Interviews
Interview with Kintt
Interview with Syia
Interview with VortiX
Interview with "Kintt"
Blizzard Entertainment: You are about to participate in a major tournament with veteran teams who have already made a name for themselves. What do you feel is the best way to prepare for this type of event and why?
Kintt: Being a veteran myself, just playing a large quantity of games with your teammates so you have the best idea of how to react in certain situations is very important. Going out of your way to set up skirmish games against the highest-quality teams on your Battlegroup is also extremely helpful.Looking at the current Regional Finals tournament roster, who are the teams that will challenge you the most? What makes those teams more formidable to you than others?
There are three teams I'm really looking out for. First off, SK.Usa after their impressive performance at MLG. We nearly beat them there, but they have even more momentum and confidence now so that fight will be tough. Secondly, Veex/Valrath/Zilea run a setup (paladin, warrior, death knight) that will be very difficult for our warlock team to survive against. And lastly, eMg, who got second place recently at MLG because they too will be confident coming into the event.What are your predictions for the Regional Finals? If you were to guess, which teams do you think will win, and why?
Looking at the projected brackets that I made based on seeding from online finishing, I think that the top three teams will be eMg, SK.Usa, and our team. This is primarily because we can avoid playing Zilea’s team if we win our first two games, and they lose any games (Twix from eMg guaranteed victory against Zilea). I feel like the reason we lost our last matchup against eMg and SK.Usa were largely due to mistakes I made, and I won't make them again, so I am confident we can beat these teams the next time we meet.
The tournament realm provided an environment for all competitively-minded Arena players to duke it out on an even playing field and use any team composition they chose. Why did you pick your particular team composition to qualify as one of the teams going to the finals?
We started off trying to run rogue/death knigh/paladin but that didn't go so well for us, as there were just so many hunters around during the initial phase of the tourney. For this reason, we decided not to run our other setup of rogue/warlock/paladin either, but went with a comp we saw some other people doing well with on live: death knight/warlock/paladin (Shadowcleave). It worked out well for us, as we had all played together on live before anyway, and we manage to do well against most everyone on the tournament realm.Is there a particular team makeup that you feel will be prevalent at the Regional Finals?
Well, only two RMPs (rogue, mage, priest) qualified on the US side, but they will both be contenders there. I know there will be a lot of RMPs in the European regionals, but I think the US one will be pretty diverse.Having both the European and US Regional Finals at the same event is a new and exciting opportunity to get to know your international competition. In what way do you feel that you can benefit from being able to see another region’s participants play together before the global finals? Are there any particular play styles or strategies that these teams employ that differ from your own region?
It will be nice to see how all the European RMPs play against Inflame and Ocelote's team. Although they run a warrior and my team runs a death knight, I expect things to be somewhat similar there so we might have a good idea how people will play against us should we make BlizzCon.
Interview with "Syia"
Blizzard Entertainment: You are about to participate in a major tournament with veteran teams who have already made a name for themselves. What do you feel is the best way to prepare for this type of event and why?
Syia: Observation and practice are the two most important ways to prepare for the event. With the participation of Evil Geniuses, SK-USA, Complexity, and eMG at MLG we've been able to identify their different playstyles and who their weak players are. It's extremely important to practice as a team too. Being able to understand what your partners are likely to do and how to react to every given situation as a team is crucial. It's also very important after every match, especially losses, to observe how you could have played differently.As a relatively new presence in the tournament scene, there are probably teams that you have liked and/or followed since you first decided to play competitively. Do you have any inspirations or influences that helped push you to where you are today?
There are several great teams and players that have had an influence on me. I think the most important influence was when Pookz released his video at 70. He ran rogue/mage/priest and showed the Warcraft community the defensive aspect of the composition. I've always been looking for multiple styles to play a lineup and finding out which ones work best against specific teams.Looking at the current Regional Finals tournament roster, who are the teams that will challenge you the most? What makes those teams more formidable to you than others?
