[Interview] Avalon MSL Final Winner's Interview - Page 2

On August 31 2009 00:45 JWD wrote:

You can easily say the same for that second quote...of course Calm is going to say it was his dream to win the tournament he just won. But a statement like "The Proleague is always number one in priority," especially because it wasn't in response to a leading question, is hard to interpret as pandering to "the camera" rather than fact.

On August 31 2009 09:38 darktreb wrote:


Haha are you serious JWD?

You compare a statement like "it has always been my dream ... I am thrilled at having my dream turned into reality" to a workmanlike company-line statement of "The Proleague is always number one in priority" and you find it hard to interpret that as pandering to the camera?

Given that players are on teams, are paid by teams, and team success gives glory even to their lesser teammates, players have VERY LITTLE incentive to make public statements that waver from the company line.

Ever heard a pro athlete say something like "I don't care about my stats, I just care about winning?" Let's just say they don't always mean it....

You are correct that PL has increased in significance by A TON though, of course.

On August 31 2009 11:00 Avidkeystamper wrote:

Maybe their care about individual leagues more, and I do think so as well. But, if it's an important proleague game vs an important individual game, which one will they practice for? Coaches oversee the players, right? So they will probably practice mostly for the proleague game.

On August 31 2009 11:20 darktreb wrote:


I'm not saying the newfound importance of proleague has no effect on how much players can prepare for individual leagues. It's definitely going to have a negative impact (which may be what JWD was getting at, in which case he is right).

All I'm saying is that at the end of the day, if you put a gun to a player's head and said "you get to choose only one - starleague title or proleague title and no one will ever know you made this choice", I'm betting they'd all still pick starleague title, and the way Calm described his feelings about winning just reinforced that.

So yeah, I don't think we're really disagreeing about anything =)

On August 31 2009 10:53 tedster wrote:
Calm really is a cerebral player, which is very evident all the way from his builds down to his mid-game decisions. It is not uncommon to see him deviate suddenly from a pre-planned build to capitalize off an incredibly minor shift in momentum, where most players would just continue on the route they were taking previously. You see this all the time in his ZvZ decision making. Watch him repel an attack - he will never, EVER just resume his previous build, even if he has a slight advantage from winning the fight; instead, he will shift his production, flip tech slightly, add a hatchery in a weird location, SOMETHING to change the dynamic of the fight. He always keeps the opponent anxious and never lets them exploit old information, since his gameplan is so fluid.

I've only started to follow Calm fairly recently but his in-game decision-making is virtually unmatched.