Rapture Gaming Network

Birthday: 12/03/1991
Equipment: Razer Death Adder, Lycosa, Goliath, Barracuda
Competitive experience: DotA (6 years)
Major competitions won: SMM 09 – 8th WCG Singapore 09 – 3rd ESTC Winter 09 – top 4 CAPL Winter 09 – 3rd CAPL Spring 09 – 2nd SMM 08 – 2nd WCG Singapore 08 – top 16 WGT 08 – 3rd ESWC 08 – CHAMPION CAPL Winter 08 – CHAMPION MMU 2009 – CHAMPION ADC 2009 – CHAMPION WGT 07 – CHAMPION WCG Singapore 2007 – 2nd GXL 2006 – 1st

  ToFuBoi’s Team Zenith publicity shot Throughout the history of Singaporean DotA, ToFuBoi has always played a huge part in the scene. As many of our readers also know, Tofu is not only the most experienced veteran in the Singaporean DotA community, but also the best storyteller, with countless stories to share. Tofu is one of the players that I’m really looking forward to interviewing. Unfortunately, Tofu seems to be too lazy to offer proper responses or even anything that resembles an interview. He does, however, offer this story of himself, leaving me hoping for an interview at some other time. The following is said by Tofu, about his life in the early Singapore DotA scene. “I started playing DotA when Warcraft 3 came out, which was around 2004, and played my first Competition around the 3rd quarter of 2004. I got 3rd place, lost to ice’s team. DotA was the hottest custom game at that point in time, and I was playing a lot of DotA and Sheep Tag.

I was in a team called DoDa, which stood for ‘Demons of DotA Allstars’ (f**king gay name), then my brother decided to play competitive as well and I formed a team with him named KODO, which meant Kingdom of DotA, and when we got 3rd for our first ever DotA tournament, I decided to continue playing competitive since I was pretty good when I just started out.”

Indeed, ever since the first big DotA tournament in Singapore, the Rapture Gaming League season 1, Tofuboi has been active in almost every single local competition. He has truly seen everything in Singaporean DotA.

“So we got better, and our first sponsor was DsD. It was a team consisting of Shoury, me, GPS  [Tofu’s brother], LuX, and… I think it was you… or Mervy… I forgot. Anyway, that went on for a year during all the version 5.84 competitions.”

DsD was one of the top teams in Singapore during 5.84c. Most notably, they were able to achieve top spots in consecutive seasons of the Singtel GXLeague, with one controversial incident costing them the championship once. However, they overall suffered more losses then wins in the bigger competitions, such as WCG. Also, I never played any LAN competitions for DsD, merely some on-line ones, and DsD’s last was different in almost every competition.

Then when I started playing version 6, we went over to mVp because we wanted to take ice (THE GOD OF DOTA) but he couldn’t leave his clan, so all of us went over to mVp instead.

With Shoury busy with other commitments and DsD’s other consistent last having retired from competitive DotA to study for his O levels, the team was left with LuX, GPS, and Tofuboi. They took in ice and Ant (me).

“When mVp was formed, it was the strongest team in the world for most part of 2006. I was considered the fastest farmer (basically I was one of the best or the best solo mid at that period), although looking back, I think I was a total joke… basically a player with no brain but insane last hit timing. But DotA wasn’t that complicated at that point of time.”

Tofuboi also recalls to me the time when he would boast that he managed to stock up 17,000 gold without any items and not spend it for the entire game. Looking back, he wonders to me how he could “ever have found that fun”.

“Basically my role was all the late game carries, and I would just farm for the entire game, and win the game for the team by totally out-farming my opponents. The real reason why the team was strong was because ice was THE REAL SHIT. Ever since he started DotA he was already insane. The stuff that he does, no one else can ever think of it. He’s the best farming ganker ever, playing Veno, or whatever rubbish hero that comes to his mind, like Night Stalker. Basically, anything that is weird he plays it so well. He controlled the whole team movement and played in such a way that he couldn’t die and kept killing opponents, controlling their farmers while I did my job.”

Indeed, at that point in time, ice could control the map with one hero. His Holy Knight could even control two different lanes at the same time.

“We won the whole of 2006 easily. 90% of the tournaments, or maybe even 95% of all the the big competitions were like so easy for us. CPL Asia, CAPL all 4 seasons, Rapture Gaming League consecutive seasons champions… as far as I can remember, DotA was real big at that time compared to now, and every week would have a competition with prize money of at least $1000 for first. XqR was always our toughest opponent, but we were still clearly more experienced and skillful then them.

Anyway, because of our damn good performance, we found great sponsors Compaq and AMD who were really willing to give a lot, and we played under the name Team Zenith. GPS, me, ice, LuX, and you [Ant].“

Around June of 2006, after forming and never losing a single version 6 competition, team mVp was acquired by Compaq and AMD and became team Zenith.

“Then Micronology emerged, a rising team of smart players that improved so much in such a short amount of time. So while we were raping all the other teams, Micronology emerged and improved rapidly and soon came to our standard. However, during that time, we had a lot of team changes. LuX had to enlist into the army, and ice had exams and stopped playing DotA, and even GPS and Ant had to study for exams, but they still continued playing.

Without ice, the team continued on, and we weren’t doing so well now but still managing to get 1st or 2nd placings until Micronology came, and they were really good (I’d say better). They were a really good ganking team with very good coordination and teamwork.

Anyway, with all our lineup problems, and just nice that Micronology had an argument… Shawn and HY or something like that, so we merged together and continued under the name Zenith. It was a team with quite a high level of individual skill, especially after Bouncy came over. The lineup consisted of Bouncy, Me, Mike, ZX, and HY, and Mike and Bouncy were really gay players. Really good at that point in time.”

In June of 2007, LuX entered army, and ice retired from DotA temporarily to study for his O levels. Zenith filled the gap with ZX, a player from Micronology, and WarNutZ, a friend of TruEnEtprO (WCG 2006 Frozen Throne champion). TruEnEtprO and WarNutZ had constantly played with ice and Tofu for an on-line competition, and TruEnEtprO was taken in by Micronology to replace ZX.

When Micronology broke up after WCG 2007, the team, after a few quick lineup changes, arrived at the lineup stated by Tofu.

“Anyway, Singaporean tournaments were really easy at that point in time, but we were looking at a more global scale, and Kingsurf and XCN among Asia were our toughest opponents. Those 2 teams were better than us in their own way, even though we always felt we didn’t lose to them in terms of individual skill. XCN had insane late game power and engagement, you just can’t get into their base. KS was like a team revolving around Yamateh. Not really clear what their style was, but Yamateh kept raping like NP.

However, a miracle happened, and ice decided to come back to DotA. Since ZX couldn’t play much as he was going through his final year of university, ice took his spot. We were so confident to win every team now, but that only lasted for about two weeks, cause ice joined our rival team Kingsurf, leaving us angry and frustrated.

I can’t really remember from then on what happened, but through perseverance and hardcore training we managed to get 1st in ESWC.”

Tofu proceeds to tell me a bit about the period where he was training for ESWC, and how as a carry, he was forced to play support. His long story could easily continue, and I’m sure he has many more stories to share, but for now, this was all he could offer before trudging off to answer the call of another DotA game.