Paul "sOAZ" Boyer, the Top laner of fnatic, is the star of the 53rd episode of my 'Grilled' interview series.

Some of the topics discussed:
- His most memorable match: vs. TSM in S1.
- Whether HotshotGG's style is viable in S3.
- Why he thinks Wickd is better than Shy.
- Is he has a special talent for mastering champions.
- His opinions on Reapered and Flame.

The entire 46m04s interview can be watched at Team Acer.

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

May 14 2013 01:51 GMT

It actually surprised me that sOAZ didn't do any research for Taipei Assassins, especially since Stanley had such brilliant performances in the Season 2 World Championship. I can't recall the details of their encounters specifically, except for xPeke doing some brilliant counter-ganking with his teleport play, but I would guess the lack of specific preparation were not required since he was able to beat them four consequetive times.

I've once heard a guy say that Fnatic wasn't a team that depended on dominating the laning phase, and it seems to be the case with sOAZ, he seems to rate players such as Wickd and Voyboy higher in terms of pure laning ability. His strengths seems to lie elsewhere, a point that Wickd was keen to emphasize during his interview. It's kind of odd that he called out Shy as being overrated compared to Wickd, because in his personal encounter against Shy in IEM Katowice group stages, sOAZ was heavily outfarmed despite Cyanide camping his lane. I'm not sure if it is due to his belief in general that Asian players are overrated and Shy was the first name he could think of (he did not seem to be familiar with the Asian scene at all), or if he truly thought Shy was the best example of the typical overrated top-laner from Asia.

With Flame, he recall the details that made things somewhat difficult for him during the laning phase, so it's not that he doesn't remember any details of these players, but I got the feeling that he was much more comfortable discussing the players from the North American, and European scene, even if the number of personal encounters against the Asian players were just as extensive as times he faced North American players such as the TheRainMan or Voyboy.

Since he had zero knowledge outside of the Asian top-laners he had faced personally, it seems safe to say that in his opinion, Wickd gave him more troubles than most of the following list of players: Caomei, Flame, Stanley, Reapered, and Shy. Out of those players he named Shy as being one of the inferior players, despite having played him only once, and getting destroyed in that game. He mentioned that his champion pool (mentioning Olaf, probably because it was the champion Shy chose against sOAZ) was the reason why he did good in season 2, and hinting that it would no longer be the case for season 3, when Shy obviously has moved onto other champions.

I do agree that most of Shy's strongest champions were nerfed, and that caused his overall strength as a player to be reduced somewhat, but I sense a level of reluctance on sOAZ's part to give credit to any of the Asian players simply due to the level of praise they have been receiving from the English-speaking world recently. I'm looking forward to what sOAZ has to say after he faces PDD, Shy, and Stanley in the All Stars Championship.

Flicky

England2657 Posts

May 15 2013 10:16 GMT

On May 14 2013 10:51 Letmelose wrote:
Since he had zero knowledge outside of the Asian top-laners he had faced personally, it seems safe to say that in his opinion, Wickd gave him more troubles than most of the following list of players: Caomei, Flame, Stanley, Reapered, and Shy. Out of those players he named Shy as being one of the inferior players, despite having played him only once, and getting destroyed in that game. He mentioned that his champion pool (mentioning Olaf, probably because it was the champion Shy chose against sOAZ) was the reason why he did good in season 2, and hinting that it would no longer be the case for season 3, when Shy obviously has moved onto other champions.

Having spoken to a lot of the top-laners from the EU LCS, most of them agreed that the main reason they didn't do so well when facing the asians in Season 2 is because they had no idea about Olaf then. It's not just a cocky feeling either, everyone in the teams who played were shocked and surprised by Olaf and said it was a key reason why they lost.

When asking about top-laners, each one seemed to have a different opinion on who was good and why. Most pointed out that comparing the laning phase of top-laners is hard until they face one another and that others see the rest of the game as the important part. Shy didn't really come up in discussion but people were intrigued by PDD but didn't say he was good. I came away from the discussions with one realisation: No top laners regard other top laners that highly. The most you'll get is an ok or a good. Again, this isn't due to cockiness (well, not always) but mostly because every top laner has a different idea of what "good" means.

Letmelose

Korea (South)3227 Posts

May 15 2013 11:45 GMT

On May 15 2013 19:16 Flicky wrote:

Show nested quote +

sOAZ was soundly outplayed by Smeb of all people during their encounter at IEM World Championship, and if we were to judge things by just one game, people could argue that an utterly mediocre player like Smeb was a superior player to sOAZ. One game means nothing, and sOAZ doesn't even know about the champion pool that Shy has since he doesn't watch any of his games.

sOAZ mentioned multiple times that he does not watch games from other regions, has no idea how Wickd performed against other highly regarded top-laners, so only has his one game against Shy to base his opinions on (where Shy did quite well against him). Then he goes on to single out Shy as a player who was overrated because he was from Asia, and was inferior to Wickd, and the only explanation he could come up with for this statement was the fact that he played Olaf. It's just really odd how he states such strong specific opinions without being able to give proper explanations for them.

People shouldn't be intrigued by PDD. They should be scared shitless by him. I wouldn't mind it if it was him saying Shy was overrated, because he has the game history to back his opinions, and could state why he believed it to be so. sOAZ on the other hand, has neither insight nor personal experience to back his strong statements, but chooses to do so anyway. I feel there's a strong reluctance on his part to tone down the general praise for the Asian scene. He even bunches everyone outside of his knowledge as Asians, without realizing how diverse and varied the scene is.