Eriador Interview!

We are closing in on Christmas and the great event Americup2 brings us a nice present: (Thank you PuertoRican!)

Eriador Vs Daaman:
Here's an interview with Eriador himself! The answers are very good and we had a good time making this interview.. Before and after this interview we talked about Futurama, my stupid school assignments and many other things!

I copied this from my Americup covrage at gamingeye.com so enjoy!

Hi Eriador! or do you prefer being called Drone?

oh, you can call me eri that's what im the most used to.. But anything goes or works

Cool. You play random only? Or racepicker?

random only. I have considered playing only zvt cause it's so much more fun than tvt and pvt but the problem with that is, picked zvt isn't fun at all cause then I have to worry about all kinds of bullshitty rax first builds that aren't actually bullshitty, but I would be forced to play safer early on and that wouldn't be as fun cause zerg is only fun with 2 gas otherwise they're boring =(

Oh.. You lost first round of Am2 after amazing play game2, felt bad?

haha no I didn't care at all actually I was happy with winning the zvt, cause beforehand I said I was gonna lose tvt for sure, probably lose pvt and probably win zvt. and I also got to show off a unit i've been advocating the use of for the past year and a half. Im way more happy with winning that game in such a stylish manner than I am sad about playing horrible and getting raped in the other two (and the two games I lost were tvt and pvt)

Yes, I would feel that way also!
You won 2-0 versus ZpuX, comment his play and your win!

hehe well both games I got random protoss and both games I dt dropped and both games his observers were just a bit late so I got some kills that gave me economical advantage and then I just played safe from there on he played alright but had the timing a couple seconds wrong and I also think he should stop building 2 zealots pvp unless he gets harassed or harasses of his own cause that set back his core in both games and I dunno if I'd have done what I did otherwise the games didn't really show much, but I was satisfied with how I played

pvp is pretty easy though like, I'm pretty rusty at the time being, but the only thing that suffers is my macro. in pvp, macroing is very easy so it's a matchup where I play well and I harassed pretty well and well my build worked out both games

Indeed. Your next opponent is Daaman, a friend of yours and since he's racepicker it could very well end up as rvr, a tough fight?

I look forward to playing him although I do expect the games to be random vs random and then it largely depends on what races we end up getting. The last time I played him was in a teamliquid staff tournament where I won 3-2, and well the only thing those games showed was that whoever gets zerg wins and whoever gets terran loses

but I think he might be in better shape than he was at that time and im roughly the same I guess but yeah, it should make for some good games. I do believe they might be decided by what matchups we get though. i'll be very surprised if we play pvz with protoss winning.

Guess so! I would love for you getting zerg and him terran. Who will win?

I think it'll be close but I also think I will end up winning. me zerg him terran is probably the most entertaining matchup, him being very good tvz and me having a potentially very good zvt. Im very inconsistent in zvt though and my style of play doesn't allow for micro mistakes early on so anything can happen

Yes, gonna be awsome! You won very nicely vs TreK and also 2v2 with Rapide in the Nationwar vs Sweden, comments?

well me vs trek was another one of those decided by random matchups.. trek is a racepicker while im random, and that means he only has 3 strong matchups, and that's even while he was active.. now he's inactive in addition.. and then we played me z him p, which is among my best and his worst, and then me t him z, where I managed to hurt him early on which is not one of his best matchups either so I was lucky with that.. and then in the 2v2s well I worked out nicely together with rapide and kadaze just weren't good enough

Randomplayers > racepickers?

yes. it's like, as a random player, I play all 9 matchups, but none of them a lot, but still far more than a racepicker plays his non-matchups-of-his-choice. so like, say in the example of trek, he played tvz zvp pvt.. for that reason he ended up playing more tvz, more zvp and more pvt than me, but less zvt, pvz and tvp. (and also less zvz pvp tvt. ) for that reason I will if playing a racepicker of equal skill generally be significantly better at 6 matchups and a tad worse at 3.
and when I then get two I am significantly better at, it's good for me. but the last tourney I played trek in I ended up getting tvp, pvt and pvz, and he won 2-1 then. I was really drunk though but still it shows my point!

people who only pick 1 race likewise do better than racepickers who attempt to random, because for them, they will have more practice in every matchup than me. however then the random advantage evens things out.

True. Daaman lost 1-2 versus yAn. Suprised?

not really yan is very good and one of the players I expected to leave our group in addition daaman says he's much worse vs terran and I have no problems believing that

Ok. Guess you dont play much anymore at all but how often did you play Daaman in the days? How would you describe his style, weakness/ strength?

I didn't play very much against him and when we did the games were often silly or onesided
he has strong strategy and micro and macro is probably a weaker point for him, perhaps he is not that great at controlling large amounts of units

I'm not really sure though, he's better than I am at that he's a bit more solid and consistent than I am but while he has a couple of tricks up his sleeves, I have a couple more

Hehe! And that brings us to following question; Whats your style? Weakness/ strength?

hehe..my style, it varies a lot depending on matchup, but ideally, when I play my best I try to take control of the game and dictate it into several small battles continously going on, or to cripple my opponent early on as opposed to there being a long buildup period before we have a large battle. I'm terrible at those matches

but I have good micro, at times great builds, and I'm rather creative and I have several tricks+ I have great intuition allowing me to read my opponent
owever I have absolutely crap macro, and my timing is off. (so are my builds, which is what the "at times" is about, sometimes they just miss completely)
basically I generally want to keep the game as small and resource-lacking as possible, because then I'm very good, but if both me and my opponent have lots of time to power, that's bad for me because I'm not good at controlling large amounts of units nor good at building large amounts of units.

