Dox: Firstly, congratulations to each of you on qualifying for the WCG National Finals. How do you feel about your performance at the Melbourne Qualifier? Pinder: I'm stoked with my performance!! My preparation leading up to it was pretty much speed running super mario 64 and playing casual games of HoN, so I went to the tournament to mainly meet up with Rossi (flight was cancelled), deth and any other TA boys who went along. I'm over the moon about actually qualifying! tgun: Thanks! I feel I could've done better: I dropped a game after accidentally not veto'ing a map because I knew exactly what my opponent (TargA) would do. It's really silly to accurately predict an opponents strategy and still fail to beat it, as Starcraft is really a game dependent on withheld information. When I have perfect scouting, I shouldn't (in theory) be able to lose! deth: Yeah, really good. I didn't drop a game so I was really pleased with my performance. No glaring issues or failures in my play led to losses, which is a big improvement on my performance in other events.
Dox: Are there any aspects of your play you're going to focus on improving before the Grand Finals on the Gold Coast? Pinder: Pretty much all of them. The ski season is closing out, which was a huge hindrance to my ability to practice (but a good one :P). So i'll hopefully have a lot more preperation leading up to the Grand Finals and hopefully pull a few more upsets! tgun: My ZvT leading up to this event has been really sketchy, but I feel it'll improve with the incoming patch as my playstyle changes. deth: Everything really. I don't think there is a single area that I would focus on improving more than any other... be it micro, macro, multitasking, strategic reasoning - I think I am strong in each area but obviously haven't reached a ceiling in terms of skill in any of them. I will be working very hard over the next two months to ensure my play is even smoother and refined than ever!
Dox: Who was your toughest opponent at the qualifier? Pinder: tgun was my toughest opponent by a pretty long way. Game 1 I made a huge error early on and pretty much lost like a newby, but game 2 he pure and simply outclassed the crap out of me with a style i'm really not very familiar playing against. tgun: Toughest opponent was definitely TargA, as he was really the only step between qualifying or being put into the losers bracket. deth: Easily Tgun, but as we were already guaranteed top 3 and auto-berth into the finals, there was literally 0 pressure. We were just playing for seeding at that stage.
Dox: Any outstanding games you would recommend to viewers? Pinder: All 3 games against TargA (Download Here) were really fun to play and even more exciting in the moment cos the last qualifying spot was on the line. Adrenal was pumping so hard during the last attack (game 3) that people watching commented that they could literally see my mouse shaking on-screen while i was trying to micro!! tgun: Game 1 of myself vs TargA (Download Here) was very close. deth: I think my games vs techtron (Download Here) were really cool to watch, as it was a pretty systematic dismantling of a really reasonable Zerg in macro games. My harassment and aggression was constant and I managed to never give him breathing room. My games vs tgun were alright as well, but its really tough to come back from a successful bunker rush from terran like the ones I got done in both games of the series. He was behind and on the back foot straight away both times. My moonwalking marine into the bunker in game 1 (Download Here) has to be seen to be believed.
Dox: Any comments regarding the event? (ie. Structure, venue, rules, co-ordination, etc) Pinder: Literally everything about the event was amazing in my eyes, Haymo from the admin team did a great job running it and Dox also bringing his experience on tournament formats/rules etc. really helped it to be the smoothest LAN event I've attended thus far! I guess if i had to find a flaw the only draw back was the entry fee might have turned off a few of the casual players from entering. tgun: The event was great. Rules, co-ordination etc, were all well thought-out. deth: It all went really smoothly, the only hiccup was some graphical config settings and a connection issue at the start, which was solved promptly. Rules, co-ordination, brackets+seedings, map-pool etc, were all of the highest standard.
Dox: Predictions for the Blizzcon Invitational and WCG Brisbane coming up in the next month? Pinder: For the Blizzcon Invitational, it's really, really hard to predict. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if any one of GLaDe, Light, YoonYJ, Redarchon, Deth or Rossi took it down, so I think it'll come down to everyone's preparation for the tournament. I'm friends with most of the people participating so it's hard to pick a single person out, but I'd like to see Deth, Rossi or Light take it out as they're the ones I spend the most time with online. As for WCG brisbane, I'm not sure about exactly who's going, but I'm hoping Sensai and Rossi both qualify, as well as anyone else from TA who's participating with a real chance. tgun: Blizzcon Invitational and WCG Brisbane... I don't really have too much feelings about, but I'm fairly certain mOOnGLaDe will take the events if he practices for them. As for the WCG Grand Finals: I'm going to win. No point going in with doubt, I'll be representing Australia at WCG Korea. deth: For the Blizzcon Invitational, I will reserve my thoughts and predictions for my own performance in the event and how i think others will go, but I think GLaDe will be my biggest competitor at the event. Looking forward to it! As for WCG Brisbane, it depends who ends up going. If all goes to plan then we'll be seeing competition between Sensei, Azz, Shuffle, Light, LoSt, if there's any other prizes then GLaDe, and possibly Rossi. I think top 3 from Brisbane will probably be 3 Protoss though, Sensei/Azz/Light. Which is funny because of the 7 players qualified already, Pinder is the only toss. [Also Bielsko from Adelaide! - Dox]
Dox: Any final comments/shout-outs? Pinder: Shout out to all the TA Team-Speak gang, ArchaicMSi, and Firezerg, TAEdge, TAKrunch and TAHocus, who are the people I mainly practice PvZ with (Which considering all but 1 series at the qualifier were PvZ, they're a large part of the reason I qualified!!). tgun: Shout out to my team (FXO), our sponsors (mainly Razer for their awesome peripherals) and my family. Also shoutouts to the people who have been helping me theorycraft lately; they know who they are and I'm sure they don't want me to give away their strategies. deth: A big shout out to my clan and all the TA (Terror Australis) boys, and a big thankyou to my team (Archaic Esports) and MSI for supporting me in attending and playing in all these events Australia-wide.
Photos
Unfortunately I only had time to take 17 photos while I was at the event, which goes to show how quickly and smoothly it ran, I guess! Click the thumbnails below to enlarge.
Yeah for those who aren't aware, deth had to leave the venue after winning his upper bracket finals match, so the "grand final" was never played out. The results I posted here are the ones WCG decided to go with.
Hey thanks everyone for the comments about the video!
If I make it to Brisbane I'll make another one and try to interview players etc if they wanted to.
While I was filming in Melbourne I wasn't really intending to do much with it so I didn't really get the BEST parts of the event, so I'd expect Brisbane to be way better
I would like to thank Dox and the WCG/RSL guys it was run very smoothly besides the IP banning and random lag spikes which couldn't be helped.
P.S did tgun really type his account details incorrectly and get the IP's banned?
or were there just to many accounts connecting from the one location that got the IP banned?
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