SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

**x5.Crescendo** · Sat, 21st-Mar-2015, 5:36 PM

Behind the Username is an interview series where I ask some questions of regular players I meet in and around SC2SEA and our tournaments.

Today I have a chat with Zepph, half of the Zepphnarde Casting Archon (and therefore half of the reason I got so hyped about SC2 eSports to begin with.)

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To get us started, how long have you been playing Starcraft, and have you always played Zerg?

I've been playing since about 6 months after Wings of Liberty came out. I started off as Terran since it was the only race I was familiar with having only played the campaign, but I wasn't very good at it and struggled to progress on ladder so eventually I switched over to Zerg!

As I know you are an appreciator of all things snaky and awesome, was it because Zerg had vipers?

Hahaha not at all. I actually wasn't a snake fan until more recently, so when I picked Zerg it was more just because I thought they looked more badass. Nydus worms were a big part of that because they make that terrible noise when they punch their way out of the ground which I think is pretty sick.

The Nydus scream is epic, and should be sampled in some SC2 metal tracks in my opinion. How did you decide upon your username?

When I was about 13 I used to hang around on roleplaying forums with a friend, and on one of them you had to write in first person as the character you created so your forum username had to be the name of your character. I was terrible at coming up with names, so my friend suggested "Zephian". I used that name for everything after that until I started playing World of Warcraft about 3 years later, where I had to shorten it to "Zepph" since "Zephian" was already taken. So that's what I've used ever since!

I recently got a chance to catch your stream, and aside from appreciating the awesome playlist, I enjoyed your solid macro play (although the highlight was one money fungal which killed off an entire flock of mutalisks in a ZvZ). Are there any particular progamers whose games you look to for inspiration when it comes to trying out new builds? What is your current focus?

Life! He's my favourite SC2 player, so I usually look to him for new builds. He's really aggressive and hard to predict and that to me is what Zerg is supposed to be all about. It's just constant runbys and burrowed roach tactics and counter attacks which makes it a lot of fun to play.

The other guys I like are Dark (for his corruptor style) and soO because they have a really solid macro game. Their mechanics are pretty spot on so it's a good lesson in how you're supposed to go about things and react to what your opponent is doing to make sure you're in the best possible position to hold off whatever is coming.

Currently my goals are just to get back to trying to get back into the swing of things, shake off the rust then maybe try to get back into masters again since it's been a looooong time since I achieved that rank on ladder. Before I took a break from SC2 recently, I was trying to switch back to Terran so maybe once I'm satisfied with how my Zerg's progressing again I'll take another shot at some Terran laddering. Aside from that, my focus is mostly just re-familiarising myself with the current meta game and build trends so that I'll be better prepared for casting WCS qualifiers.

You must be excited for the GSL finals on Sunday then. Any predictions for us?

YES! I'm super excited. Life is going to destroy Parting so hard and it's going to be beautiful. If he doesn't win I'm going to be pretty rustled because I do not like Parting at all.

Life to 4-0 Parting. #TheDream. Please describe your playstyle in ten words or less.

Macro oriented with sloppy execution and weird decisions

A lot of us, whether in tournaments or on ladder, have games which stick in our memory as being more fun or entertaining than others. Do you have a war story or favourite match you'd like to brag about?

Most of the matches that stick in my memory are the ones where people BM me. It wasn't a particularly great match, but the one I remember best is where a protoss cannon rushed me at the bottom of my ramp on Daybreak, then proceeded to tell me to just give up because he was ready for anything I could possibly throw at him. He followed this up with a list of all the things he thought I could do: nydus worm, baneling bust, overlord drops etc. but the one thing he didn't list was playing it like a normal game...so that's what I ended up doing and somehow I actually won that way.

I think he was so worried about an attack he put himself behind because he was preparing for every possible all in scenario. So shout out to "Mahebourg" on NA for that fun game.

Protoss tears were shed this day

With all the games you've played, on ladder and in tournaments, who would you consider your greatest rival at the present time?

I don't think I have a rival actually. I probably haven't played a tournament since late 2012, and there's no one I hit on ladder regularly enough to have rivalry with. Maybe getting a rival should become a goal of mine!

