[BSL8] "It's good to be king" - Bonyth interview !

Greetings to all Bombastic Players!

BSL Season 8 is finished but I have last surprise for you. Since I wasn't able to organize interview with Bonyth in a finals day - I had small technical difficulties, here is interview with our current BSL Champion

Bonyth !

Tomek "Bonyth" Kamiński, Polish Protoss player known for his agressive style, high game understanding and the best in the world win rate to apm index. I had opportunity to meet him couple of times and I need to say Bonyth is great guy, kind, smart, funny and when going on a tournament - focused on his goal. Deffinietly a progamer material.

ZZZero: Hello Mr Bonyth, congratulations for winning BSL Season 8 – after being in grand finals in Season 5, 6 and 8 you finally did it ! How do you feel about it ?

Bonyth: Hello and thank you. To be honest, I’m the type of a person, who would rather take three silver medals over one gold medal. But that being said, becoming champion tastes unique and wonderful, because you have ONLY good memories about a season. When you finish 2nd, something just is not there and it doesn’t taste right.

ZZZero:Makes sense. Many viewers though of you as a favorit for winning BSL from few season, what has changed in this season, that you finally was able to deliver this excellent performance ?

Bonyth: My game understanding developed a lot, especialy when it comes to vs zerg match-up, probably because of hundreds of games against Trutacz during our Corrupted Cup preparation journey. It was very convinient practise given that foreign scene is, feels like, 50% zergs.
It’s also helpful to be aware of your performance of the day. When it’s bad, you can just prepare a monkey build like 1base 2-gate build, just to avoid too much multitask or other areas that depend on your performance.

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"Bonyth predicts which country will win next BSL and Nation Wars"

ZZZero: During Bracket Contest, many people was predicting you in the finals, but only few expected that you will face g0rynich there, nontheless the games was really good and deffinietly not one sided. What’s your opinion about the finals ? Was g0rynich the hardest opponent in the tournament ? Do you see yourself making some crucial misstakes, or it was g0rynich who was prepared very well ?

Bonyth: The finals were probably good from the viewer’s perspective. The scores were really close, from 1-1 to 2-2 to 4-2, almost as exciting as it could be. Also we were a good match for a good show: offensive vs defensive player. This way, games won’t be too short nor too long while still action packed.
Was g0rynich the hardest opponent? Yes. Were mistakes made? Yes, a lot of them, but this line goes for both sides. G0rynich was well prepared for shuttle harassment throughout the series and his army management left very few openings. It feels like a miracle that I was able to break through his ultra-instinct defense.

ZZZero:Yea, it was great finals. During this year we will have two more seasons of BSL – BSL9 and BSL10 - and Russian Cyber Games 2020 – you are seeded in all of these events and don’t have to play in qualications. Do you see it as a big edge over your opponents ? Will it change the way you will prepare for these events ?

Bonyth: It’s good to be king. It’s very satysfying to watch players fight hard for what you’ve already accomplished. Is it a big edge? It definitely frees up your life schedule a little. It’s very hard to play starcraft 365 days a year (not to mention 366 days), that’s why since the end of BSL I’m currently on a SC-break, so I don’t lose the very important freshness factor and the hunger for StarCraft wisdom.

ZZZero: You are a dad now – how it affects your training ? Does it make it harder to find time for practice ? Or maybe it gives your more motivation, so your doughter in future will be able to read about dad Bonyth as a uncontested SC:BW superstar ?

Bonyth:Well of course, but it’s not like you need to play 8 hours daily to be in good shape. 2 hours daily is probably more than enough, keeping in touch with starcraft is what’s really important. There is also that extra motivation when you become the head of the family and you just want to do everything a little bit more, a little bit better, it’s no longer just for yourself.

ZZZero: How competetive do you see foreigner scene right now ? Who do you think improved the most over past year ? Who is most underrated player ? Who is your hardest opponent ? Is there anyone from foreign er scene who you are afraid might stop you in re-gaining RCG and BSL Championships ?

