The Cella Fan Club - Page 87

With the recruitment of "Playing Coach" Hong Seung Pyo, SlayerS has finally grown its wings.

On the afternoon of the 22nd at the GomTV Mokdong studios, the SlayerS team advanced to the Semi-Finals of the GSTL season 2 after defeating the heavily-favored-to-win oGs team led by the "Protoss President" Jang Min Chul (oGsMC).

After bowing out early in the Round of 8 in GSTL season 1, why are they suddenly the winner of so many upsets? If you ask the team members, they will unanimously agree that it was the recruitment of their new coach. With his systematic strategy analysis and practice schedules, he has led them to victory.

The hero of this story is none other than the new playing coach Hong Seung Pyo who was recruited prior to this season's GSTL. Hong Seung Pyo was chosen to replace his predecessor Sung Sang Hoon. In truth, rather than a recruitment, it would be more a accurate statement to say it was an internal promotion. You see, he was already a member of the SlayerS team (not the clan).

Up until now, Hong Seung Pyo had been working hard as a member of the SlayerS team since its inception, although after being knocked out of the qualifiers for GSL Code A, it has been difficult to see his face on the screen.

When asked about how he became the Playing Coach, Hong Seung Pyo revealed, "After Coach Sung left, (Lim)Yo Hwan "hyung" approached me and said 'in the future [for SC2] we need to focus on aggressively expanding our presence to overseas markets . When it comes to a team member on SlayerS who is considered the leading expert in foreign relations, it's you. Also, I think that your ability to analyze strategies is great. Won't you help us?'

And so Hong Seung Pyo went from being a team member to the Playing Coach and for the past 3 days has been meticulously analyzing the opposing teams' strategies. He proposed a brutal practice schedule for his team. Although it might have been difficult for his players, he was grateful that all of them were happy to practice until the wee hours of the morning without complaint.

When asked about what secret strategy led to his team's victory, Hong Seung Pyo explained, "<In SC2> it is difficult to really analyze the opponent. We had to fully understand our own strategies and constantly evaluated our progress in internal practice matches making sure to try and prepare for contingencies that might happen in real games. For each particular opponent, we had to keep practicing until we felt that we could say 'well if our player plays at around this level, we can win."

In closing, Hong Seung Pyo wanted to mention "As much as I am the Playing Coach and continue to help my team members practice, it is my goal to be promoted into Code S since it will make our discussions of strategy more relevant and straightforward. Please continue to look forward to the future."