Moving from questions about playing the game, and on to the subject of casting SC2: I first caught your casts with Maynarde in the 2014 WCS Season 1 qualifiers. It was, quite literally, the first live stream I had ever watched for any kind of eSports event and I can credit Zepphnarde to my present passion for the SC2 eSport scene in SEA. How long have you been casting for, and what prompted you to begin doing so?

That's a very flattering compliment! I'm glad you enjoyed our casts.

I've been casting for roughly 3 years now I think, or maybe just under. Not sure exactly. Way back when SEA was much smaller, the main casters for a lot of SEA events were Benji (who now works for Riot) and Xeen. Xeen lived in Singapore but eventually moved back to the US for school so it was too hard for him to cast with Benji anymore since the time zones are tricky. I had recently met those guys on SC2 and had been playing teams with them a bit at the time, and I joked to Benji that I could be his new co-caster (which I didn't actually mean because public speaking is mad scary).

Anyway, somewhere down the line he managed to convince me to give it a shot and it ended up being really fun. The SEA scene was really nice to me about my casting too even though I was a noob gold leaguer that had no idea what she was doing. Benji kept kindly extending the invite to cast things with him from that point onwards, so that's how it all started!

I think we all owe Benji a debt of gratitude. Has your experience as a caster made public speaking an easier task for you?

It certainly has. I get all kinds of stage fright. If I had to give a speech at school, I was the kind of kid that would break into a cold sweat, shake and get dizzy because people's eyes would be on me. I used to get very nervous before casts and I still get a bit anxious before doing LAN events, but it's gotten much better. I noticed particularly when I had to give presentations at university that standing in front of a classroom to speak hardly scared me any more which is a big improvement.

Awesome From a technical aspect, what is your set up? What kind of equipment and programs do you rely on when casting and streaming?

My setup is actually really basic. I don't even have a second monitor so if I'm streaming ladder I use one of my laptops to see the chat. I use OBS to stream and I have found it to be way better than Xsplit which I used previously. I never really have to stream events because someone like infeza or insano would be doing it for us since they have much better upload, so in terms of other programs and such I don't use anything.

A few years ago, you put together a caster's guide on SC2SEA, but the link to it has expired. Any chance of seeing it re-uploaded? Would you change any part of it with the benefit of the extra experience under your belt?

I might re-upload it, yeah. For the most part people just message me if they want it and I send it to them. If I do re-upload it I will definitely be updating it first. I wrote it at a time when sc2sea had a lot of people that wanted to know how to get into casting but had no idea what they needed to do. It was more a "do as I say not as I do" kind of thing too, since part of the reason I wrote it was to help figure out what I needed to work on for my own commentary and get all those thoughts down in the one spot.

I wrote it a long time ago, and since then I've gotten a bit better and I've spoken to a lot more people who are far more experienced at it than I am and have some sick knowledge bombs. I think it would be cool to get some words from Maynarde given his recent experiences working with ESL, and some of the other guys like Nathanias, Kaelaris and Apollo to get some different opinions across a range of casting styles at the top level.

I would also like to cover streaming on twitch and creating content on YouTube a bit more in depth because it's such a big thing. We have some awesome self-made streamers and content creators from SEA (Fenner is the first one that comes to mind) so it would be cool to get input from dudes like that as well to make the guide better.

That sounds like an epic manual. Please make it a thing!

If you had to pick 1-3 favourite games from your career as a caster, which games would you pick and why? (Bonus geek cred if you can provide VODs from your cast for me to link to)

One of my favourites was Targa vs Moonglade at GESC before ACL Melbourne in 2012. Unfortunately we had terrible lag issues at the venue so I'm not sure if the stream even got to watch it. The vods would have been lost with own3d.tv, but it was one of the most action packed series I've ever watched. Those guys are an absolute pleasure to watch in a ZvZ.

