SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

This is originally posted at http://eSportsAustralia.com

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Pro Corner with: Jared "PiG" Krensel

From having no history in eSports to breaking onto the scene as one of Australia’s best Zerg players, and when I say that, I mean best players. In the past 4 years and since the beginning of the Wings of Liberty Beta, Jared ‘Pig’ Krensel has shown that has what it takes to be not only one of the best players in Australia, but one of the top players in the World. We decided to take a look at PiG’s career from beginning to where he is currently playing for the Australian team, Exile 5.

“Growing up my most memorable gaming experiences were in RTS games going back as far as Warcraft and CnC [Command and Conquer] and SC [Starcraft]. However I wasn’t excited for SC2 release as I’d heard so much hype. I notice that most games that are heavily hyped suck really badly so I wasn’t going to buy it (I was also a very poor student at the time). Luckily my group of friends were so excited they finally pressured me into pre-ordering it and away I went.”

Beginning from the early days of the Wings of Liberty Beta, PiG reportedly tried both Terran and Protoss (including not understanding Warp Gate) before settling on Zerg. There he managed to rise up the ranks of ladder quite quickly. Once he reached Grandmaster, he be project of the Grandmaster Manual project put together by sc2sea.com. Through this, he found he was actually good at coaching. In June 2011 after joining Alternate, he took a break from his university course, and began to play Starcraft 2 full time, relying on coaching to make an income.

“As I withdrew in the middle of a semester of uni I did have Centrelink for a few more months while I got my coaching business up and running but beyond that I was completely self-sufficient, and actually saving some money despite charging only $15/hour and often giving 60% extra time in each coaching session. Some weeks I was coaching 40 paid hours in 2011.”

“I still haven’t reached my goals as a player but I’ve improved a huge amount. I first became relevant in the SEA scene taking 2nd in a community open and 1st at a city hunter charity event around January 2011, so about 6-7 months after release. I was addicted to competing and was laddering and playing online cups almost every day of my entire summer university holidays to get to that point.”

After taking time off of his University course to pursue Starcraft 2 full time, PiG was picked up to play as part of the Tt eSports team around the time of WCG Australia and IEM Guangzhou. The Chinese event came first for PiG, where he competed alongside fellow Australian superstar Iaguz. PiG and Iaguz would both fall in their respective groups with 0-3 results. Two weeks later, PiG found himself at WCG Australia, after winning the Brisbane Qualifier and putting himself in the position to win the event. Falling to fellow Zerg Tgun after losing 2-0, Pig then went on to battle through the losers bracket. Facing Rossi, YoonYJ, Mafia and Iaguz was never going to be an easy task, but PiG was able to battle his way through to being one spot away from the finals against Moonglade.

In the match before the finals and the final match of the losers bracket, PiG would face the man that took him out of the upper bracket, Tgun. Tgun had lost to Moonglade earlier in the day, and would face PiG in an epic Zerg vs Zerg series to progress to the finals. Unfortunately for PiG, he lost once again to Tgun, who later went on to face another 2-1 loss to Moonglade.

”If I rewind to WCG 2011 I think I just had no idea how to beat Tgun’s style, but was so overwhelmed to have come top 3 in Australia in our most important tournament of 2011 that I wasn’t very upset. I was still just so excited to be eating up the travelling feeling and the atmosphere of the first interstate tournament that I didn’t have to pay for myself!”

“My attitude has steadily got better over time and I’ve improved at dealing with the feelings and emotions following losses. It’s important to not get insanely upset and embarrass yourself, but a lot of players fall into the mistake of shrugging their shoulders and saying “I did my best” or “what’s the point in being angry at myself? I’ll do better next time”. I think it’s important to never have this sort of attitude as to be a champion, you fuel yourselves with hunger for victory. If you pat yourself on the back after a 2nd or 3rd place, where is your hunger? So for me these days like my recent losses to Kingkong at ACL Melbourne and IEM Singapore Qualifiers I don’t get into a mindless rage. But I do process the fact that my preparation, discipline and focus were lacking. I think that a lack of these things caused me to lose and I can’t help but feel a dull anger at myself and a determination to be better.”

