General Information

Full name: Vu Duy Phuong
Nickname: Frog
Date of Birth: March, 25th 1988
Job: Student
Nationality: Vietnamese
Other talents: Good at mathematics
Competition Honors:
• Third prize in VESC 2007
• First prize in EGT University 2008
• First prize in Cyzone Tournament I 2009
• First prize in LG DotA Cup
• First prize in Razer Cyzone DotA Tournament 2010
• Third prize in WCG DotA Vietnam 2011
Favorite quote: “Not relevant”.
Favorite stuff: Notebook Dell Inspiron 1546
Describe yourself: Funny, sociable, optimistic, lazy.

Who is proA.Frog?

“He is the gentlest person I had ever met. He never gets angry that comes to lose self-control. My first impression about him is that he was so naive. ProA was very famous in Vietnamese gaming community. One time, I asked ProA to train for my own team. Although Frog didn’t know my team and his house was far from our place, he still came and helped us. Frog is quite simple. He is so generous and you can place trust on him. Although he has no qualifications to become a captain but because of his personality, Frog has become a solid prop for our team. I think he’s like Buddha.” – DeD.ToP, a former member of proA.DotA.

proA.Frog in gaming (first from the right)

I play games for fun

The first game I have played was Minesweeper in my mother’s PC when I was at 1st Grade. It was a simple game but required some skills. This game was so hard with a 7-years-old boy. Like other boys, I grew up with many games such as SNES, StarCraft, Doom, Quake II, Counter Strike, WarCraft III, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Final Fantasy VII, Diablo II, DDay, DotA, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX ... I loved strategy games and role-playing games which had many secrets to discover.

I walked into my gaming life lightly. The first tournament that I attended was a 3vs3 DotA tournament with mode All Random in Net Chua cybercafe. I felt quite nervous at that time but later, when was familiar with the competition pressure, it became neutral. My family refused to let me play games because of a simple reason: When I used time for playing games, I didn’t study. In fact, it didn’t take me much time on training game because I played them for fun. I mostly learned the DotA skills by watching the replays on the Internet.

 

My teams

I used to join many DotA teams like nB, proA and Truma as a supporter. My nB was a team which had all my high school friends. We had earned some prizes before we joined the proA.Gaming, one of the largest gaming clan in Vietnam at that time, and played under the name proA.DotA.

I left proA.DotA to spend time on studying and also making room for other members. However, I still went back to DotA whenever I had free times. I used to join the Truma team when I got invited by Mr.Thanh Dark - captain of Truma team, when this team was lack of member. In WCG 2011, I returned to proA.DotA for the same case. Perhaps, it was my last DotA tournament.

It was my luck to play under the guidance of many good captains. It was the guidance of Beep in nB team. With the proA.DotA, I played under the direction of Songnhi and HERO, two extremely talented captains. With Truma, it was Thanh Dark who was very friendly. Game really gave me many good friends.

proA.Frog with his team (first from the left)

Mathematics and DotA

I have had a passion for mathematics since I was a child. I was a student of specialized math classes in Ngo Si Lien and Hanoi – Amsterdam, the most prestigious schools in Vietnam. I was enthralled by math because this subject gave me the miracles. However, I used to think DotA and mathematics were not relevant. I had a classmate who was better at math than me, but he played DotA not so good, even if he tried his best shot.

Currently, I am studying electronic commerce in university. I still think learning math would not help playing DotA better. However, if you were good at math, you would have a logical and quick-thinking mind. Good at math, in some ways, will help you take advantages in a DotA match. For example, in ban/pick phase in a match, a logical thinking will help you list quickly in your mind many things such as: which hero the opponents will play best, they choose that hero for what strategy, what hero opponents will pick or ban next and how your opponents will play in that match. A mathematical mind will make you resistant to pressure and help you focus on the match. You know, when you try to solve a math exercise, if you do not have the concentration and the deep thinking, it will be an impossible mission. In DotA, the focus and deep thinking will help you find the best ways to disable your entire opponent’s tactics. When you study math well, you’ll be able to predict and estimate more accurately, and in DotA, just one second faster or slower, or one inch on the map can bring you to victory. However, you still have to train DotA hard to become a good player.

 

My hope

My family calls me 'frog'. Perhaps, my mouth is wide like a cute frog. When I played Counter Strike, I got the nickname in this game as “Frog” and it attached to me until now.

I rarely plays game now, sometimes plays DotA or League of Legends for fun. I think that to achieve success in eSports competition, a team needs to do things like watching replays of the famous players to learn and practice many different tactics, prepare mental and physical well before each tournament, and especially, to build solidarity within the team. Before each tournament, I usually go to bed early to ease my mental and have physical abundance.

My hope is games will no longer be a stigma as something evil. I think games themselves are great, but many people who are lack of sense make game lost its inherent good.