Not much has been said about the recently crowned ESL European Champions. We sat down with Nòónia, the DK from SK Sansibar for the first interview after their victory in Brühl.
Hey Nòónia. Could you introduce yourself please?
Hey my name is Kai, I’m 19 years old and I’m the DK of SK.Sansibar. My favorite song is Don’t Stop Believing by Journey.
Sweet song right there. A few weeks have passed since you surprised the European scene by winning the ESL Continental Finals. Very few would’ve expected your team to be this strong. Do you have an explanation for your success and why you were so underestimated? Is it maybe because German teams are generally underrated?
I think the reason for our success is the friendship that our team shares. I know this sounds quite gay, but we can deal with problems very well and always try to improve our play while having a good time together. We were underestimated because of the fact that we we‘re not well known and I personally think that we are not the best players of each class. Yeah, I think you are right, German teams are often very underestimated. There are a lot of German teams with a high potential.
On the topic of friendship, it felt like it was a big factor for many successful teams lately. Be it coL.Black, Button Bashers or your team, you all seemed to have a great time together while doing more than just gaming on a professional level. Why do you think that is? How important is the team spirit in WoW?
It‘s massively important for our team. I would not go on with playing WoW if I couldn’t play with Fraki. I think it‘s easier to deal with criticism and when you’re having fun you’ll learn faster and play better.
The semi-finals caused fellow-SK teammate Another (SK.EU) to get a little too upset, smashing his keyboard in the process. What is the general relationship between your team and SK.EU? Are you in contact with the other SK-WoW squads at all?
Yeah, he was very pissed because we just outcomped them. I think that they played better in these matches, but thats just WoW =/. I’m constantly talking to Enigmz about stuff and sometimes to Another. The relationship between the teams isn’t that bad. Sometimes we go to practice on the ESL realm and from my personal point of view, I like the whole team of SK.EU and think they are the most talented team in the European esports scene. If they would overcome their internal struggles they could become the best team in the world.
Let’s talk about the patch changes. Resilience has been buffed by 10% while healing has been nerfed by 10% in all PvP scenarios as well. How do you think does this effect your comp?
It might be a nerf because we often try to zerg something down and if our Paladin runs out of defensive cooldowns, he might get caught in CC’s.
You have the, arguably, harder group of the two with the other 1st placers from America and Asia. coL.Black seems to be on a streak, winning 3 out of their last 4 tournaments. How do you like your chance to get out of group-play? Are there any teams you are looking forward to play against?
Our chances are quite good. We are trying to practice as much as possible and hopefully it will work out for us. coL.Black is really impressive and I hope that our matches will be pretty intense. Also, yeah, I’m really looking forward to play against BB. Its an honour for me because Orangemarmelade was the guy who inspired me the most to go for competitive arena. I’ll never forget his 1v2 win in the grand final.
Speaking of inspiration. Your comp is named after the current World Champions, The Super Gosus (Zilea/Veex/Valrath). Recently, they announced their comeback. How did you feel about their performance in the past? Are they players you guys look up to or do you feel you can go toe to toe with them?
We are currently trying to rename this comp to beavercleave to get rid of their name (referring to Fraki’s teeth). Yeah, they kind of showed us that this comp is viable to win tournaments. I don’t want to take anything away from them, but I think that when they won Blizzcon it was easier because of the insane DK damage and stronger paladin cooldowns. I’m convinced that we can go toe to toe with them.
We heard those crazy numbers of training games Button Bashers puts in before tournaments. Orangemarmalade stated that they put in 3500 games for MLG Orlando. Is your team anywhere near that amount? You’re known for always asking teams for tournament realm practice. How much practice is needed to become a champion? Is spamming games really the only way to be successful in WoW?
No you definitely don‘t have to spam games. At the moment, we are playing about 2 hours a day so we will have about 1.5k -2k practice matches. But, for the continental finals, we practiced for 8 hours in total. So no, you don’t have to spam games but it surely makes you more confident.
Pookz, an SK teammate of yours, posted a video link of your PoV from some games and made fun of your play. Here is your chance to answer and also make your shout-outs.
Yeah, he is totally right with criticizing me on that game. I really played horrible. I was just freaking nervous, no one can imagine! But, to be fair, this was my worst game in this tournament and the best ones weren’t shown (against x6tence) but I’m looking forward to the global finals and I will try to show all of you better play.
Shoutouts to esther, I love you <3 , and to Herbert Seckler the owner of the Sansibar Sylt, for supporting us from the beginning and of course to SK-Gaming for picking us up and giving us a chance to prove ourselves.
For the Germans among the radicoL’s, Nòónia will be on Outland FM on Wednesday
*Images courtesy of ESL