As this concluded the 2011 season for most Australian players, PiG went back to coaching and competing in open cups. He managed to take second in the finals of the Australian Pro League, losing to Korean player, Won.

While 2012 proved to be a great year for PiG, with many high placed finishes, it was at the end of the year where he kicked it into overdrive, winning many of the big tournaments for the Australian scene. ACL Melbourne was the second sign of this dominance as PiG crushed his group, going 5-0 in the 6 man group, before dropping to the loser’s bracket to Light early in the bracket stage. PiG was forced to take out the man who cost him his chance at the WCG Australia 2011, Tgun. After taking that win 2-0, he went up against Moonglade in another bout of Zerg vs. Zerg. After a hard fought victory, PiG once again faced up against the man who had knocked him out of the brackets, Protoss player Light. Winning this, he managed to take both series off of Mafia 2-1 to take out the third stop on the ACL Circuit for 2011.

This led to the competition at IEM Cologne, where he and Moonglade travelled over to Europe to compete with some of the world’s best. Unfortunately for the Australian pair, both fell out in the group stage, but not without showing what they were made of.

And then we come to the big one, the Australian Nations for the World Championship Series 2012. While it was only for the opportunity into the WCS: Oceania finals, PiG pulled out all the stops, coming from the Winners bracket and coming up against Moonglade and losing the first series to his fellow International Competitor. PiG would go on to defeat Moonglade in the second series to take the WCS 2012 Australian Nationals win, but that would lead onto the WCS: Oceania Finals.

When described how he would describe the experience: “Nervous, excited, perplexed. I’d taken a big risk not coaching in the leadup to ACL Melbourne the month before, nor in the entire month before WCS and lost a LOT of money by fully committing to training. However the practice paid off and it felt like this win gave me faith in what I could do if I fully committed to training in a more serious and organised fashion. I finally knew that hard work would pay off and all those doubts telling me I should just be a coach/caster/personality were blasted out of the water.”

PiG would go on to lose the WCS 2012: Oceania finals, dropping 2-0 to both Moonglade and Light to end his tournament, but with his win in the National Finals secured.
PiG would also have the opportunity to compete in IEM Singapore at the end of 2012, but failed to get out of the group stage.

After this, it was announced that he would be making the move to Exile 5, after coming out of contract with Tt eSports at the end of 2012.

“When my contract with Tt ended at the end of 2012 I opened communication with a lot of organisations including renegotiating with Tt. Exile 5 stood out as honest, reliable and having the same goals I had. They want to grow Australian eSports and have been a massive support in not just sending me to international events, but taking care of me so I can play my best and also opening up opportunities to meet fans at all sorts of gaming events across Australia.”

With the announcement of the WCS Tournament, and nowhere else to go, PiG entered into the qualifiers for WCS America after fellow Australian, Moonglade, was seeded into the competition. Working hard for the qualifiers, PiG progressed quite far into the brackets, but the timezone and the lag ended up getting to the superstar, where he lost in the later rounds.

PiG would then compete in Dreamhack Summer, which proved to be the amalgamation of all his hard work.

“If we go back to DH Summer in June I played better than I ever have in my life. I slipped up in loads of games that tournament but my mindset and mechanical strength were out of this world. I was suffocating well-recognised players with my multitasking and aggression and it felt great.”

PiG would make it all the way to the Round of 32 Group Stage with the Dreamhack Format. His group would feature Life, ToD, StarNan and himself. He took the win against StarNan but would struggle against ToD and Life, taking one game off of the international superstar and the GSL Code S champion [relatively] before losing the series as hundreds of Australians [and New Zealanders] watched on Duckville’s stream to see the Australian superstar. He would also open the tournament for the main stream.

“The international events are massive. I felt amazed at IEM China 2011 just to meet people like Idra/Dimaga and all the other pros I looked up to. But it wasn’t until Gamescom 2012 when I saw what a real gaming convention was like. Holy shit it is just incredible. Huge convention halls bigger than anything I’ve ever seen, and there’s about 20 of them at Gamescom all filled with multi-levelled booths toting amazing games and gaming products. There are just so many gamers and so much cool stuff in one place it’s incredible. Then to see an event like Dreamhack which is an actual LAN you can go and be a full part of rather than just testing things out like at Gamescom. To see eSports completely integrated with such a HUGE mainstream gaming event with like 15,000 nerds bringing their own PCs its just incredible. The atmosphere is absolutely electric at these events and they bring in huge numbers of eSports fans.”