I've been fortunate enough to play every team that qualified and I feel that every team has the potential for a strong showing. I do believe that it will come down to LAN jitters and the amount of practice that teams put in. That said I expect a strong showing from SK who were able to win at their first LAN event.What are your predictions for the Regional Finals? If you were to guess, which teams do you think will win, and why?
As I previously stated, SK will certainly have a very strong showing, but that Roguemonkey guy is a pretty clever fellow too. I'm predicting a great showoff between the two teams in the finals.The tournament realm provided an environment for all competitively-minded Arena players to duke it out on an even playing field and use any team composition they chose. Why did you pick your particular team composition to qualify as one of the teams going to the finals?
Roguemonkey and Jfat were partners on Laughing Skull and very successful in 2s. I made a friendship with some of their other Arena partners when competing against them in 5v5 season 3. Roguemonkey asked me one day if I wanted to try the composition out and so far we've had great success.Is there a particular team makeup that you feel will be prevalent at the Regional Finals?
RMP (rogue, mage, priest) and cleave variations. I think shaman teams will have the weakest showing.Having both the European and US Regional Finals at the same event is a new and exciting opportunity to get to know your international competition. In what way do you feel that you can benefit from being able to see another region’s participants play together before the global finals? Are there any particular play styles or strategies that these teams employ that differ from your own region?
I'm interested in watching Edawgs play because of their strong performance with ESL against team Ensidia. Overall, it will be a good experience to see the habits every player has. I know a lot of players typically follow the same play style game after game and being able to recognize their patterns is key.
Interview with "VortiX"
Blizzard Entertainment: You are about to participate in a major tournament with veteran players who have already made a name for themselves. How do you prepare for this type of event? Do you spend a lot of time watching replays and/or VODs of your potential opponents trying to figure out their play-style and strategies, or are you focusing more on getting ready for a public competition with all the pressure that brings?
VortiX: I’m afraid I am not training as much as I should. Being only 15 years old means I have to go to school for eight hours every weekday, and also study for final exams, which will finish on 23rd June. Due to that I watch very few replays or VODs; I try to play as many training games as possible in the free time I have, and of course I am preparing to avoid getting very nervous about the tournament, but considering that it is my first international event it won’t be quite so easy.
It is no secret that you are quite fresh in the tournament scene and there are probably players that you have liked and/or followed since your rookie days. Could you tell us about some of the players that have influenced and inspired you to get where you are today?
At the very beginning, when I started playing, I used to watch a lot of games of ALTERNATE|XlorD, ReiGn and mouz.FoV. From 2008 I started to focus more on EG.Happy, WE.TeD and srs.DowaQ since I considered and still consider them the best undeads.Let’s focus on the upcoming Finals. If we look at the current tournament roster, who are the players you are most afraid of facing? What makes you fear those players more than others?
There's only one player I fear very, VERY much: LucifroN, mainly because his match-up vs. undead is just insane, and I have played so many games with him, which made me realise that winning two games out of three against him is almost impossible for me. Moreover EG.Happy and EG.Grubby would be very hard to beat too. However, I am afraid of every opponent in the tournament; making it to the regional finals is something that very few people can do.
We are aware that your older brother, LucifroN, is also competing in the finals. How do you deal with this, both in private life and also when you are playing on stage?
It's pretty good to have a brother which also likes playing your own game, in our case we are training together for this tournament, and at home we enjoy watching and commentating on some games we have played, or just some random replays of the other players who are going to attend to the tournament. However, at this stage, unless it's in the tournament final, we can't really consider playing against each other, since it would feel quite bad when you are the one that puts your brother one step closer to elimination.Lastly, the Regional Finals are being held in Cologne, Germany. If you were to guess, which players are going to win, and why?
I think Lucifron, Grubby and Happy are those most likely to win; they have showed in the last two years that they are not only the top three European players, but also some of the best in the whole world. Anyway, it's very hard to predict, everything can happen when you are playing on such a high level.