Your style is sort of oldschool? These days it feels like thats not a very common style.. And also, What player had or have a very good eriador counter?

I guess part of what I do is oldschool, but it really all depends on matchup.. I guess people are most excited about my zvt because that's what I play "different" from other people, but zvt is in fact the least oldschool of my matchups and the only one I have developed in the past year. for the longest period of time, pretty much the entire time when I was active, I played muta into hydra lurker and stuff like that..

but I also built the occasional queen, and I tried to do fun stuff with them like, ensnare scvs before a lurker drop, and infesting.. I used to infest and ensnare 5-6 years ago as well, and I never really stopped with it, but it's only in the past year, in fact during a period of time where I have hardly played at all, where I have developed my current style which is lurker ling with fast queen into defiler rush which manages to do exactly what I was talking about; keep both me and my opponent low economy, and gives me all tech available

as for countering me, that also depends on matchup. tvz, tvp, tvt, I lose that frequently against any good zerg, protoss and terran player. zvz I lose against anyone, zvt and zvp I generally feel that there's no strong counter to what I do apart from playing better than me, although there are ways to do better against me but I don't really feel like sharing what those ways are, as I'd like my style to keep being successful.

but generally I only lose zvp and zvt when I myself feel I play badly, or when the map is hard for zerg. pvt I can lose against any very good terran, pvz likewise, and pvp is something I very rarely lose as long as I get to scout the protoss with my probe, but if I don't then the early game becomes a guessinggame which I might lose (but which I am also usually good at. ) zvt and zvp being so good is also partially caused by random really benefitting you when you get zerg, and not really giving any benefit when you random terran or protoss. wow im writing long answers I guess I love talking about myself

Actually long answers are good answers! So anyway you cant tell any specific player who you didnt like playing / dont like playing? And also, how did you do playing SaFT, Elky, NTT, Slayer and Sven in the days?

hmm I don't know, I generally don't like playing zerg players, but in tournaments it's fine cause there's plenty of cheese possible. I've lost much against testie, but it's really not because he plays that great, mostly just that I fuck up more against him than against anyone else. I also do stuff that manages to impress myself while I'm playing against him though, so I guess it goes both ways.

as for saft, ntt elky slayer and sven; (only back in the day) saft raped me every time I played him, slayer raped me every time I played him, sven raped me every time cept once (played between 5 and 10 games vs each), I beat ntt 6-1 (when he was at his best), but that was a combination of me cheesing, us playing dire straits (where I was really good), and him fucking around

elky I have always done very well against and I've always been winning about 50% against him, even when he was a top of the line progamer
I generally do better against people the more I play against them (because it usually allows me to figure out their style and thus counter appropriately while figuring out my style is harder, because 1) I mix up my play a lot and 2) because I play every race. ) and for that reason, there aren't many people I end up doing badly against after I've played a lot with them.

I see. Did you ever have "practice partners", friend or gamers you played alot with?

the closest thing to that has been nazgul, whom ive played like 150 1v1 games with probably.. but in the past 5 years I haven't ever been like, someone who just played the same person over and over I like to surprise people and that doesn't work out as well when ive played someone 50 games, and for that reason I think there are less than 5 people I've played 50 games with. nazgul elky rekrul and testie are probably the ones ive played most with, but rek elky and testie are all around 50 games at most, probably less. if you go 6 years back I played 30 games against assem over 3 days, I think I won 27-3 or so

Picture of Eri(left) and Nazgul at wcg04

Cool. Did you ever play alot with koreans?

nope, occasionally I'd play a friend of nazgul when he lived in korea but I've never hung out and played a lot on west or gamei or pgtour or neogamei.

Ok... What's your current view on StarCraft? Will you ever stop playing or post at tl.net?

haha probably one day but I have no idea when, I enjoy the community a lot.. as for playing, I don't think im ever gonna be playing really much, but I wasn't one who ever played really much in the first place..currently im as active as ive been in about a year tho and im enjoying it

Ok! Well then I wish you the best of luck in Americup and any other tournament or w/e=] And I hope for some good games between you and Daaman! But before we end it, one final question from Daaman!

Daaman: what role does money play in your life?

oh. I'm extremely careless with my money and I have been mistaken for being rich, which I am not at all, simply because I care so little about it. it makes me go broke at times, but those times I find something inexpensive to do with my spare time and mooch some of my friends, and likewise when I have money I spoil them back

I won't ever be rich, hopefully never poor, but I'm certain i'll get by

Hehe ok thx cya

cya

Notes
1. The oldschool gamers I asked about (ntt slayer etc) was the first ones I came to think about, no other reason for picking them and not, for example Nazgul or Smuft etc.

2. A few smileys

and a few others got corrupted during copy+paste from MSN. Sorry.

Finally a big thanks to Eriador and also, Im chasing Daaman for an interview aswell, I might post it with translated version of my "after playing Squall interview" with FrozenArbiter (also a very nice guy)

Anyway Daaman agreed yesterday so the interview with him should get posted later on--;

Orginal at gamingeye.com --->

Americup2 home: GGL.com --->

Replaypack week2 all included--->

Interview with Daaman--->

Eriador Interview!

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