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TCPLemminks · Mon, 2nd-Jul-2012, 4:22 PM # 1

After ACL Brisbane I managed to get a hold of

Peter "Legionnaire" Neate for a short interview about his preformance, the Australian gaming scene and the recent appearance of Brood War players in Starcraft 2.

Legionnaire

Didn't take a picture of him but here's Legionnaire stealing money from July

Lemminks: First of all congratulations on qualifying for the Blizzard World Championship Series Australia Nationals. Despite being an absolute legend in the Brood War scene, for those of us who are new to the StarCraft 2 scene, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Legionnaire: Hi I’m Peter Neate, I’m a Protoss player from Australia. I’ve been playing Starcraft pretty much from when it first came out and I went professional when I spent 3 years over in Korea on a couple of the Korean pro-teams, had a lot of fun, got to travel around the world to a few different tournaments and I quit probably at the end of 2005 I believe, and I haven’t played Starcraft since, until Starcraft 2 came out. I played the first season then I stopped playing again, then I heard the WCS Tournament had been announced and I thought I’d come along to the Brisbane qualifiers to see some old friends and so here I am today.

Lemminks: Would you mind telling us a little bit about your achievements in Brood War?

Legionnaire: Probably the most notable achievement was getting 3rd in WCG 2005 in Singapore. I think JulyZerg, which is a pretty well-known name, and myself came third I believe in the team league for all the Korean pro-teams. We took out a couple of big names such as Boxer’s team at the time which was a pretty good achievement on our behalf as well as for that Korean team. I also did an all-kill, the first Protoss to do an all-kill of a Korean pro-team. They’re probably my most notable

Lemminks: And if I’m not mistaken it was the first televised all-kill as well.

Legionnaire: I’m not sure about that so I don’t know.

Lemminks: Well Liquipedia states so.

Legionnaire: Laughs

Lemminks: Alright so what about your opinion on how you preformed today at Australia Cyber League Brisbane?

Legionnaire: Erm, I’m a bit torn, we were playing on little laptops which is a lot different to the set ups that we’re normally used to so I did a lot of very poor wall-ins and force fields and that sort of thing, but considering the quality of gamers here I’m pretty happy with the results. Coming here, I was not expecting to qualify for the Australian finals.

Lemminks: Yeah I actually noticed you didn’t wall-in at your main ramp, even against Zerg. Is that an old habit from Brood War or just something you do?

Legionnaire: I think walling at the ramp limits your options whereas walling in at your main allows you to be defensive without losing any of your buildings while still being aggressive. I’ve never been a big fan of walling-in, if I’m gonna wall-in I’ll wall-in at the expansion.

Lemminks: I also noticed in a few of your games you used the Warp Prism a lot and in Brood War you were really renowned for your Reaver micro. Did that translate into any strategies you deployed today?

Legionnaire: Not really, I’m a very defensive player; I like to defend and always did in Brood War. I’d always do some sort of harass and just build up my army, just try to annoy the person into making a mistake. That carried over to StarCraft 2 a little and it gives you a lot more power in StarCraft 2 then it did in StarCraft 1 because you could warp in units pretty much anywhere and you can be a lot sneakier I think.

Lemminks: During your retirement did you keep up with the Brood War scene or the StarCraft 2 scene at all?

Legionnaire: Pretty much no, once I came back from Korea I had a choice, I could still play in the Australian and that sort of thing but there was no real point playing from what I was thinking so I pretty much went cold turkey and didn’t play until StarCraft 2 came out.

Lemminks: So you haven’t been keeping up with the foreign scene or watching any tournaments like the GSL?

Legionnaire: I played the first season of StarCraft 2 and I was watching the GSL then. I’ve got quite a few friends who enjoy watching it so if I’m at their place they’ll put it on. I paid attention to some of the players going to Korea to compete in the tournaments but very very loosely so I haven’t paid much attention at all.

Lemminks: Well recently, a lot of the top Brood War players such as Flash and Bisu have started playing StarCraft 2 competitively. Considering the fact that many of the current top StarCraft 2 pros were in fact B team players in Brood War, do you think these Brood War pros will affect the competitive scene?

Legionnaire: It’s possible, the top level gamers, they know how to play, like they’ve got the mechanics, they’ve got the gameplay, they’ve got the speed and they’ve got the correct mental thought but it’s a completely different game so you can’t base it just on that. So time will tell.

Lemminks: During the Brood War era, Australia didn’t have competitions like ACL and the competitive gaming scene wasn’t as prominent as it is now. From your experience, how as the Australian gaming scene grown since the Brood War days.

Legionnaire: I’ve said before it’s very hard for Australia to have a competitive scene unless the internet is involved because it’s such a vast distance between different cities and it’s hard to get everyone together, also expensive. With the way everything has progressed with Starcraft 2 it really heading towards that direction, where there are a lot of online tournaments now, they’re all broadcasted, and they all look pretty professional. It’s definitely a very good development and it’ll probably just continue in the future.

Lemminks: Despite being a little active in beta you disappeared from the competitive gaming scene. If you don’t mind me asking, was there any particular reason for this?

Legionnaire: I didn’t have the time to play compared to everyone else. I was never going to be competitive and wasn’t planning on going professional again. I just wanted to enjoy the game, have some fun in the first season and see how I go but just leave it at that.

Lemminks: Ah I see, well considering your performance today, are there any thoughts of restarting a progaming career?

Legionnaire: Erm, no. My girlfriend when she found out that the finals is next month and that I’ll be playing StarCraft for another month, she wasn’t very happy. But after the Australian finals, well I don’t think I’ll qualify, I’ll do my best and see if I can do some better builds and go from there.

Lemminks: Well once again congratulations on you spot at the Australian Nationals. Any final shoutouts?

Legionnaire: Big thanks to Wintersmash and the sponsors that are here today. Thanks to Blizzard for hosting this event and hopefully we’ll see some good games down in Sydney.

Lemminks: Thank you for your time.

You can check out Legionnaire's Liquipedia page here.

Things I learnt at ACL: If you want Moonglade to hug you, wear downs.

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More Tea with Titans!

Episode 1: Legionnaire

Protoss

Australia

Episode 2: KingKong

Zerg

Australia

cR

**nirvAnA** · Mon, 2nd-Jul-2012, 4:40 PM

Awesome to see Leg return, fantastic guy

**fray`Alpha** · Mon, 2nd-Jul-2012, 4:58 PM

I feel alot better about this guy knocking me out of ACL yesterday after reading this :P

good interview

akky · Mon, 2nd-Jul-2012, 6:38 PM

Great interview! I remember watching his BW games with TheDon1 like 10years ago! Grrrr. and Elky were also doing well against the Koreans, but Pete flying the aussie flag was great inspiration. Glad to see he can still crush nub-face~

Big fan,

aus.akira