Could you please introduce yourself to us?

GoOdy: Hi, i am Sascha "GoOdy" Lupp, 28 years old and from Germany. I play Terran in SC2 and did so in BW from 2001 to 2006, but switched to Toss after a failed german WCG qualifier.

Hm, that's interesting. Was the failed qualifier the reason for switching to Protoss? And why Protoss specifically?

GoOdy: I dont have a lot of APM (maybe 140 in BW) and I had problem after the midgame to keep up in TvZ, thats why i decided toswitch after i lost some bad tvz in the german offline qualifer in 2006. But even before I had some Toss practice, when I started in 2000 with BGH/Fastmaps in BW I played toss there and always played it a little bit.

What made you initially choose Terran as your main race?

GoOdy: It's all SlayerS`BoXeR`'s fault ;P

Haha, good answer. TT1 wanted me to ask you what you prefer: Starcraft 1 or Starcraft 2 tanks.

GoOdy: Since I played against them in BW, I like them more now, even though Immortals really dont like them now in sc2

Aww, you poor thing. What made you pick up Starcraft?

GoOdy: The first time I played it was at a friends house and I got crushed by the AI and did not like it that much at first, but we often had some small LANs with 4-6 friends and would play it there and I started to enjoy it, so after I got my first internet connection at home in 2000 I played it a lot online.

Mhm. What's your most memorable Starcraft: Brood War event?

GoOdy: My biggest event was the WCG Grand Final in Seattle in 2007, it was a really nice event and I met a lot of people for the first time and I finished top8. Besides that I played in the Giga-Liga Grand Final at GamesCom in 2005 vs Mondragon in front of a big audience and enjoyed that aswell. And we had a nice German Community Lan "Du-Bist-Brood-War" (You are Brood War). I think we had 6 or 7 of them and those were always great.

That's cool. Is there anyone in the tournament you'd really like to beat?

GoOdy: Mhh, maybe like everyone ;P

Aaanyone in particulaar? There is a certain Italian playing that you have a decent winning record against in another game.

GoOdy: I beat him in the 2007 WCG Grand Finals too in the round of 16

So he's too easy to care about, I see. How about Mondragon?

GoOdy: I won 1 map in offical games vs him, so it would be nice to beat him now, but it is really hard to predict how good all the players are now. 3 months ago there was a small german BW event with Socke, TLO, Fisheye and me and some of them played really bad ;P

Gotcha. Now let's move on to the important questions. First off, the question everyone's waiting for: What's your favourite food?

GoOdy: I like a lot of food ;P Especially some good meat.

How very German of you, but pick a favourite!

GoOdy: Maybe a nice Schnitzel =)

An excellent choice. Now this may surprise a lot of people, but to my knowledge you're a metal fan. What are some of your favourite bands?

GoOdy: I especially like melodic death and pagan metal, so bands like Kalmah, Amon Amarth, Dark Tranquillity, Eluveitie, Tyr and a lot more ;P

If you got to start a band with any of the players, who would you invite to your band?

GoOdy: Socke ofc!

A two man band? Who else would you force in?

GoOdy: Maybe Eriador, his nick sounds like a Pagan Metal Band ;P

Good choice, need an authentic Norwegian to complete the lineup. Do you have any last words for the readers before we close out the interview?

GoOdy: I hope a lot more years will pass until I say my last words. But I hope everybody enjoys the event and maybe some active BW players want to practive next week xD

Alright, thanks for the interview

GoOdy: My management will send you the bill.

Could you introduce yourself to us?

Lamer: Hi, my name is Ivan Velikov also known as Lamer. I started playing broodwar since 2002, played in WCG 2003 to 2008 and retired afterwards. Now, I'm playing poker.

So you started in 2002. What made you pick up the game?

Lamer: Well I was playing quake 3 before as gosu then just see many tourneys in my city in broodwar so I started to play 3v3 4v4 BGH maps for fun. The year after, I started playing seriously.

Did you immediately pick the manliest race or did you play something else first?

Lamer: I played Protoss for 1-2 years, then switched to Terran in 2004. I'm not sure why I switched to Terran, maybe because many people played terran in Bulgaria.

How was the Bulgarian scene like then?

