English interview - For Is Here #24 - iaguz

From Red Alert to StarCraft

[M] TinkeR : You've been quite known to be one of the top players on Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 in Australia before switching to StarCraft II. Could you describe your first steps in videogames in general, and how did you end up on StarCraft II?

ROOT.iaguz : The first RTS games I really got into multiplayer wise were some of the Relic Entertainment ones. Warhammer 40k : Dawn of War and Company of Heroes, and I started to get kinda good at them too.  Red Alert 3 didn't really have a competitive scene, I was the top Australian player mainly by virtue of there only being like three people who bought that game, and a dog.

StarCraft II was always going to have a competitive proscene around it and if you liked playing RTS games competitively you'd be mad not to play it. Unless you were on a KeSPA Brood War team of course. I followed Brood War and played a bit of it but never really got that good at it.

For those who don't know much about Red Alert (like me), how close was it to StarCraft II and in what extent did that experience help you for today? (apm wise for example, or stress management)

Red Alert 3 was kind of a really basic version of StarCraft II. Simple multitask, simple macro. It had a lot of interesting micro situations and could be quite taxing in that respect, especially if you played from Sydney and had 200+ ping all the time.

In a lot of ways Red Alert 3 was actually a fucking mess. I'm glad StarCraft II happened, thinking about it now.

WCS

Let's go back to the present now. After struggling to reach WCS Premier League, you eventually managed to qualify during the 2014 WCS America Season 3, only losing in the Ro16. It's the third time in a row now that you go at least to the Ro32, did anything specific change in the way you're practicing or you just kept pushing the « ladder button » until you pass out?

When I qualified for Premier League the first time, I was able to join ROOT and spend some time in the USA. I got to play on the European server, which I can't normally from Sydney where the latency is horrendous, which meant I occasionally got to play against some of the European players.

It was nice to see how I compared to them and also get some experience facing them firsthand if they were in my group. For my latest group I got to play MaNa and FireCake on ladder a few times which helped a lot preparing against them. Otherwise it's normally hitting « Find Match » an awful lot of times..

So facing MaNa on ladder helped you to prepare; but what were your expectations before this group stage? And what do you think was lacking against FireCake?

I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew I had decent odds to advance but MaNa and Firecake were favourites. Against FireCake what was lacking was a bit of patience. I had him in game 3 but managed to bungle it through a few bad fights, as I'd convinced myself I couldn't lose. His ZvT was better than I thought.

Regarding the Ro16, you group consists of Lilbow, TLO and iAsonu. What do you think are your chances here and what are your expectations?

I got kinda lucky, this was probably the best group I could get. I reckon I have good odds to advance. iAsonu is a bit of an unknown to me, Lilbow is going to be challenging and TLO I feel confident against.

StarCraft in general

You've been in ROOT Gaming since a year and half now. First question: are you currently living at the ROOT house? And how do you get along with your teammates and staff?

I'm at the ROOT house for a wee bit longer but I'm going back to Australia right after WCS Season 2. ROOT's been a great experience for me, teammates are lovely and CatZ is someone who actually gives a shit about StarCraft, which is a good attribute for a team manager to have.

We talked to Petraeus - who used to live in the mYi house and was pretty far away from his home country as well - and he said that he kinda didn't feel homesick so much as it was part of his job, and inevitable. How do you deal with that personnaly?

Homesickness is going to be inevitable, unless you really hate your parents. I haven't spent long enough overseas for it to settle in, and like I said I'm going back soon so no worries there.

Back to the game itself, it globally looks balanced from a viewer perspective, but how would you analyze the current metagame today as a professional player?

It's a fine enough time for Terran players, none of our matchups are particularly broken and there's a good variety of strategies you can play. I think TvP is in a good spot particularly, Maru and Dream have shown us the way.

You're talking about Maru and Dream, are these the players you're looking up to? Or you just watch any top Korean Terran player?

Maru's more of a general inspiration, but I like Dream's TvZ, Bomber's TvP and INnoVation's TvT. But you should watch all the Korean Terrans really, you can learn a lot from any of them.

And where would you rank yourself among the Terran foreigners today?

I'm definitely behind the top EU ones like Bunny and Happy. I'd fancy myself in the second tier behind them, alongside MarineLorD, uThermal (when he's trying) and probably a few more people I'm forgetting.

If you didn't manage to be a progamer, do you have any idea of what you would do today?

I have no idea what I'd do if I wasn't playing StarCraft II. I'd have a shit low paying job I'd hate, which is what I had before StarCraft II.

What were you doing?

Stacking boxes in a warehouse.

If tomorrow your career would stop for whatever reason, would you still see yourself in eSports, like casting, managing team, etc.?

Yeah, I'd still follow competitive games in some way or another. I'm going to be doing something game related till I'm in the ground I reckon.

You obviously have passion for gaming overall from what I saw, I understood you were being a bit unfaithful to StarCraft II recently, playing The Witcher III at the moment. Is that a way for you to keep your mind clear, and being « refreshed »? Do you have any other game/hobby/stuff that help you in this matter??

Hey StarCraft II isn't a girlfriend, I can play other games!

xD

But you know, occasionally it helps to spend a wee bit of time away from StarCraft II before the bitterness gets too much. Yeah, I mostly just play other games, I like games for more than their multiplayer function.

Extra time

If your son (yes, you have one) had to read ONE book, watch ONE movie, eat ONE meal and play ONE game the last day of his life, what would you recommend him?

I like how you're asking me to imagine my sons final day, thanks that's not grim at all.

Book: Either a massive Discworld omnibus or A Song of Ice and Fire.
Movie: In the Loop
Meal: dad's potatoe bake.
Game: Probably the Portal games. He's only got one day left apparently.

More positive note now! If you could trade one unit from Zerg or Protoss with a Terran's one, which one would you pick and why?

From Protoss, High Templars, because it'd be nice to have a Ghost that doesn't suck horribly. From Zerg, the Mutalisk, because they seem like good fun.

Which Terran unit would you give away in exchange then? Ghost for both?

Yup.

Last one: in the ROOT house, who's the:

-laziest?
-most handsome?
-most badmannered (like shouting out loud when losing)?
-biggest try harder/ladder farmer?

Can I answer Hydra for all 4?

Of course :D

Well, we're slowly turning Hydra into a cunt so the third one's truer than you might think.

Yes I saw that tweet, foreigners seem to always have a bad influence on poor Koreans. Well, that was the last question, I will thank you very much iaguz for your time, it's been a pleasure :) If you have any last words for our readers, or shoutouts to make, please do so!

Yeah sure, shoutout to ROOT and our sponsors: Tt, Twitch, eSport gaming, CyberPowerPC and as of recently Meltdown. Cheer for me, or go with the knowledge that I'd gladly punch you in the face if I could.

Thanks, bye!