[iM SundeR]

After a lucrative run at ACL Brisbane, managed to get an interview out of iM Light to get his thoughts on life, love & StarCraft!




ACL Brisbane has finished and you came 3rd. How do you feel about your performance?

Generally speaking, I'm pretty pleased with the result. Coming 3rd in a tournament with so much talent is difficult. I'm also pretty happy with the way some of my prepared builds worked out – it was nice to show some pretty cool builds on stream.

That said, I wasn't particularly satisfied with my level of play. There were more than a few moments where I felt clueless, made wrong reads, didn’t know how to react or made too many fundamental mistakes. I feel like my lack of understanding in the Protoss matchups for HoTS contributed greatly to a few sub-par performances.


Did any particular player(s) at the event make an impression on you?

KingKong's dominance and PiG's consistency were definitely something I was very impressed with. However, the most surprising and impressive player of ACL Brisbane was definitely NXZ. Having an epic run though the open, groups and championship brackets, taking out S class players left and right was not something many of us saw coming. I'm very impressed with his overall performance and will definitely be keeping a close eye on him in the future. Although, I have to say it sucks that SEA keeps adding on powerhouse Zergs – First Petraeus, now NXZ. Where are the other Protoss!?



How did you feel about the event itself?

Every ACL event for me has been memorable because it brings the entire AU StarCraft family together for those very few times a year. ACL makes this happen, and to me, meeting, chatting, bonding with people over StarCraft games and alcohol is seriously one of the greatest joys I've experienced! The running of the event itself is pretty consistent with the high standards ACL has previously created – very organised, very professional, caters to everybody (especially the players) very well. There were some minor issues, like internet speed on Saturday, which probably contributed to the delay of the schedules, which unfortunately, is also an ACL standard. Otherwise huge kudos to the ACL team for a fantastic job!

What was with the shorts you were wearing?

Hahahaha! They are octupus pants! They were Peter Alexander PJ shorts Mirry bought me! They are so comfortable! I was telling everybody to touch them during the event! It's kinda like wearing nothing... but actually wearing something... I've learnt from guys like Tgun that you play the best StarCraft when you are comfortable. Looking flashy is great, but it isn't more important than winning in StarCraft! PJs on, shoes off, this is how to play better StarCraft guys. Honest!

We were hearing mixed signals from you about playing Terran or Protoss. Even your teammates on Team Immunity didn't know what to expect. You ended up playing Protoss, what is the story behind all of this?

The original plan was to play HoTS casually as Terran. I was able to reach a pretty high level playing Terran on the Korean server. However, there was also a huge problem, which was how absurdly bad I was at TvT and understanding was zero. The thought of being totally obliterated by Iaguz, Rossi and co. at ACL made me really think about the decision of what I was going to play. However, it was until the announcement of my group, which contained Glade and Ninja, that scared me enough to start trying out Protoss in HoTS to see how quickly I could pick it up. The next few weeks leading up to the event itself would be described as “mind games” by the fray boys, and a pretty good laugh for myself (still indecisive). I watched a few YongHwa VODs from IEM and constructed a few of the builds you guys were able to see, had an extremely long (70+ games) and successful practice session (where I was able to beat some big names with these builds) 1-2 days before the event. I was pretty certain I was going to play Protoss after that.

I had a lot of fun playing Terran and wish to continue playing it in the future. Maybe one day, I'll play Terran in a tournament - when I’m confident I can beat Iaguz with my Terran, and there are more powerhouse Protosses pulling NXZ-esque runs.



There are words of your desire to play casually or retire, is there any truth to this? What exactly is your plan?

Well technically I would say my desire to play casually would have started somewhere between when I first “quit” and my return in the first SEACL for Xeria. During that time I had to sort out many personal issues. I was fortunate to be able to return to play StarCraft, albeit much more less frequently because of the new commitments in a FT job and super attention-demanding girlfriend. It isn’t necessarily just me either, many of us top players have other commitments such as school and girlfriends that take up a lot of time.

I was lucky enough to maintain a competitive level by retaining the mechanics and understanding of the game from when I was a big-time grinder. However my approach towards preparation of the game was much more different now. I had to deal with the disadvantage of time and practice, a change in perspective was necessarily. I went to my advantages – being creative and PROTOSS (the race that allows me to do what I do at a high level). I spent a lot more time thinking and theory-crafting strategies (especially during idle work hours) then actually playing the game. I was able to construct my very own macro 'react-to-anything' PvT strategy which has not changed in a year, tried the same with PvZ but realised I was on a clock in PvZ, hence many variations of killing the Zerg with 2-3 bases evolved. PvP was by far my best MU, until the rise of the phoenix, which made me lose a lot of confidence/understanding in that matchup, leading to double PvP knockout in MLG Dallas. I became that guy that just does my own thing, instead of someone that is able to do everything and adjust to anything (except for PvT). I still often feel gross when I take out players that I know are far more practiced than I am.

The point to this story is that I’ve been a casual player for over 1 year already, and I’ll continue to play StarCraft casually as I feel I am competitive enough to compete at a high level. As long as there are idle tables at work for my crazy brain to theorize - and once in a while 24-hour pre-tournament preparations sessions - I think I’ll be okay. The day I can't be competitive with the limited hours I put in will be the day I retire, and that probably won’t happen until/unless they remove Protoss from StarCraft completely.






You can follow Light on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/ImmunityLight