Bonyth: Oh my dog, so many uncomfortable questions at once. While the foreigner scene consists mostly of the same faces at the top, the game level keeps increasing. It’s thanks to streaming tools, making players more active and giving them a reason to be active. It’s because of koreans 1st person streams, as you are able to watch your favorite streamer and take notes where are his priorities during many actions. Most underrated player this season would be… Avi-Love or Kamezerg perhaps. My hardest opponent. There are just SO MANY good players out there that pose a serious threat to me and I never treat any upcoming match lightly. Arch-enemy gotta be eonzerg but more because of how he acts towards me than anything else (for example: BSL Clip ). Also Sziky could become a monster again.

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"Bonyth walk towards Corrupted Cup 2019 victory"

ZZZero:You wife has become head artist for BSL this season – so I assume you like our prodction value

But how did you like this season of BSL from player perspective? Do you have any tips for us, what we could change for future to make it more interesting and entertaining ? What’s your overall opinion about BSL ? Does it gives your motivation to practice ?

Bonyth:BSL and RCG2020 is what gives us players much needed incentive to play. These are the biggest stones in the bottle of motivation. I think you’ve heard it before but you should enforce a rule that would force both players to upload replays after the match is over. Sometimes you could tell when the game doesn’t immidiately finish that it’s the set winner that uploaded the replays and presumably won the whole series. Another idea is to have your screen shared through Discord or some other method to the casters. This way, you could try to cast the games live. Replay cast would take place only when there wouldn’t be any europeans included in the match.

ZZZero:Could you speak a little bit about your practice methods ? When you are preparing against certain opponents or on certain maps, do you always have plan how you would like the game to look like ? Do you have prepared builds and timings ? Or you just trying to be in best possibile shape and adjust to everything what’s happening during the game ?

Bonyth: Firstly, I practise StarCraft. If I’m blessed with a practise partner playing the same race as my league opponent, that’s twice as good. I’m gonna go over all the maps in the map pool in a random order. After a whole round, I will think about the strategies that I have chosen and which alteration would have better effects on a given map or against a certain opponent. Once I decide on that, I practise with the build so it becomes more and more natural. I should also mention that by a ‘build’ I basically mean the first three buildings and their position (1 base tech? 1 base 2-gate? natural gate? forge?). This season could have been the 1st that I practised this way for. Seems like it was a good thing.
Shotouts to CadenZie

, KaMe

and PrO

who were my sparing partners. Also shotout to SuGo, because he loves shoutouts.

ZZZero: There are a lot of people blaming me for having „too boring” or „too conservative” map pool for BSL. We can see that ASL likes to add few more „innovative” maps to the map pool each season. What’s your opinion about that ? Do you think foreigners would have enough time to prepare on completly new maps ? We all know what are audience expectations „more new crazy maps” – but what are your expectations as a player ?

Bonyth: Tough thing to crack. I think we need at least 3 ladder maps, so in the very least, players will be able to practise on them through simple ladder. The more ladder maps, the more players get to practise on them, the more they understand them in details, the better game quality and skill. And that’s the path that Rus_Brain took for his tournaments. But BSL has gotten big enough to dictate its own maps and the players will be forced to practise on them given the imporance of this league. It’s very hard to achieve a balance that you are looking for, but I believe it’s possible. Oh, setting the 1st map for the group stage was a really great thing to do.

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"Bonyth toilet paper recall"

ZZZero: To become gosu SC:BW player you not only need to sactifice a lot of time, but you also need to be extremly strong mentaly, phisicly and keep your motivation high. Losing is hard, but you learn the most when you lose. Whats do you think is your biggest advantage over your opponents ? What does Bonyth have that other players are lacking ?

Bonyth: Truth be told, I have absolutely no idea. I have terrible macro, 10+ idle probes at times, hardly any build knowledge. Could it be it’s because I play protoss?

ZZZero: We can see that a lot of players are starting to play SC:BW or coming back after 10+ years. They can test themself in BSL Choboleague, but first they need to stay with the game long enough and not be discouraged after few hard loses. Do you have any tips for these players ? Do you recommend any way of practicing for them ? What they should do to quickly improve ?

Bonyth:Enjoy the game, don’t force yourself to become a progamer. Check out other game modes: 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, free for all, use map settings. You need to enjoy something to be good at it

ZZZero:Who is your favourite Korean player ? Which Korean has most similar style to Bonyth ? Is there any Progamer, who you treat as a mentor ? If you could choose one progamer who would come to you and tell you „Bonyth, I’m gonna teach you how to live” – who would that be ?

