Hi Jos! Congratulations on a stellar weekend and welcome back to the Liquid Weekly.

Thanks a lot, I am especially proud of the latter.


Let's back a bit though. After not performing as expected in GSL Code A, we didn't see you for nearly a month. What went on in Retland during this time?


I took some time off playing more team games and some UMS and then I practised occasionally with the people who were in GSL. Like when Jinro had to play IdrA or when IdrA had to get ready for Check I would play with him, but all in all it's been a pretty slow month. The motivation wasn't really there to practice a lot, especially with nothing to play in after getting eliminated from GSL.


What was your attitude going into Assembly? It's the first time you've been out of Incheon in a while. Were you expecting to win?

I wasn't really sure what to expect from European players. The only thing I knew before hand was that if I were to play HuK it would be a tough match. Everything else was a big question mark to me, but when I played some European ladder games from home during the lead up to Assembly, I was already able to tell that it might be a good tournament for me.


Why? What had changed on your end over your time in Korea?

I just felt like the European ladder games were fairly easy compared to what I was used to from the Korean ladder. Certain impossible scenarios all of a sudden seemed possible again, and I think I even won some ZvTs on Steppes and Metal/LT close pos, something that would perhaps 1 out of 10 games on the Korean ladder. ZvP seemed fairly easy as well. European players just don't really know how to abuse timings vs Zerg yet, it seems. As for being in Korea, I just got better at the game, learned the specific usage of all the units better and got more familiar with common situations in games. It's a combination of being in Korea where the competition is the toughest, and also just playing the game more as I really haven't been playing all that long.


Going into Assembly, was there anyone particular you wanted to / didn't want to face?

I was most worried about HuK before the tournament, and of course we all want to avoid team mates so I didn't really want to play Tyler or TLO either. Other than that there wasn't really anyone I was too worried about, although I really didn't know what to expect from players like Strelok, Kas or SjoW. I went into the tournament with an open mind and just wanted to play to the best of my abilities and see where it would take me.


Did all your matches go as planned or did you encounter something you didn't expect at some point? What was your favourite series of the LAN?

All of my games went pretty smooth, except the first game vs Pomi. It had been a really long time since I played vs a 3 gate expand -> robo fast chrono'ed collosus build and by the time I realized what was going on it was too late to come up with a response. During the game I wasn't sure why exactly I was losing so badly so I started having some doubts but when I watched the rep and assessed the situation I realised that he had made almost no ground units and got a really fast 3 collosus timing attack out, so I was able to regain some confidence. But of course being down 0-1 is never a pleasant feeling, then there was the regame situation in a game I felt I could never lose so at that moment in time I was definitely a little worried. But the favourite series will have to go to me vs Naniwa. I think it's awesome that someone would be so scared of me that they would cheese that hardcore...twice in a row, when he may have had a very good shot at beating me if he had just played a macro game.


Speaking of which, that hatchery in his natural - you were just taking your third, right?

Yep, I needed a 3rd base and was too lazy to kill the rocks. Nah, but seriously because of the showmatch me and Nani played before I left to Korea and the little back and forth teasing that went on there I just felt like it was the right thing to do at the time. It's all in good fun.


Let's talk about Zerg a bit. With new maps coming for the GSL, how do you put race's chances in the months to come? What difficulties did you face as a macro player so far and how much do you think new maps will help you out?

I haven't had a chance to play the new maps so I can't really comment on them, I did hear that they are very hard for Zerg vs Protoss though so I don't really know. I still feel like Zerg is the weakest race, and I don't really expect much to change with these new maps except that ZvT might be more manageable on them because the maps are a lot bigger and that helps a lot vs Terran.

So perhaps we will see more Zerg players knocking out Terrans and Protoss do better overall, because large maps also help them vs Terran.

Big maps are going to make ZvT balance better, but ZvP it's hard too because on large maps you are never going to have creep anywhere which means any attack into forcefields and defensive Protoss setups will be very ineffective/ I will have to experiment with things like drop and nydus to overcome this problem but I think that we will see a lot of ZvP games go to 200/200 vs 200/200, where Zerg is at a disadvantage.


Let's look to the GSL. What have you learned from your run so far and how will you approach this next GSL season?

I play in about 1 week, so I'm just going to play as much ZvT as I can for my first round opponent. He is one of the best players in Code A so I will have my work cut out for me, my only concern right now is the first round and I will take it from there if I make it past it.


You have a huge fan following here on TL. Do fan comments ever motivate you or help you along as you prepare? How avidly do you read your own fanclub thread?

Hehe I check up on it every once in a while, I hope I do better in the coming months than I have in the last few, because it's obviously more fun to read your fanclub thread if you put up good results. It's always nice to be reminded that people appreciate the way you play the game and what you are doing though, so it helps motivate me Thanks to the people who post in there and send me msges on fb and stuff like that! <3



Finally, please comment on this detailed breakdown of your play at Assembly - Ret macro, Ret win. High level analysis? Ret approve?

I'm going to slightly modify MC's godly comment after one of his GSL matches into : me drone drone drone! me win! ^_^ So yeah, I approve.


Yay! Good luck for the GSL, Ret, and hope to see you in the finals very soon!

Thanks a lot.