By Jen “jenzebubble” Cide
A couple days ago I approached Jason ‘col|1’ Lake. I don’t exactly remember what my original intent was when I talked to him, but that is of no consequence. During the course of our conversation he asked me if I would be interested in provided StarCraft 2 content for compLexityGaming.com. After a little thought I decided to give it a shot. Jason and I agreed that a series of interviews to introduce our audience to the StarCraft 2 scene would be the best use of my time and abilities.
In the weeks to come I will be interviewing compLexity Gaming’s StarCraft 2 division along with top StarCraft 2 professionals, well known casters and some behind the scenes people. The RTS genre, as a whole, has a rich and storied history in e-sports. Since the StarCraft 2 division marks compLexity’s first foray into the RTS world we thought it apropos that we catch our audience up on who our team is and who they will be competing against.
For my initial interview I wanted to talk with someone that had established themself as a power in the StarCraft 2 professional scene. Through a process of elimination I came to the conclusion that ROOTCatZ fit that description perfectly. Being that he is a prolific live streamer I also knew he had an affable personality which would get this series started kicked off on the right footing. So without further ado, here is my interview with ROOTCatZ.
Hi CatZ! Thanks for joining us today. Could you give us some background information?
My name is Paulo Vizcarra and I am 24. I was born in Lima, Peru. For now I live in Florida, waiting to move in with Drewbie.
You co-lead Team ROOT. Could you tell us how that came about?
It is a huge long story, but i’ll try to be as short and concise as possible. Drew and I were 2v2 partners in Broodwar for many years and as soon as they announced StarCraft 2 we decided we’d be pros and make the best team in North America. Our thought process was pretty simple: we’ll both be really really good 1v1 and 2v2 with hard work. This way we can win every clanwar assuming it’d be old Broodwar style with 4 1v1’s and 1 2v2.
Eventually with a lot of hardwork, time and practice, we became established as a top StarCraft 2 team. We are very happy with our acomplishments thus far. Our goals have expanded to infinity at this point.
ROOT is our baby 🙂
In recent games, both the justin.tv Invitational and the SCReddit Invitational you’ve popularized the proxy hatch into roach against forge first protoss. Is this something you intend to continue doing or do you think the change to phoenixes will drasticly affect ZvP early game?
I think that it’s a strech to say I popularized it.
To execute builds like that you need some good understanding of the game and what you can transition into. However, yes I think its a viable option, so its just sitting there in my arsenal to be used whenever I feel like it is appropriate. I never go into a game knowing exactly what I am going to be doing, although, I have some ‘standard’ openers.
Every game is different. I am not 100% sure how to answer or elaborate more on this question. The answer is, yes, I will continue to do this and other strategies whenever I feel I have room to do them and they will be effective. And no, I don’t think the change to phoenixes is going to make a big difference in early ZvP.
ROOT has a very strong line-up, perhaps the strongest in North America. There’s been rumors here and there about teams approaching the team looking to pick ROOT up as a whole. Care to comment on that?
I don’t know how much you’d like me to elaborate, LOL, but yes we’ve had tons of individual offers as well as offers from almost every big organization in North America and even some European ones to absorb us as a whole.
Honestly, I would rather keep those conversations private, but I will say this: we have no plans to sell out to any organization. We have plans to make it on our own, our brand, and our logo. The ideals that we’ve been fighting for since the beta are sort of an extra player and friend for us. That ethos is hard to leave behind.
Do you have plans on making your way to Korea?
No, my focus is my team and my team’s focus is North America for the time being. Not ruling out any possibilities in the future, but it’s not something I have listed as a “to-do” for now.
Thank you for your time, CatZ! compLexity Gaming and I would like to wish you luck in all of your feature endeavors. Is there anything else you’d like to say before leaving?
www.root-gaming.com — ROOT’s website.
www.youtube.com/catzstarcraft — My YouTube channel.
www.justin.tv/rootcatz — You can watch me stream live here.
Shoutout to Nerdstomper and Dreamhost for being awesome.
Lastly, follow us on Twitter, IRC and Facebook. You can find links to each on ROOT’s website.