Jojo Uy with Flow teammates Lutan, Vinzyre, Arby, and Ponti

At 18 years old, Jojo Uy is already an accomplished gamer. As part of Team Flow, he represented the Philippines for the DotA All-Stars Asian Cyber Games (ACG) Championships. And for the first time in years, Team Philippines earned a medal at the ACG. Jojo, born on December 22, 1988, is currently a 2nd Year Entrepreneurship student at ESA. His favorite DotA All-Stars heroes are Akasha, Mirana Nighshade, Nevermore, Sand King, and Razor.

Jojo started playing DotA as a pastime activity with his friends in Iloilo. He continued playing DotA because he enjoys the competition. Now that he is in Metro Manila, he regularly plays at Blue Skies Katipunan, where, he says, the gamers are good. The excellent caliber of players at Blue Skies challenges Jojo to play more.

Jojo attributes the popularity of DotA to the Filipinos’ affinity for team games. With DotA, a player gets to play and have fun with his friends. Jojo observes that DotA poses a different kind of challenge which requires the player to master all heroes, items, and other aspects of the game. He notes that DotA is very much like Mathematics as it entails the computation of mana and hitpoints before you make a move. According to Jojo, in professional DotA playing, “if you get out of a clash with a red hp but alive, that’s already a big advantage.” Jojo thinks the worst mistake a noob team can commit is to pick and use five end game heroes.

Constant practice with other gamers and persistence in learning has led Jojo to develop his DotA playing skills. Through playing with gamers in Blue Skies, Jojo also got to experiment with new builds and new heroes. Meanwhile, his teammates Arby and Lutan would always download replays and try to apply their learnings into their team strategies.

Before Jojo joined Flow, Arby and the others already joined tournaments but they somehow ended up only second to All-Stars 129. Initially, Flow did not join 5 vs 5 tournaments because they lacked a fifth member. After the first EGG Tournament, Arby recruited Jojo who was then playing with Warpoint B. This time, Flow defeated All-Stars 129. However, two of their members, Kaz and Matt, left the team. After that, Arby invited Lutan and Bru of Warpoint A to join Flow. Thus, the Team Flow that represented Philippines was born. Jojo believes that Flow’s edge over the other teams is each player knows his role. Moreover, they have Arby to lead them. Despite Arby’s “arrogance” (according to Jojo), Jojo has nothing but praises for his former leader.

Now that Arby has gone to Canada to study, Team Flow has broken up. Jojo concedes that nobody can replace Arby in Flow, so the remaining members decided to part ways. Currently, Jojo is building a new team with Vinzyre, another Flow member. They have teamed up with the former leader of 129 All-Stars Chad, and Fox from Papi. They are still scouting for a fifth member.

Despite his former team’s success and popularity, Jojo does not think that DotA has taken over his life but he believes he has learned a lot from playing and competing. Jojo shares that he learned how to deal with and respect other people, and not to underestimate anyone. He also learned how to be patient and how to live a balanced life.

Jojo also shares that his team is not afraid or threatened by other teams because they are not afraid of losing. He advises other gamers to just enjoy the game and give it their best shot. Furthermore, he advises gamers to play with respect, and not to let the game and the fame it brings change you.

Jojo does not believe that pro gaming can prosper in the country right now. But he thinks it has the potential to succeed in the next five to ten years.

As a parting shot, Jojo gives this advise… “Just go with the flow.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 23rd, 2007 at 4:00 am and is filed under DotA Allstars, Players, Teams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.