. Sadly, now we’ve had a lot of things not going our way that affected our practice a lot. We got a new player just recently, then practicing part-time with the WESG teams and then having a lot of events in-between, so we lose a lot of focus from time to time on our own team. But we set a goal of participating in smaller leagues and start from the bottom when this team is up and running again. This year we’ve had a lot of problems internally which the people from the outside don’t really see. We even turned down a big female event earlier this year so it hasn’t been just male ones. Our team has been very fragile so to say, and what I want to say is even more, because I think women should play with men, not against men and that separation is what I’m talking about.
People always see it as we should compete against them not with them, and they do the same. It’s become like a battle between the two instead of being in it together.
In an interview with E-Frag.net, Kristina “zon1q” Stevanovic said ” Valve’s involvement in making a CS:GO major would contribute to the expansion of the female scene, making it more popular and giving it that necessary attention. Please Valve, make our dreams come true, haha”. Do the female scene really needs its own major? Why so many female players want to separate the CS:GO scene with all those female-only tournaments? Your environment is hermetic enough, isn’t it? Do you agree with her?
I disagree and agree because having female only tournaments is what really separates women from men. But, I do know from my own experience why I kept playing CS and kept trying to be good, and it’s thanks to female only tournaments. I think this is a really tricky question because female only tournaments bring both negatives and positives
I don’t know where I stand on that point because I can see where she is coming from and I can see where other people are coming from. But since I know female tournaments bring both good and bad as it separates us from men but it also motivates women to compete. I would say it’s not a bad idea, because it might motivate more women to take CS seriously and play much more than now, but in my ideal world women compete with men in mixed teams.
So basically of course I would not mind a major because who would be stupid enough, but I would not push for it.
Your newest addition is a Dutch player – Petra “Petra” Stoker, she previously played for teams MCon and Team expert. Did you have any other candidates to fill the spot after mimi’s departure? Did you think about bringing back your ex-teammate, Nikolett “nylon” Keszeli?
Yeah, Petra is officially in the team, but she’s on a long term trial, mostly because it’s so hard to notice how a player fits after just a week, and we wanted to give her a real chance and get into our routines to really show her true potential. It can be very confusing having to remember everything with a new gameplan, new role, new strats etc. and then to also perform the way you know you can. We had thought about Nikolett, but we felt the type of player she is might not be what we need to fill mimi’s shoes.
And also of course Petra has shown herself being a great player in the female scene already, thinking of that she has only played CS for 2 years if i remember right.
I see. Why did mimi decide to part ways with the best female team in the world? Her comment after CrossBorder LAN on dust2.dk was kinda shocking. Was that the main reason of her departure?
I mean that is a really long story. But I will try to make it short if that’s even possible. I know many reasons to why she would want to leave since like I said our team was very shaky those months before that LAN. But before the LAN she never said or showed that she wanted to leave, and she even told me she would never play in a team without me, and she even wanted to move in with me a week before it. There is no way I can speak for her and say it’s the truth, but our team had many disagreements and arguments before that event, they were turning worse and worse and the motivation level in the team was at the bottom. But I think her leaving the team was an escape more than an actual plan, and I think her motivation wasn’t high enough to make things right with us after writing what she did online. Because no matter what, you don’t turn your friends and teammates in to make yourself look good. She could have easily said we disagreed and that the forfeit was a misunderstanding since that’s what it was.
We were never even signed up to the tournament. The admins came the night before with the exact words “we are thinking of a b tournament tomorrow, so if you are interested in participating you should come around 14:00 to sign up, we don’t know when it will start and if we will have enough teams”. We replied with “we will let you know tomorrow”. So just to clear that we never left a tournament, since we never signed up. After her comment our other teammates wanted to go official and defend us about what she wrote, since that’s not what happened. Everyone else in the team knows we didn’t just randomly leave before everyone woke up. We left at 14:00 cet, and even had a conversation with mimi and the others that morning way earlier. She even said she would go home to her place which is in the same city, so I’m really confused how she could misunderstand that so badly.
The comment she did I guess was based on that she didn’t want to “look bad” herself in us not participating in the B-tournament and decided to put the blame on us. It’s true though that we were not in an agreement about whether to play it or not but that we just left without saying a word is a total lie, and she can say whatever she wanna say about that. She claims it’s how she understood it and that she fell asleep during our arguments the night before and therefore she took it like we had left. I still don’t think you write that in public without even talking to the people before doing so, especially not when you are a public person and represent a big group of people. So when this whole thing blew up thanks to what she wrote, she decided to just leave instead of making things right with us and publicly. I mean I can understand her because our team situation was shit and leaving would make her look good in every way. But the story isn’t really such a fairy tale I can tell you, and what she did is something I will never understand and probably never forgive and that shows you why participating in any other tournament at that moment wasn’t a good idea, because internally our team was in a really bad state, which was why we argued about just going back home and practice harder than we had done, because we hadn’t pracced until that tournament for 3 months.
So she left, because she didn’t want to apologize cause she didn’t think at all she did wrong in writing that publicly, and she probably understood we didn’t want to play with her anymore. With her departure she said we were not sharing the same goals which is partly true. We did share same goals, but we didn’t share the way of how to reach them. But in the end I think her departure was good for both us and her.
Something I also want to clear out is that I heard many times since this shit blew up, that mimi is the only hard-working one. If you think it was mimi, you’re totally wrong.