In more recent times, I really enjoyed Iaguz vs King Kong on Overgrowth in the ACL Sydney Grand Finals. Anyone that watches Zepphnarde casts has probably heard us talk about it since, but it was a fun Mech TvZ featuring ultralisk drops. King Kong can certainly whip some cool strats out in his games!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFrtBPfq23w

I love the ACL events, and that final series in Sydney was incredible! Most recently, I got to watch your cast with Deth for the Iaguz vs PiG showmatch. I have to know: in the tradition of caster archon names, would that partnership be Depph or Zeth?

For those who missed the showmatch, please enjoy these elegantly hand-crafted links:
VOD: http://www.twitch.tv/seacrafttv/b/618283098
Recap: http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=8966

That's a tricky one. I think it might have to be Zeth, because there is more Deth than Zepph in that one and Deth carries me when we cast together. He has a very big, sexy brain filled with juicy knowledge.

Having had the fortune of having Deth sit next to me at Eddie's barcraft during Iaguz' WCS Ro32 matches, I know what you mean! Speaking of WCS, are you looking forward to casting the Season 2 Qualifiers?

For sure! It's been a while since my last cast and it's about time to get the ball rolling again. I'm starting to do some prep for it already and I'm hoping we'll see more non-zergs get through to the Ro8 and semis. WCS is also synonymous with seeing Maynarde again for me, so that's always some added hype to the mix!

Zepphnarde Hype! On that topic, when it comes to non-zerg, our Japanese Terran PSiArc has been making a big splash of late in local events, so fans of aggressive bio might see more than just Iaguz up there in Challenger league this year! There's a few others I am hoping will step up and challenge the current status quo, shake things up a bit

Overall, Is there a moment in your career which you consider particularly important or formative for who you are as a player, caster, and person now?

My identity as a caster has very much been shaped by who I cast with and for. In that sense there isn't a single important moment, but rather a stretch of time where a lot of opportunities came up that I was able to grab.

I've had the pleasure of casting for ACL, BasetradeTV and other random SEA events on occasion which has been really great for getting my name out there and networking with other people in the scene, so I have to give a lot of credit to those involved in giving me those chances to cast. There was a time (before I got one of those pesky full time job things) when my weekly schedule was dotted with SC2 casts and it was a pretty neat feeling to know that people liked what I do enough to consistently invite me back to cast things for them. I think a big part of getting those offers came from casting so much with Maynarde too, because for those kinds of events it's basically like a package deal. You need the full archon for best results!

I never really expected this casting thing to be any more than an on again off again hobby where I might get to cast the odd Master's cup or something, so when at some point I took a step back and noticed that I was regularly getting to cast top tier players all over the world and also meeting a ton of awesome people at the same time, I realised that this is something I'll probably be doing for many years to come.

I certainly hope you will! I'd like to throw in some questions about the Oceania Starcraft 2 Championship series. Firstly, taking a look at the current rankings, what are your thoughts on them? Any favourites or early predictions for the grand finale this year?

It's hard to say because the form of each player can be very up and down, but if I go with the typical answer you're always going to call Pig, KingKong and Iaguz the favourites from the SEA scene. I think they might be in a bit of trouble in the brackets if players like HuK and Snute keep it up though! It's really hard to bet against those guys because they are certainly grand final material. I would expect to see either one or both of them in the final matches unless one of our SEA favourites can knock them out (which of course is entirely possible).

Always keep an eye on Enderr and Blysk too. Enderr has been on the rise lately, getting far in Oceania/SEA WCS season 1 is one of his best performances yet. Blysk hasn't had his big break yet but he's well overdue for it!

The dark horse here would certainly be PsiArc. I haven't seen enough of his play to say it with certainty but he might pull an upset over some of these guys. I'd really like to see him against some more internationally known players to see where he stands.

Of the various partnered OCS tournaments, which do you enjoy the most?

It's hard to look past WCS because that's the very top of competition in our region (that I also get to cast...so I'm biased!!). It's also a different tournament to the other partnered ones since there's a lot more at stake so there's a bit more intensity in the games.

