SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

**x5_dot** · Wed, 16th-Jul-2014, 7:47 PM

Hey Revenant, let’s start out with an easy one. What is your favourite matchup and why?

x5 Revenant: Currently, my favourite matchup has been ZvZ. It's due to the fact that I've drowned myself in nothing but ZvZ. I was suffering from the poor matchup before and felt that I had to do something about it. The volatility of the matchup and the heavy baneling-ling wars has been my cup of tea so far.

Unlike many other ACLs this one will have a lot more representation from the other two races, Terran and Protoss. How do you feel you fare in ZvT and ZvP?

x5 Revenant: As of now, the only player in ZvT that I'm not as confident against is iaguz, but him aside I believe that my ZvT is pretty solid and versatile. IF the widow mine gets buffed/unnerfed before ACL Sydney though, that may be another story!

As for ZvP, I feel that it's such a diverse and volatile matchup because of how many openers a Protoss can have, but my ZvP playstyle is different from the other SEA Zergs, so hopefully I can use that to my advantage.

We hope to see some entertaining games!

As ACL approaches you must be getting excited, will this be your first trip to Australia?

x5 Revenant: Yes it is. Technically, I've been to Australia once when my mom was pregnant with me, but that doesn't count.

Being your first proper trip to Australia, is there any sightseeing you'd like to get in if you have time?

x5 Revenant: I haven't been researching, nor thinking much about the places I'd like to catch. In all honesty my mind has just been on the tournament itself and the paperwork for entering university.

What do you plan to study? What is Singapore's university system like?

x5 Revenant: I'm starting my Information Systems Management(ISm) degree this August. The university system is usually 3-4years depending on exemptions. The system depends on the university, and for my university, Singapore Management University (SMU), they teach us to teach ourselves, instead of teaching us entirely.

Also, university's the time I start looking for a girlfriend!

Wow. I wish you good luck with that!

Between university and chasing girls, how do you foresee your future playing StarCraft? Do you think you'll keep up your skills?

x5 Revenant: As research has shown, there is a direct correlation between being good at Starcraft and the ability to chase girls. With that thought in mind, I'd definitely keep playing Starcraft for as long as I can!

In all seriousness though, I've managed it in Polytechnic before, and despite university being more time-consuming, let's just say I hope I can multi-task all of them equally again.

Have you completed your National Service now?

x5 Revenant: My National Service technically ends at the end of August, but as I am starting university that month I will have to pay back one month whenever I am able to. As for commitments, there's been close to none ever since a month ago since I'm nearing my ORD (Operationally Ready Date).

Will ACL Sydney be the only chance for the Lobzerg's fans to see him in Australia?

x5 Revenant: Definitely not. If given the chance, I'll travel to Australia to compete as many times as I can!

That's great! I'd hate to have missed out on the chance to meet a teammate

x5 Revenant: ^^

What are your expectations of your result coming into the tournament?

x5 Revenant: Optimally, I was confident of getting a Top Three finish, but seeing that they announced that the new map pool was being used and how stacked the tournament is going to be, we'll just have to see how it goes on the day itself.

What do you think of the new maps?

x5 Revenant: I think that due to little time everyone had with the new maps, most players would just veto most of them. Personally, I have no preference of them in general, but some of them just feel like Alterzim Stronghold 2.0 :\

You had a disappointing result in the WCS qualifiers, being knocked out in straight sets. How have you gone about rebounding from this?

x5 Revenant: I haven't thought much of the loss for WCS qualifiers as at that time I still had National Service commitments. After the commitments were lessened I was able to put in my all and the results showed in ACL Online Round 4. I'm hoping I will be able to keep that momentum going into ACL Sydney.

You’re fairly new to the Exile5 team, how has the team dynamic been suiting you so far?

x5 Revenant: The team has been great! It feels like a family in it and the management team is very professional about everything. Whatever unhappiness, if any, is also talked out. The only thing I'd ask for is more practice sessions with everyone involved.

Touching on practice sessions; the quality of zergs, including you, is super high in the team. Has being able to bounce ideas off everyone improved your gameplay?

x5 Revenant: Of course! PiG has been very helpful in theorycrafting and improving my ZvZ when my confidence in it has been at the bottom of the SEA. He's always had paragraphs of knowledge to help out. NXZ has also been helping me consistently through practice and slowly building up my confidence and multi-task in it.

This is a question I love asking players. What has been your proudest moment so far? The one defining moment which you can take from your career should it end today?

x5 Revenant: I have two. The first was back when I was playing WarCraft3 back in 2009 and representing Singapore in the WCG Global Finals in Chengdu. I was the only non-mobile Singaporean gamer to make it out of the group stage into Top 16

The crowd there was exhilarating and you had to squeeze through them because everyone wanted your autograph. They were the most enthusiastic audience I've met in my life. (I remember Moon being swarmed by booth and cosplaying fangirls the moment he entered the huge stadium.)

