TLAF-Liquid`Jinro Post Ro16 Interview

Congratulations! How do you feel? This was a very difficult group.

Yeah, the more I thought about the group the more scared I got. 3 GSL finalists in one group....... I feel great that I made it through, I only wish I'd made it together with MC.

You had to beat your teammate oGsMC twice. What did you say to him after? MC seemed to take the last loss very hard.

I don't remember exactly what was said, but yes I felt bad for him, its not a good feeling to get knocked out. He seems ok now tho, we are all just waiting on pizza and chicken to get here for dinner.

Were the wins over MC today cathartic for you since you lost to him 0-4 in the GSL3 Semifinals You said in the last interview that this season was about proving last season's run was no fluke.

Hm, yeah I'd say the first game vs Minchul was very nice to win for the sake of my mindset. After that I was able to go into the place I should have been at mentally for the first game. After advancing from this group, I felt I had proven sufficiently that last season wasn't a fluke, and at this point its just this tournament without any baggage

Have your goals changed?

No, always round by round and always end goal of winning. My watch got damaged recently so I promised myself I'd buy a nice one if I made Top 4, but then I realized Top 4 is only half as much prize money as last season so I revised it to Top 2. I guess that's a subgoal as well! By the way, this is not implying I intend to spend $5,000 on a watch

In the first game you used banshees to take the lead, but MarineKing did a great drop with his trademark marines.

The build I did was the one Drewbie used vs me in TL vs ROOT team match, and is also a 2v2 build that Megumixbear taught to Jos before he and Hayder played the Mouz 2v2 team. Anyway, I realized this build might be extremely nice against the standard MKP builds (1 rax cc with 1 marine for instance, with very late scouting) so I practiced it as sort of a snipe/semi-allin. But he surprised me by playing something very different, so I think build order wise I wasn't in the greatest position which threw me off my game a lot. I usually make scouting depots at the sides fo the map and always control the towers, but I ended up making lots of mistakes because what MKP did wasn't according to the blue-print I had in mind of how he would play.

In game 2 against MC you decided to go mech, something you did in recent clan wars. There is some buzz about this strategy as it is a bit different than the traditional Terran builds against Protoss.

I don't know yet, we will see once people get used to it. Most of the P thinking has been based on how to beat bio, with the old patch speed void rays being able to beat vikings, and thors having mana it wasn't really very viable to go mech - now, well, we will see.

That game, did you feel more pressure because you were one loss away from elimination?

I felt the most pressure in Game 1. Games 2 and 3 I was able to play mostly free from pressure, especially the last game I was in the mindstate I should always be in when playing.

In Game 3, you scouted MC's 4 warpgates with your hellion and barely defended. What were you thinking during the attack?

I was happy that I scouted it. I don't know, I felt like it was about 50/50 between 4 gate and phoenix on this map, a bit more likely 4 gate since he used phoenix already. Even if the hellion doesn't scout the 4 gate, I save a scan to use immediately after if it doesn't get in, but that would have definitely hurt me economically. I think I should have some way of blocking him from running past the bunkers in the future.

You decided to make a lot of thors and vikings. At what point did you knwo you were going to win? Were you worried?

Because its difficult to safely secure a 3rd without suffering from counters and the like on this map, I decided to 2 base allin (while tkaing risky expos during the push). Another factor is that with so many phoenix, thors basically make them useless. Scouting carriers made me worried, as I wasn't sure how long he'd been making them, but once I saw there were only 4 I basically felt like I should be able to win.

Now that you've advanced to the Round of 8, your opponent is EG.IdrA. He stated he'd rather face you than MC. How are your approaching this match? Is it just like any other match, or will there be something extra there? Many fans compare you two as the best foreigners in the GSL.

We don't have any personal rivalry, hes always been manner to me and vice versa. I'd rather face myself than MC too, especially if I was Zerg so I don't take it as a slight. "Best foreigner" is something I guess, but I don't really know about that either since there are so many people outside Korea. I think it will just be a good match, I want to win it but then again I want to win every match.

Are Korean fans beginning to notice you? We see more Korean cheerfuls and there was a line of kids behind you after today's matches.

Oh yeah, ever since the semis I get to sign a loooot of autographs. Its very fun, especially nice getting to surprise people by writing their names in Korean

Any cute girls!?

Yes.

Any last words or people you'd like to thank?

TheStc, Sculp, TOP, IMGanzi, NaDa, Hero and YongHwa for helping me practice. Drewbie for beating me with the build I used vs marineking, Megumixbear for suggesting the build to Ret for 2v2, prompting me to look closer at it. And everyone for watching ^^^

Good luck in your next match!