First off, congratulations to you for winning the first ever compLexity Academy Tournament.
The first question I have for you is how does it feel to go 18-2 in this tournament and win so convincingly? It seems no one even came close to beating you.
Obviously, I am happy with taking 1st. However, I am a really competitive guy, and thus actually a little disappointed. I would have preferred to go 18-0, but that’s just the way I am. I want to win every game I play, regardless of if I win the tournament. I feel there is always room for improvement.
How hard did you prepare for this tournament and what did you do differently for this tournament than for tournaments in the past? Are you going to continue training hard now that you have made it into the academy?
I didn’t prepare insanely hard for it, just kept up my usual practice regimen of playing customs with some friends and laddering. As I said in my interview, I haven’t really had good practice partners, if any in some cases, up to this point, aside from my fellow academy member lagrangian. So, to answer your 2nd querstion, I now plan on seriously ramping up my training efforts now that I’ll be able to play with the guys in coL. I want to start bringing out my potential and showing good results in bigger tournaments.
Who is your inspiration for your builds and style of play? Who is your favorite Starcraft II player to date?
Lately, like a lot of others I suspect, I have been drawing alot of my inspiration from MMA, especially in TvZ and TvT. He’s just got such great, well thought out builds combined with insane execution. My favorite player to date, and knowing the history, I’m probably going to get a lot of flak from some of you guys for saying this, has been Idra. Let me first say that I definitely don’t agree with how he bashes a lot of players for seemingly no reason. What I really like about him is his approach to the game. I love his macro oriented style, and no nonsense attitude toward the game. He takes it very seriously, practicing as hard as anyone, and really dedicates himself to winning and improving more than anything else. After leaving early against MMA and in various other games, I have started to lose a little respect for him, but I hope he can turn it around and return to form.
What is the most exciting thing about the compLexity Academy for you?
For me, the opportunity to get to practice with a lot of great players. I think it’s really going to help me start improving. Even after a few games with Ryze, I’ve been able to work on new builds and analyze where I can do better in TvZ, where as before I would mainly just ladder over and over again. While that can be good, I’m really looking forward to consistent, structured practice focusing strongly on my weaker areas of play.
Looking at the rankings, there is only 1 protoss, 3 zerg and 6 terran. How is that going to effect your practice terran vs protoss? Do you wish that the team had more variety?
It’s not so bad, knowing that complexity has a lot of protoss players to practice with as well. It would be nice to see an even variety on the team, but at the same time these are the 10 players who made it in, so you’ve just got to work with what you have.
Finally, do you have any shoutouts?
Shoutout to my fellow academy member Ke Li (Lagrangian). He’s my buddy in Ann Arbor, so congrats to him and thank you for being my only real practice partner for the last couple weeks. Also I’d like to thank complexity for this opportunity. I’m really hoping to break through competitvely through the academy, and it wouldn’t be possible without you guys. There are definitely very few chances like this to get notices, so I’m very grateful.
Thank you for your time and once again congratulations for winning compLexity’s first ever Academy Tournament and good luck in your competitive future!