The second was winning the World Championship Series Singapore two years ago. It was the last official StarCraft2 tournament for me before I entered National Service (NS ended the path of so many famous Singaporean competitive gamers that I've lost count), and I gave my everything into winning it, including spending a month away from family and friends to stay in Korea to practice. It made me realize that eSports was everything that I've ever wanted to be part of, if I could.

And that feeling was also the reason why I tried my best to continue playing StarCraft again after entering National Service.

That is very inspiring. I know the StarCraft scene in Singapore has died down a lot. How has this impacted on Singaporean players (and SEA players)? From the highs of WCS 2012 to now?

x5 Revenant: From the highs of WCS 2012 till now, the Singapore community has actively grown smaller and smaller. Many competitive gamers have moved on and the only active competitive Singaporean gamers left are Blysk, Lobo and myself.

In your opinion, why are other esports still quite dominant in Singapore, but SC2 is not?

x5 Revenant: Well I'm sure many people have mentioned this before, but the main issue with StarCraft2 was that it barely provided social interaction compared to games such as DotA, LoL, CS:GO and so on. With that, players often felt that playing StarCraft was just purely to compete, and slowly all the casual gamers and majority of gamers started fading away.

How do you feel the social interaction is in SC2 as compared to WC3? Do you ever wish you could go back in time and still play WC3?

x5 Revenant: WarCraft3 was definitely the game that had the most impact on my life. Despite being a late bloomer into the competitive WC3 scene(I only started at ~2008), I felt that WC3's Battle.Net had so many features which I'm sure many still wonder why they haven't been brought over to SC2 yet. I wouldn't wish to go back and play WC3, I'd wish for WarCraft4 to be released

You have had such a longstanding career in esports, its easy to forget (or not realise) how much you've done. You said earlier that you trained in Korea for a month in the lead up to WCS 2012. What was that like?

x5 Revenant: Training in Korea was an eye-opener to me. Everyone was so disciplined and dedicated and could play for 10 hours straight without stopping. That slowly made me more inclined to practice and I eventually played around 900 games in that one month itself.

That aside, the trip actually opened up my eyes to the harsh side of professional gaming. Everyone was giving up everything for their professional gaming job; their family time, their social life, partially their freedom and many times they were not recognized, never gained anything out of it or were so stressed out that they started smoking to relief themselves. I've had a close friend in the Fnatic house that felt that way. He was Top 20 Grandmaster in Korea at that time, but he couldn't win many tournaments because of how competitive Korea was, and ever since the Fnatic.SC2 division disbanded, he retired.

Its a harsh reality. Gaming as a full time job is not as luxurious as it may seem.

How has your family been throughout all of this? You've been a pro gamer for over 5 years now. Have they been supportive all the time?

x5 Revenant: Semi-pro/competitive* gamer. I die a little inside every time a Singaporean that's not iceiceice claims to be a pro-gamer xD

Well as with every conservative Singaporean family, my family was also very negative about me gaming. They often said things like "You'll never gain anything out of gaming, why not just go to work?" and "Focus on your studies, it's far more important". Everything changed when I was finally able to represent Singapore for the first time and travel overseas, since travelling to other countries was all I ever wanted to do when I was young. On top of that, I struggled hard to keep my grades moderately high enough to eventually enter a local university, so my mom has been neutral about it.

We need a hashtag. What should yours be?

x5 Revenant: That's a tough one. I'm know I'm often called #LobZerg because of how random I play. I'd probably go with #RevItUp or #Revkt though!

We're near the end now. Do you have any shout outs?

x5 Revenant: Shout outs to Exile5 firstly for sending me over to my first ever trip to Australia! I'd try my best to perform to the best of my ability. Shout outs to family, friends and supporters, as well as my university as I had to miss out on a day of one of the camps to participate in ACL Sydney. Shout outs to Dot and Potter for interviewing me. Lastly, shout out to my grandfather, I know he'll be in good care of God's hands, and I hope they watch over me.

Thanks for some great answers Rev. Final question, would you rather be an adrenal gland zergling ravaging the dirty protoss base, or have 1 million dollars?

x5 Revenant: I'll take the million, buy me some cracklings and use them to ravage the protoss' base

Ah, so you're a maniacal warlord I see. Good choice Thanks again.

x5 Revenant:

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There you have it! Make sure you follow Revenant on Twitter @x5_Revenant and support him with #RevItUp!

Interview: x5 Potter and Dot
Graphics: x5 Leungy