Michaela “mimi” Lintrup (seond on the right) is no more part of Dynasty. Fot. Fragbite.se
Did Ant1ka and vilga also wanted to leave Dynasty after it? How did they act when you decided not to play in the tournament?
We had a huge fight, and it went over to about how to reach our goals and that we were not on the same stage in that, but we never came to an agreement and the conversation just ended with people going to bed, the day after the tension was just awful so anyway it would be hard playing that day I guess, no-one said a word more than Ant1ka asking for us to bring our monitors we had won back home, and that when mimi was also in the conversation.
I think at that point all of us wanted to leave, but we have been in the scene for a long time that knowing you don’t give up until the last second. We haven’t gone through blood, sweat and tears to end it just like that. I just believe we will come back stronger after something like that. It might take more time but I hope so.
Did you think about creating a full-Swedish roster after that fight?
I think we thought about everything but nothing special that felt good. The only thing we were sure of was that it was impossible to keep playing with mimi. The rest was unclear.
That’s understandable. By the way, congratulations on qualifying for WESG Barcelona. Do you think that your WESG team would have a chance to be a top1 team there? Is it as good as your original Dynasty roster? We already know teams from 7 out of 8 regions. Who do you think will be the toughest opponent? The Russian team with your Dynasty teammates – Ant1ka and vilga?
Yes, I think we can become the best team at WESG. The girls are great, I think anything is possible. Probably the best team in Barcelona will be the Russian mix with Vilga and Ant1ka. We already beat them on pracc but that was a while ago, who knows now! It’s gonna be so much fun at least 🙂
What is the main difference between Dynasty and other female teams? Why have you been able to be a no1 team for so long?
I think it’s a mix of skill and other things. I think we have players with a lot of experience and fresh blood mixed with skill and it just clicks well I think. It’s really hard to say but when I watch other female teams I feel like many of them haven’t got the idea of some important things that makes a great team and then of course I think skill matters too.
I also think that we are so aware of that we are better than them right now so it boosts our confidence in games. We take risks that we normally don’t do in a game vs male teams for example or when we play female teams from NA or such. It’s harder for us to know where they are in terms of skill, since we play them less often.
First place on ESU Masters is just one of many achievements of Dynasty. Fot. Twitter.com/samsungsverige
Have you received any serious offers from male teams? Would you consider leaving Dynasty if you received an offer from let’s say Red Reserve, Epsilon or even fnatic?
No never, only in 1.6 before I started playing with girls but that was never anything serious. Yes, I would consider it.
Did you read Saira Mueller’s (Dotesports.com) article about sexual harassment in esports? Have you had any bad experience at LANs, on social medias etc.? Do you have any ideas how to solve this problem or at least minimize it?
I haven’t read it actually, but sexual harassment does exist and have ever since I started playing. I’ve played for 13 years and it’s something that never changed. I do feel it’s less now than how I remember it in 1.6 though. I think what could only minimize it is if men who are well-known and have a lot of people looking up to them would treat us equally and also show it to people, because a lot of fans do like their idols and I know pros who have said to me that they don’t think women should even play games, and openly said it too, but later on apologized or changed opinion. I think it’s important that we support each other, I think it’s fine if someone doesn’t think we should play in female only tournaments but at least support what women are trying to, no matter how they are doing it. It’s easy to stand on the outside and judge without knowing how it’s like for some women who are in esports.
In November 2016, you and MissHarvey were interviewed by BBC News. There was a lot of controversy around this interview but later people found out that it was slightly manipulated. “They twisted my words in BBC and cut off sentences to make it sound like they wanted it to” – you tweeted a few days later. Do you think that worldwide media don’t understand what esports is yet?
Well what annoyed me the most was that they made it sound like they would follow me around in ESWC. Turned out to only be about sexism. And in the interview they asked me about the gap between male and female while we were talking about skill, they put it in about wage. So I said I wish there was no gap but it’s big right now or something, I don’t really remember, but as I was referring to skill gap they put my words about wage gap for example. But yes I think it’s hard for someone outside to really understand esports of course.
The media should hire people who know how esports works from the inside if they want to cover esports in my opinion.
More than one year ago AnyKey was created. Since that, we have seen only one tournament supported by them and it was Intel Challenge Katowice 2017. Tell me, you, as a professional female player, can you feel AnyKey’s presence in esports?
Well, I have felt it from time to time personally, but recently not. Maybe it’s because there’s so much going on that I have just missed on a lot, which I know I have in esports, because I am not active that much on social media all the time. But I know once they took me and MissHarvey to do a showmatch at the Cologne major last year, it wasn’t a lot but it was still something. They also brought us to IEM Oakland for another showmatch. Probably this year they’ve focused on other things but I think they’ve done some good things in trying to bring up female players into the spotlight or how to say it – on other things I mean other games and players. I do feel we need stuff like AnyKey.
Mhm, I see. What are your long-term and short-term goals? In esports or real life.
I just want to inspire other girls who feel like they can be good in something to dare trying and that it’s important to surround yourself with people who believe in you, no matter if it’s women or men. But also hopefully to get into a mixed team is probably my biggest dream right now. It would be so cool if one day a mixed team get into the good tier teams and if I get to be in it. Short term is probably to get Dynasty back on track with Petra and also win WESG with our Swedish mix!