Lamer: That's a hard question. When I started to play seriously at this time, players like Beast Enjoy and other famous names stopped playing. Only me and TechnicS were still playing. In 2004 I already finished Top 3, but I got refused a visa for San Francisco.

That sucks! How about some good memories of Starcraft events?

Lamer: WCG was always nice. I remember good times with the Puerto Rican, Spanish and Peruvian players. I remember also when Fisheye came and told me "Congrats, nice score" when I went 7-0 in WCG Singapore. That felt really nice. Most of the time I was with the Bulgarian team though, and they were nice too! I had a few problems with talking to players though as my English wasn't great.

Mm, is there anyone you'd really like to beat in the tourney?

Lamer: Well, in 2005 I lost to Legionnaire 2-1 and I was angry because of how I played and wasn't in my best shape the second day. Later in Italy in 2006 I beat him.

Unfortunately he dodged out of the tournament. Perhaps a showmatch is in order?

Lamer: No no, no need :D

So you're the one dodging? I gotcha.

Lamer: I am not even 5% to how good I was.

Yeah, excuses are important. I got it.

Lamer: sure :D

So who ARE you going to beat?

Lamer: I am going to play for fun and hope to play my best, but I haven't played for 5 years until now. I've played 30 games so far though so I'm trying!

You didn't give me a name though.

Lamer: 20 lines of persuasive skills later...
Ok, I don't know who I'm going to beat but it'll be fun to play again with Darki ClouD and more.

So you're going to beat Darki and ClouD. You heard it here first folks.

Lamer: hahahahaha, only Darki!

Okay, the more important questions: What's your favourite movie?

Lamer: Hm, I have many. The last favourite I watched was The Notebook (2004). Very good story!

Is there anyone you really look up to? Other than me.

Lamer: From Bulgaria, Beast. He was my coach and training partner until he retired. Special thanks to him! Also to Torvald. He's my old sponsor and friend.

If you could choose any player in the tourmanet to go clubbing with, who would you take along?

Lamer: From this list I can say Darki for sure. We were good friends!

What sports team do you support the most?

Lamer: Probably Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.

Alright, anything else you'd like to add before we close out the interview?

Lamer: Thanks to my fans who supported me in my BW carreer and thanks to players like Enjoy, TechnicS, Masscata, Beast etc.. we've had some great times.

Please introduce yourself to us.

TT1: Hi my name is Payam Toghyan, I'm 26 and I like to build sand castles as a hobby. I played BW for about, hmm, 8 or 9 years until 2010? And since then I've been a sc2 progamer.

What started earlier, your passion for Starcraft or sand castles?

TT1: Hmm, I'd probably say Starcraft. I got into building sand castles after I didn't have anything to do

That's very sad.

TT1: T.T That's the life of a gamer without any games~

So why did you start playing Starcraft?

TT1: I got introduced to the game by a good friend who was my neighbour when I was 12 and eventually I got addicted to it to the point where my parents would take away my modem and I'd sneak off to my neighbours house to play ^_^

Did you beat your neighbour?

TT1: At first I didn't, he was actually a really good player. Even towards the end he was a good player. I think he got A- in 2v2. His ID was Seena. A lot of the 2v2 community know him and he got introduced to the game by his cousin who was one of the best players in Canada in my eyes. The cousin's name was Darkrain.. (also known as Rainy[EyaS], he's a super oldschool player).

Is that where you got your bm antics from?

TT1: I think I rubbed off on him more than he did on me. Clan x17 is a good place to learn how to be bm ^.^

Alright, let's take it back a little more. Why did you choose to play Protoss and is it in some way related to sand castles?

TT1: Hmm, I actually started off playing Zerg, then Terran, then when I moved over to the EU server and joined MgZ I started playing Protoss because we had a lot of good Protosses like Oldy and JianFei who I learned from. Oldy in particular helped me out a lot. But yea, at first I was a US West player and I didn't know anything about the community, back then I was Zerg. Then I moved over to EU when I found TL. Afterwards I played a bit on US East but I never spent too much time there apart from playing UMSes and stuff.

Let's talk about your favourite topic, hacks.

TT1: : D. I knew we'd get here eventually, shoot bitch.