With that in mind, I would have to say Master's cup and SEAcraft weekly are the ones I probably catch the most outside of WCS. Master's cup has been around for ages so it's cool to tune in and see the shift in which players regularly appear in the brackets now. SEAcraft has found similar success so it's another good one when I want something to watch. Both tournaments often end up with some really cool matchups. I think they're perfect streams to switch on when winding down after work!

Looking to the future, with Legacy of the Void on the horizon, what are your thoughts on what you have seen of LoTV thus far?

I'm really excited for the changes. It's going to make it a completely new game, I think. My favourite parts of SC2 are always in the early phases of a big patch or expansion because that's where you see the creativity of players really shine when they explore all these new options. I was really hoping that LotV would eliminate the large amount of down time in the early game and end game where no one's really keen to attack each other for a while and there's a lot of waiting. Judging by the changes so far, I reckon they'll achieve that easy.

I think Abathur would be proud of the zerg changes because everything's about morphing and upgrading. I'm hoping that ZvZ will be much less like roach headbutt once people figure out the new units.

The Terran changes look like we might have more experimentation with mech and maybe even biomech. Depends on what happens with the second new unit that they decide to throw in. I'm not too excited by the Protoss changes yet despite it being the Protoss expansion. I'm very interested in how this Adept unit works out though. I'm keen to see how it fits in with the overall protoss army.

I hope to see something about battle net or achievement changes soon too. That's one thing they haven't mentioned yet, but I think it would be sick if they put in some more incentives to log in and play the game. They've done it with Heroes, Hearthstone and World of Warcraft already so hopefully it's on the menu for Sc2 as well!

I'm pretty excited to see how the playstyles evolve! For a bit of fun, a double whammy:
1: if there was anyone in the world you could challenge to a Best of Five match, who would it be, and why?
2: if there were any two players you could cast, involving any players past and present, who would you have play in the match and what kind of game would you hope for?

I would challenge Marineking. I'd practice a hell of a lot in the lead up in the hopes that I could beat him at least one game as revenge for all the times I cheered for him while he did something that made 0 sense in a match and lost. He broke my heart way too many times in 2011.

If there were any two players I could cast it would be Life vs MVP, but it would have to be old MVP when he was destroying everyone. I think that would be the sickest TvZ to watch. I'd hope for a full 5 games that all go super long!

I would watch the hell out of that! Finally, feel free to self-promote and drop some links here if you want folks to follow you on the various social media/streaming sites

Twitter is fun: https://twitter.com/ZepphSC2
Streaming is fun sometimes also: http://www.twitch.tv/zepph

Thank you very much, Zepph, for taking the time to speak with me today I look forward to seeing you cast the WCS qualifiers and hopefully many more events after that!

No worries! It was a pleasure talking to you.

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It was awesome to be able to interview Zepph, one of the people who unknowingly got me hooked on SC2 streams. It is my hope that Zepph will be casting SC2 games for a long time!

In homage to Zepph's twitter stylings, please enjoy this themed bonus content:
An adorable snake: https://31.media.tumblr.com/392d410d...7211r4s6tt.jpg
Australian melodic metal to accompany it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYaxAosBuro

GLHF!

**Philosopher** · Sat, 21st-Mar-2015, 5:52 PM

Another great interview Crescendo, and with a person who the community might not know a lot about but who has contributed significantly to helping the SEA scene find a more global audience.

Cheers for doing the interview Zepph!

ToRDjvillian · Sat, 21st-Mar-2015, 8:20 PM

Coming to

because of nydus is very understandable and was part of my choice also.

**x5_Namakaye** · Sat, 21st-Mar-2015, 9:00 PM

haha that protoss. what a champion. always enjoy some Zepphnarde, looking forward to the future casts! (i assume next one is WCS in april yes?)

**syfSoundwave** · Sat, 21st-Mar-2015, 9:59 PM

Wow, huge interview. Good to have you back around, Zepph.

syfChase · Sat, 21st-Mar-2015, 10:20 PM

i remember playing zepph for the first time on SEA in WoL and fanboying so hard because i was a nobody and zepph was a name i recognised

EDIT: sundweef ill take all ur osc points mate if u not shut yer mouf

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syfSoundwave:

ur still a nobody, kid