Bonyth: Stork has been always closest to my heart together with his Samsung Khan team in the past. We, slow players, need to find a way around to win games, and I think Stork does that, great strategical mind, great reaver and carrier control. As for similar game style, that would be probably Snow or Mini. Bisu on the other hand is always very enjoyable person to watch, entertaining game level and a cool person. Oh, let’s not forget about Shuttle, such a great guy, looking forward for his return from military service.

ZZZero: How big gap do you think there is between best foreigners and korean pro ? We seen you have been practicing with Shinee and his student - you destroyed his student and was able to win vs Shinee and other semi-pro many times. Do you think we are getting closer to finally have someone to qualify for ASL or KSL ?

Bonyth:Give me TR24 latency conditions and only then I will answer your questions. Sorry, I know you wanted me to say that the gap has been closing which could be in fact the case, because progamers no longer practise 30 games a day, and you are able to see their gameplay nowadays. But again, if the game lags, my game is off balance, for I rely on my early-middle game agression a lot.
As for having someone qualify for ASL or KSL, we would need 2 things: 1) Have someone to play StarCraft for a living; 2) Have opponents of a similar caliber throughout the day to practise against. It’s very lonely to be a top foreigner, I often meet B ranks on ladder and while it’s good for tutorial purposes, it just doesn’t excite me. You can also guess how active ladder is during early EU mornings. This is the moment where I should praise Eonzerg and Dewalt for their dedication for this game. You could say that I have tons of Koreans to practise against. Yes, if I don’t get matched with B-rank European before. And if I get a Korean match, it’s still TR10 or TR12 which is not really enjoyable nor enlightening. Sorry to be such a downer, but asking Korea related questions is a sensitive matter.

"Bonyth and his cat watching Bisu"

ZZZero:Last question before lighting round, not related to Starcraft. I know that you playing football - what else hobbys in real life does Bonyth have ? What do you like to do in your free time beside playing computer games ?

Bonyth:So you think that I have dozens of hobbies outside of computer games :D You need to spend your fair share of nerding in front of PC to become the best at a video game. But yeah, I love sports, love the competition and the shared goal to win. Let it be football (soccer), volleyball, table tenis, or even laser city / pinball. I am the type of a person who likes to spend time with someone actively, play on LAN party together or other sports games. I’m prety good at doing nothing too!

ZZZero:It's time for lighting round.

Q. 1. Excellent storm or good kebab ?
A. Excellent storm
Q. 2. Invitation for ASL Finals or Victoria Secret ?
A. ASL Finals
Q. 3. Tazar or Crag Hack ?
A. Crag Hack
Q. 4. Bonyth favourite food / movie / TV series?
A. Crispy bread / Hmm, let’s go with Shogun / The Mentalist
Q. 5. Three things you take on the desert Island ?
A. Fishing equipment, sth to lit fire easily, an axe
Q. 6. Would you like to do drunk stream together ?
A. I would
Q. 7. Best Korean p/t/z
A. Bisu / Flash / Soma
Q. 8. Best Foreigner p/t/z
A. Dewalt / Terror / Eonzerg
Q. 9. As a Protoss do you use Velcro shoes ?
A. It is only natural
Q. 10. Best / worst map ever created ?
A. Sylphid / Eye of the Storm

Bonyth: - "This is my own point. It is related to the StarCraft future and hope.":Elon Musk has plans to deploy hundreds of satellites on low orbit with goal to spread internet throughout the world. If this works, we could potentialy have TR24 (low lag) games even with South Korea. It is something that I’m looking forward to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starlink

ZZZero:Thank you for this great interview Mr. Bonyth, thank you for comprehensive answers, it was a pleasure. Best of luck in the tournaments in the future. If you would like to send greetings to someone, the stage is yours. Peace <3

Bonyth: - Thank you!

P.S. I'm not a journalist or writer, so don't blame me for stupid questions.
This interview closes BSL Season 8.
GGs.

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[BSL8] "It's good to be king" - Bonyth interview !

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