SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

**x5.Crescendo** · Mon, 10th-Aug-2015, 7:40 PM

Behind the Username is an interview series where I ask some questions of the people I meet in and around the SEA region and local tournaments.

Today I have a chat with Tileä 'Tileä' Flavall, who has just joined team Exile5!

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Hello Tileä, it's a pleasure to meet you!
Before we get started, please let me say 'Welcome back to SEA!'

Thanks! Though the "back" part is a bit questionable, I've mostly just been a NA player in the past ^_^

Once SEA, always SEA. We'll just claim that the US borrowed your from us for a bit,

It has been a long time since your retirement in 2013 and, apart from your attendance of MLG Anaheim in 2014, the world has not seen a lot of you since then.

When you entered the qualifiers for WCS seasons 2 & 3 this year, what was it that brought you back into the competitive side of SC2?

After retiring I just played games casually for a while before I ended up getting involved in the competitive scene of a game called Infinite Crisis, which is a DC heroes MOBA (that was in beta at the time and has since been fully released and i believe has been recently shut down?). After I stopped being part of that scene I felt like I should find another game to get back into playing competitively because I've been playing one game or another competitively for most of the past 4-5 years so it felt a bit strange to go back to only playing games casually.

Starcraft seemed like one of the easiest transitions because I've already played it and wouldn't have to learn an entirely new game again, so I decided to try playing SC semi-competitively again to see how well I could do/how much fun I had with it again.

Describe your playstyle in ten words or less.

Heavily focused on expanding/economy/trading/macro/late-game.

If you're looking for a more colourful answer: Get lots of money and use it to attack repeatedly.

With that in mind, are there any other progamers whose playstyles and builds have inspired you in developing your own play? Who is your favourite player to watch at present time?

I was a big fan of the way GuMiho played in 2012/13. He didn't have a very strong emphasis on the individual control of small groups of units, but he had a very strong focus on doing a lot of different things with different groups of units at the same time and winning with a very economic/multitask focused style even though his micro of individual units wasn't the best. I found that really enjoyable to watch and tried to emulate his playstyle with my Z/T at the time.

Presently I still really enjoy watching GuMiho, though his playstyle has changed to be something I find less entertaining he's still one of my favourite players. I also enjoy watching basically any good Zerg players, I don't distinguish between them very much.

Now, all of Exile5 are pretty excited to have you on board, but could you please share how that came about?

Like I mentioned earlier I'm mostly interested in seeing how much fun I can with playing SC semi-competitively again, I have no super serious plans. Because of that the main thing I've been looking for in a team is team atmosphere/environment (healthy/supportive/family/etc) and x5 seemed like it'd be the best fit for me in that regard. I already know and get along well with PiG (from WCS Oceania 2012) and Yours (from more recently), so the hope is that I get along with everyone else just as well.

Speaking of fun, I've heard you have been one of the few folks embracing the new Swarmhost in certain matchups. Can you tell me a bit about your use of that unit, and the aspects of starcraft you find most enjoyable in general?

The swarmhost change is pretty interesting. I think in ZvP it's a large nerf because you needed the more frequent locust rounds to constantly trade/keep Protoss units away. Now with the longer time in between locusts spawning they're simply too infrequent to make much of a difference any more.

On the other hand I think the swarmhost change (in addition to the PDD nerf) is a really big buff to lategame ZvMech. In ZvMech the frequency of locust rounds isn't very important because the main concern is managing to always be trading/dealing damage to the mech player. One of the biggest issues with ZvMech before the patch was that if the mech player managed to get to the stage in the game where they had a wall of PFs plus tanks and PDDs from ravens on 4-6 bases your locust rounds stopped being able to trade because all their damage was negated by the PDDs. Because the locusts were stuck on the ground you couldn't find other angles to attack the mech player from so they would be able to build up their perfect late game army (battlecruiser, thor, ravens with maxed energy) and then gradually destroy you with it because it was so hard to trade efficiently against that composition.

Now that locusts can fly you never really get into that kind of position any more because you can just go around the PF/tank wall and manage to always be trading with the mech player to prevent them from building up their perfect lategame army uncontested. Additionally, because the PDD duration has been reduced by 88.9% from last patch, even if the mech player manages to get to that skyterran stage in the game it is much easier to deal with than it used to be.

I can't wait to see it in action! 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 share or brag about?

Not really. I'm very self-critical and extremely hard on myself after tournaments so I'm not really proud of my performance(s) even if I do better than expects. I'm always disappointed that I didn't do a little bit better.

Now that you are back in action under the Exile5 banner, I feel obliged to let you know of all the online events you have access to in SEA, courtesy of the Oseanic StarCraft 2 Championship Series and its partnered events. Can we expect to see you in the brackets of some upcoming tournaments?