How much of your skill do you have to thank to maphacking?

TT1: hahaha, hmmm. I'll just give you the entire background of my hacking history, how's that sound?

Sure.

TT1: Like I mentioned I started off playing on US West. Back then I was close to a player who was from the same country as me (Iran). Long story short I eventually found out he hacked and unfortunately he converted me to the dark side. This was before I knew anything about the community. All we did was play against Koreans all day. Once he retired I kept on playing and moved over to EU like I said. That's when I was caught maphacking for the first time. This was back in the rS. days.

We played a clanwar against LG) and Cheloman caught me I believe in 2004/2005. After that I still couldn't play without maphacks because I started becoming someone. I eventually came to a point where I told myself that I liked the community more than my personal obsession/need of winning games and decided to quit maphacking. That was around WCG Canada 2007 I believe? I stopped maphacking around WCG Canada, but when then TSL1 came around history caught up with me. At first I was against the decision but I ended up accepting it.

All those years I spent maphacking, I felt like I was deserving to get punished. After that I was kinda fed up with all the drama and just wanted to play the game and fortunately for me I think going through that made me the player that I am today. I became extremely disciplined and started grinding a lot of games. I wanted to prove everyone wrong. I wanted to show them that i could compete with the best players fairly. I spent a lot of time playing 1v1 and 2v2s, then when TSL2 came around I wrote an apology letter to the TL admins explaining them everything I've told you now, and they let me participate in the tournament. Thankfully I managed to rebuild my image somewhat due to the opportunity they gave me. I ended up doing well in the tournament and transitioned into sc2 afterwards.

Funnily enough towards the end of bw I felt like my skill level was at least twice as good as the days I spent maphacking (when factoring in everyone else's skill level). I think if BW went on for another year or two I could have become one of the best players, but sadly it came to an end right when I was peaking upwards.

I'd like to remind you that you started this story with "long story short".

TT1: hahahaha, yea well my apologies :{, I'm sure you're going to have a lot of fun formatting all this.

You're forgiven. Let's move on to more positive stories. What's been your best Starcraft experience in an event?

TT1: My best experience definitely has to be when I went to Korea and participated in the GSL all stars match. Getting to spend time with all the guys in the house was amazing. We got along so well, the atmosphere was amazing, and I ended up meeting a few of my idols like July and Nada. Getting to spend time in the GSL house was amazing. I did really well in the tournament too so that wasn't bad either .

Fantastic. So you're participating in the BW Reunion Tournament. Is there anyone you'd really like to beat?

TT1: Probably Sen. We were teammates for a long time, spent a lot of time together and we used to practice a lot in both BW and SC2 so there's definitely a friendly rivalry between us. We were both on Fnatic for around 2 years. JF was in the team too.

Who would you consider the favourite for the tourney?

TT1: Whoever practiced the most I guess. Dunno really. I mean skillwise Mondi has to be the best player among us. But yeah, that was a long time ago. I think a lot of us have learned new things from our experiences in Starcraft 2. Talentwise I think Draco and Ret were the best players. Sen and Mondi came in after that, at least that's how I have it. Draco was by far the most talented foreign BW player.

We need to move on to the important questions. What's your favourite dish?

TT1: Hmm, I don't have anything specific. I do enjoy Korean BBQ though.
+ Show Spoiler +

Not poutine?

TT1: =/

If you had to pick any player in the tourney to room with, who would you pick?

TT1: Dimaga.

I said in the tourney.

TT1: I guess you'll have to invite Dimaga then.

...

TT1: I'm closest with ClouD/MaNa/Sen so one of those three. Probably ClouD because I spent a month with him in Germany, I already know all his bad habits. For all I know MaNa could end up being a mass murder, I don't trust his polish eye bags.

About those sand castles. What makes making them such an enticing hobby for you?

TT1: Dunno man, there's just something about squishing wet sand that excites me.
...Wait, if sand is wet how does one build a castle?

Any last words?

TT1: Of course I'm gonna have to give you a big shoutout for organizing the whole thing. I'm sure it's not easy but I do appreciate getting everyone together again. Hopefully we'll have more of these tournaments in the future. *wink wink*