Some info and tidbits from a podcast from earlier today featuring Fly

Fly was on a podcast with other Israeli e-sports players earlier today (link – they talk in Hebrew)

Here's some of the things he said:

– He currently lives in NA

– He received several offers and is in-between teams

– He still plans on playing professionally. Mentions he recently coached TSM but didn't really like being a coach, could be because it's the wrong time for it.

– 'Says it's difficult to know till' what point you can play and Dota probably won't live forever and at some point there will be less people playing and money involved. he plans on pursing a career in e-sports as it's only just starting and still evolving and there's a lot of options

– Asked about notail, says there's a story, history and friendship there ('less so now', probably meaning none), prefers not to talk about it again as he recently talked about it on a different podcast and its personal

– Becoming a pro is a hard choice to make. You have to sacrifice everything in order to succeed, and you have to know you actually have the talent for it. Not everyone can be a pro just like not everyone can be an NBA player.

– He doesn't consider himself a fan of any particular player, but he respects a lot of players and says you can learn something from any player you've played with and experienced something with. He learned something from every player he played it and wants to constantly learn and evolve as a person and as a player.

– Having a relationship (partner) can be difficult at the start as you probably don't know how to manage your time, but he's had a girlfriend for over 8 years and having another person to support you is helpful

– Mentioned starting out as a HoN player, says he got into e-sports when someone offered him to play for an amateur team and that person happened to work for Fnatic

– Says that when he started he had no intention of becoming an e-sports player since prize pools were something like $1k or a laptop (around 2010)

– When they started (at Fnatic?) their salary was around $300. The highest amount they were paid at Fnatic was around $3-4k

– The biggest jump in salary was when he got into EG. He can't disclose details because it's recent but it was much higher than Fnatic

– Salaries in Dota can fluctuate a lot, you can make a lot of money or very little.

– There's EU teams that offer as much money as NA teams (might have been talking specifically about EG?)

– Says he doesn't feel like moving from HoN and becoming a good player was hard since they are both the same genre. Says it would be like him moving from Dota to LoL, it would take him a few months to a year to become a really good player.

– Says he never felt pressure financially and was always winning enough to live comfortably

– Most important things for an e-sports player are talent, work ethic, being able to look at yourself before judging others which most people fail to do. In public games where you lost and people blame each other, he first thinks about what he did wrong and only then thinks about other things. Also, you need to be someone who people can work with. He had experiences playing with people he didn't enjoy playing with. You see it in tournaments, where someone might say something that was out of place (paraphrasing) and all of a sudden you start having doubts about the game.

– Everyone handles losing differently, but e-sports players at a high level can generally maintain their emotions since you lose all the time, even in pub games, and you often lose a lot more than you win since tournaments can have a lot of teams and only the 1st place wins, reaching second place is still losing. He generally takes some time before looking at replays and looks at it without involving emotions, thinks of what he could've done better and then what the team could've done better.

– You constantly have to evolve and keep an open mind. New players are coming in all the time and they are generally younger than you are.

– He doesn't have a certain pose or way to sit, but he played with players that find it really important.

– You have to maintain your body and eat healthy, and it's better to start off early. Dota players are generally older and he knows players that have back and elbow (think he meant wrist?) problems, and some that can't play because of that anymore. Says you don't really know for how long you can play as an e-sports player as it's not strictly a physical sport. He's 29 and feels great, and has been exercising daily and eating healthy for 8-10 years.

– Dota drastically changes between patches. No game is ever the same and you have to keep learning. When there's a new patch teams start making new strategies but as time goes on teams start playing similar to each other.

– Someone asks about Ana and says he heard he's famous for playing his role very differently than others and that it changed things in Dota. Fly says Ana played more aggressive than other people in his role. Asked if people tried to copy Ana, he says people tried to copy him as is often the case where there's someone who wins and people decide they want to learn from him.

– Says he loves the pressure in tournaments and that he feels playing in-front of a crowd and on a stage makes him play better. Playing from home is a different game to playing in-front of a crowd.

– One of the peaks of his career is winning the Manila Major. Having Hodor open the doors was crazy.

– One of the low points of his career was losing at TI6(or TI5?) where they were favorites and they had a really bad loss. Says he's usually a very calm person but he was mad at himself and wanted to punch something but a camera was following him.

He talked about other stuff but these are the things I found most interesting