I'm not sure. I find it pretty difficult to motivate myself to play in smaller online cups and I also have pretty bad playing conditions to SEA (both in terms of high ping and the fact that most tournaments start in the evening and finish in the morning for me because of timezone differences). I'll definitely be playing in any/all upcoming team leagues that x5 plays in and future WCS qualifiers. No promises on how many SEA cups I'll play in yet though.

Hopefully we can at least you in the Masters Cups, which are normally set at a time to allow for US participants

I've enjoyed playing in a few Master's Cups in the past but again, no promises :P It's hard to balance them with an American schedule, especially because I'm also a full-time student who prefers taking morning classes.

What is the focus of your studies? Do you have a long-term goal with them?

I'm not entirely sure what I want to do right now. I recently got a degree in Arts & Sciences (which is basically the most generic possible degree) and was planning on going into some kind of social science as my major - but recently I've lost some of my interest in that and I'm not sure what I'd like to do as a replacement. Long-term I want to do something which I can have a moderate income off while sustaining hobbies (social sciences is still a big hobby interest of mine, but I didn't want my job to be related to my main hobby because that seems like an easy way to not make money and stop liking my hobby), but what that is I haven't decided yet.

Speaking of hobbies, would you be willing to tell us a bit more of who you are outside of Starcraft?

I.E What kind of music you listen to, favourite foods, hobbies/pastimes, and anything else that interests you

I've always been a very introverted/shy person so I don't do a lot of things. Gaming has always been my main pastime; growing up in a household with two older brothers who were/are both into games I was playing Warcraft2/Starcraft/Doom/Etc when I was three or four years old.

I listen to almost any genre of music, gone through stages of liking power metal / musicals / classical / electronic / etc. I normally change genres of music based on mood and frequently play with totally different styles of music.

I mostly just go to school, stream games, rave occasionally (most of my friends are ravers so they've gotten me into it even though it doesn't fit my personality type), and am in a pretty happy relationship with my partner which takes up a decent amount of time.

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 haven't paid very much attention to LotV yet because I'm focusing on getting back into my pre-retirement shape for HotS WCS. Also because LotV is still in beta so much of it will have changed by the time it becomes seriously competitive that I think putting effort into learning it now is somewhat wasted (I started playing HotS beta very late as well).

Besides that I think I like what I've seen of LotV so far. The new Protoss and Terran units are very neat and interestingly designed (as a girl I'm also super happy that adepts are girls). The new Zerg units seem somewhat boring in comparison, but at least I've been told they're very strong...? I'm under the impression that Zerg is the strongest race in LotV currently.

I was certainly happy to see lurkers come back =D
For a bit of fun: if there was anyone in the world you could challenge to a Best of Five match, who would it be, and why?

Lurkers feel too similar to stronger, short ranged swarmhosts to be interesting/unique to me. I'm also too young to have played Brood War, so I'm lacking the nostalgia factor which many people have.

I would probably want to play GuMiho because he's one of my favourite players and all the games I've played against him in the past on ladder/online cups have been very educational/enjoyable.

I also think it'd be interesting to play against Scarlett, because she's probably the only person preventing me from being the best female player (by a pretty large margin) and I've never played against her in a tournament or bo# setting before.

On a more personal note, is there a moment in your career which you consider particularly important or formative for who you are as a player and person now?

There was a period of a few months in late 2012/early 2013 where I was on LighT eSports and we were playing in three or four different NA weekly team leagues. I started our matches almost every time and was extremely successful (getting 3+ kills pretty regularly). Prior to that point I had been very inconsistent so I think that's when all my practice really started paying off and I gained confidence in my play and moved up to being a mid-tier NA player (which I demonstrated in multiple Challenger League performances in WCS NA 2013).

Finally, feel free to self-promote, give sponsors shout-outs, and drop some links here if you want folks to follow you on the various social media/streaming sites

Big thanks to everyone who has read this interview and is supportive of me and/or my new team, Exile5!

Shoutout to NVIDIA, Exile5's sponsor, and shoutout to my past Starcraft teams (LighT eSports and Denial eSports) that helped me get to where I am now.

If you're interested in following me I tweet pretty irregularly about a variety of stuff @x5_Tilea and stream all the ladder games I play (and some other games too) at irregular times on twitch.tv/tilea.

Thanks for this interview and thanks again to everyone reading ~~ o/

Thank you for taking the time! It has been a pleasure.

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As a zerg fan, I was really happy to be able to do this interview.

I look forward to seeing awesome series coming out of the team leagues, and hope you will cheer Tileä on and give her a follow on social media!

GLHF all!

**Philosopher** · Mon, 10th-Aug-2015, 7:45 PM

Pretty excited to see more of Tilea play. I really enjoy watching her stream (when it is at a time I can watch). She has always been a pretty entertaining streamer and player!