This left PiG with the other tournaments in the Australian region. He managed to pick up the second place at ACL Brisbane as PiG went into ACL Melbourne with a fire in his belly. With 9 Zerg players and 3 Terrans to make up the bracket, PiG felt confident going into the event with his great ZvZ play, especially after his great play earlier in the year. PiG would battle through the brackets, but ultimately come out in third. He managed a second place at ACL Sydney.

When asked how he played in 2013, PiG described his play as: “Pretty trash to be honest. Well that’s not completely accurate.” Before going onto describe his play at Dreamhack in the quote above.
“However I didn’t win any Australian events. AVcon and ACLs all should have been easy money for me considering my goals to dominate overseas. And while I still have placed top 3 in every ACL event I’ve competed in, there were far too many losses that I shouldn’t have let happen.

On the plus side, Zerg got shafted really hard in HotS compared to our WoL dominance and yet I feel my dedication and attitude this year has allowed me to continue improving at a drastic rate. My old weaknesses in ZvP and ZvT were overwhelmed with sheer mechanics at Dreamhack and as time has gone by I’ve fixed holes in my ZvP and really diversified my styles. My ZvT which was always a glaring weak-spot is now my strongest matchup. Since watching Scarlett’s play at WCS Season 2 global finals I’ve reached a new plane where there is no terran in the world I fear. I got to prove this to myself when I played Innovation in the IEM NY Asia qualifier, with a 170ms ping disadvantage. I died to his 2-rax that I didn’t scout in g1 and in g2 was all over him. Unfortunately nerves in my newfound strength in zvt caused me to miss my timing to role him over and so the game went into the period which I was uncomfortable. Nonetheless it was incredibly close 40 minute game where I didn’t feel outskilled at all. I got to really cement my confidence when I beat MVP at the showmatch in Sydney recently.

I’m now very close to fixing the holes in my ZvZ and have discovered how to create situations in game across all my matchups that give me the best chance of performing 100%. So I think I’ll be hitting a new playing level at IEM.”

Since these quotes were given, PiG has since gone on to win the SEA Championship Series, taking out many players on his way to the win, with players like KingKong and Petraeus, who have both taken qualifying series’ off the Australian Zerg in recent times. Taking home the $700 first prize, PiG seemed to be elated to win the tournament, thanking all those that wished him congratulations on Twitter.

PiG will compete at the open bracket of IEM Singapore this weekend.

When asked what 2014 would hold for PiG:
“#YearofPiG

That’s all I can say really. I thought by the end of this year I would have achieved a top 4 at an international event but the scene became a lot harder and more competitive. My goals have been set back but it’s only made me hungrier to achieve them. 2014 is going to be the year where I finally show the world what I’m made of.”

He would also like to thank the following for all his success:

“Personally x5.Dot my lovely girlfriend, manager and coach. She’s supported me the whole way. Enough can’t be said for Team exile 5 and all our sponsors: CM Storm, Coolermaster and Nvidia as well as my personal sponsor Gigabyte Notebooks. Their support and encouragement has been amazing.”

With the next year laid out ahead of PiG and many of the other Australian and New Zealand superstars, I’m sure we’ll all be watching how PiG goes into the next year, with an entire nation wishing him the best of luck.

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While I see people post things like this with about half of the piece, I figured that the community would like to see the whole thing I shouldn't make people go to the site to check it out, but there are images there for some incentive, which I left out of this post. Needless to say, this wouldn't have been possible without the awesome work done by PiG on the answers to my questions. I would have loved to put more into it, but I felt it was already running long as it was.

I feel terrible putting these up without contributing much otherwise, but I just don't know where to post. You all scare the crap out of me.

Also, shout outs to both PiG for doing this, and to Dox for an upcoming piece I am doing with him. I have so much respect for him and his answers grew that immensely.

Thanks for reading.