SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

TAdeL2 · Sun, 17th-Jul-2011, 3:57 AM

Episode 4: Mark "TAyang" Richardson

No, he's not actually Asian!

Name:	Mark "TAyang" Richardson
Country:	Australia
Race:	Protoss
Clan:	Terror Australis
Sponsor:	None
Replays:	Download

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In this article we get to know the underrated, the up-and-coming or the unknown talent in the Southeast Asian and Oceanic SC2 scenes. Get to know the soon-to-be top players in SEA as we let the players talk about themselves and their StarCraft experiences in a short interview. This edition we meet TAyang. This little known Protoss player from Perth quietly joined TA as an unknown entity but quickly rose to prominence as one of the clan's strongest Protoss players. Despite having some reasonable tournament performances, yang is better known for taking out some huge names early on in events - most notably taking down aLt's iaguz in the recent mwave invitational.

If you know a player who you consider up and coming (that is, you can see them getting top4 finishes in tournaments in a month or two) then suggest them here and they may get a feature!

CHECK OUT YANG'S FREE PROTOSS COACHING

Can you tell us a bit about your gaming history or other relevant information, like where you are from and what you do?
I picked up SC:BW just because I liked Blizzard games, instantly getting hooked and playing for 12 months with the sc2gg.com community. Waking up at 4am before school to play some BW was an experience to say the least.

I had been very excited for SC2, playing in beta but then losing interest when the game was released. I picked the game up a couple months ago again and have been immersing myself in the SEA community and my newish clan TA.

You're known as an up-and-coming player because of some surprise "upset" wins against players like aLtiaguz and FXOmOOnGLaDe, but have you had any memorable tournament wins?
I have yet to win any tournaments except for the local Perth 'Grass Roots' tournament. I think I was as surprised as anyone when I did so well beating all these great players.

Did you ever intend to play starcraft competitively, and what are your future expectations for competitive SC2?
I'm naturally competitive in everything I do so playing Starcraft as much as I do and taking it as seriously as I do is just natural. I don't expect much to come from my SC2 career, although I hope I can someday consider myself a decent player.

How and why did you pick Protoss as your race of choice?
I started playing Zerg in the Beta and when the game was first released. After coming back recently I realised all my friends had kept playing and they were ALL zerg. I didn't want to play catch up to them so I switched race, I had always like Protoss more than Terran so I picked Protoss. Zerg still holds a special place in my heart though.

How would you describe your play style? What are your favourite builds and matchups at the moment?
I like to think of myself as a solid macro player. I learnt in SC:BW that Macro and precise build orders are more important than Micro so I never took much time to practice my unit control. I love Nexus first builds, I try to be as greedy as I can economically without dying horribly so playing PvZ and getting a nexus first while being perfectly safe makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

How does living in the isolated Western Australian capital of Perth affect how you play the game? I imagine you get reasonable latency to the SEA server but do timezones ever hinder tournament entry and are there many LAN events?
Playing from WA doesn't affect me at all, although I'd like to attend LANs in say Sydney or Melbourne. There are a bunch of really nice guys in Perth who show up to any local tourneys that are held so it makes it a really nice environment to just enjoy the game.

Without a notably strong background in another RTS game what has your practice regime been like up to this point to become a contender in some of the SEA server events? Do you study replays, have custom practice games, ladder a lot, or something else to improve your play?
Although I haven't had a notable background in RTS games, learning SC:BW late in the scene already gave me a strong base to get better in SC2. I basically just immersed myself in the game, watching day[9] every day, playing a lot. Every loss I KNEW what went wrong, if I didn't then it would be off to teamliquid to find out what strategy I need to implement in order to beat my opponent.

I tried really hard to make my build orders as precise as possible, often getting into 1v1 vs Very Easy AI in order to make sure my building went down as soon as I had the money.

Do you have any favourite players you love to cheer for, watch or learn from? If so who?
I didn't have any favourite players for a while. I saw no streams I liked watching, although I liked iNcontroL, he just didn't play enough for my liking. I had seen HuK stream often but turned his stream off instantly due to KPop playing non-stop. One day he was playing some great trance which I was a big fan of and I turned his stream on.

I realised then that he was great to watch, fast, precise, top 3 unit control, a bit of a dick. I watched his stream almost constantly for a week straight, when he wasn't online I was watching his recorded VODs. I'm not a fan of a lot of people but HuK has been a constant inspiration since I saw him play.

How has joining a clan improved or altered your play or practice habits? Who do you think can benefit the most from joining a clan and who would not benefit as much?
Joining a clan has made me just play the game more, whether it be laddering while talking to clanmates or playing practice games with people who are just plain smarter than me.

I don't think it's a bad thing for anybody to join a clan to make good friends with people. It's definately a good idea for people who can't find the motivation to play the game to join a clan with people who play a lot, they will find themsevles drawn in and playing more.

Finally, do you have any friends or players you'd like to thank, or any rivals you want to call out? Do you have any suggestions for a future Up and Coming player Feature? Last comments?
Firstly I'd like to thank my clan for being a great bunch of guys who I have so much fun with. Specifically I'd like to thank Pinder. I was surprised to find he's a great guy who has helped me immensely just by practicing and to bounce ideas off. Also a big thanks to Rossi who has given me numerous beatdowns in PvT which has largely contributed to my wins over Terran like iaguz.

As for up and coming players, no one I know is improving that rapidly but some players who have impressed me on the ladder include pokerface and LzHsAint.

I'd like to direct any person who would like to improve their Protoss to my coaching thread, it's free and all you need to do is give me a bit of information and we can set up a lesson.

Finally, thanks to SC2SEA for the recognition and the opportunity given by this interview!

Thanks for you time!

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More Rising StarZ!

Episode 1: EscapisT

Protoss

Singapore

aLt

Organiser

Retired

Episode 2: Rossi

Terran

Australia

Nv

TA