Qualifiers R1 Day 2 Discussion

Idra[Media] < Dashwriter @ Longinus II
Idra[Media] > Dashwriter @ Blue Storm
Idra[Media] > Dashwriter @ Zodiac

Interview with Idra[Media]
1. Congratulations on your win! Did you expect to win?
Thanks, ya I expected to win.

2. How did you practice for the Longinus game, and how did it play out?
Longinus is a T>Z map and it isnt in any of the current pro leagues so I didn't practice it at all. As it turns out he just allined so it wouldn't have really mattered anyway.

3. Did your loss in the first game influence your play in the

second?
Ya I think I scouted on 8 or 9 because I expected a 6 pool or something similar, and I continued to scout pretty thoroughly throughout the game. Missed his proxy hatch anyway.

4. How did you feel going into the deciding game? When did you know you had won? Your opponent did a pretty tricky fake expo hatchery.
I knew he was going to do some kind of cheese, scouted on 7 and was lucky enough to find him on the first try.

5. Did you expect 5 pool in Game 3 and were you surprised when the lings came out? It looked like you tried to block his "12 hatch".
Like I said I was expecting some kind of cheese, and fast pool was likely on a 4 player map. When I saw the drone come out I thought he was 12 hatching but it wouldn't have changed my reaction to know a few seconds earlier.

6. Who have you been practicing with to prepare for these games? Do the pro's at eStro know about the TSL?
Some of them know about it because they saw me playing on the ladder and asked me what the tag meant. I didn't practice specifically for the match, but I've been playing Blue Storm a lot in general, as its in proleague and courage league. I wasn't worried about Longinus because it's a pretty easy tvz map and I didn't expect the match to go to Zodiac.

7. Any final thoughts on Dashwriter's play? He used "all-in" strategies twice.
Eh, he used the strategies that gave him his only chance to win. Can't expect anything else in a league like this. Sucks for the fans though as it doesn't really produce fun games to watch.

8. A lot of the Media guys play later today, including Artosis, Redeemer, and Machine.
Yep, good luck to them all. Redeemer vs. A2 should be a very fun match.

9. Congrats! You're one of the few Terrans who made it into the Round of 32.
Heh. Thanks to all the TSL admins who made this awesome league possible.

1. Are you disappointed that Chosen didn't show up to play?
yes i'm very dissapointed because i practicing for about a week my tvz and now he didn't show up. i was hoping to rape him hardly but unfortunately he don't come ;(

2. Who have you been practising with to prepare for this? How much have you practised?
i practising some game with Dashwriter, Closer but mostly with my friend LRM)ZZZero.i played about 3-5 h a day.

3. You are now moving into LDT2 (Ro32). How far do you expect to go in this tournament?
hmmm after easily win vs chosen now i'm fell really confident and yap i think top8 will be OK

4. Did you have any special strategies planned for these maps against Chosen's style?
i don't prepare any strategies to his style because i clearly don't know it

5. You are one of many Polish players qualified for the TSL. Why is Poland so strong at StarCraft?
its all about MistrZZZ. He is so !@#$% gosu and all Poles want to be the same as he so they practice about hmm 10h a day and thats why we are so strong. cheers Piotruś <33333

ToT)iNfeRnaL( > OctZerg[F2F] @ Longinus II
ToT)iNfeRnaL( < OctZerg[F2F] @ Blue Storm
ToT)iNfeRnaL( > OctZerg[F2F] @ Zodiac

Interview with ToT)iNfeRnaL(
1. Congratulations on your win! Did you expect to win?
Yes I did to be honest, the maps just are too good to lose vs Zerg

2. How did you practice for the Longinus game, and how did it play out? Were you worried at any point when you scouted his drop?
Practiced not too specific, I just played the 3 TSL maps with Squall and David about 10-20 games in the last 2 days but that's it. And yup I was worried about the drop since my sairs were exactly at the opposite of the map. I thought without them it'll be tough.

3. Did the first game influence your play in the second? Were you surprised by his build?
I thought he will actually try to play straight up cause he got in only one ling in the first game. So nah, it didn't.

4. How did you feel going into the deciding game? When did you know you had won?
Going into deciding game was unnecessary but I was dumb enough to lose all my zealots in game2. Game 3 I knew I won after 8 min but he managed to hang on for 15 more minutes

5. Who have you been practicing with to prepare for these games? Were you familiar with OctZerg's style before these games and if so did you prepare anything in particular to deal with his style of play?
No, I just decided to play safe. I knew his style yup. Did just practice a few games on the maps, not especially against allin.
The maps are just waaaaaay too sucky for a cheese zerg to be really dangerous imo.

6. Any final comments on your opponents play?
Oh well I personally dislike this zergstyle he plays, but he's good at it so why not. Just that he shouldn't have turtled for so long in game3 when it was sooo over already.

iG.Slider > Artosis[Media] @ Longinus
iG.Slider > Artosis[Media] @ Blue Storm

Interview with iG.Slider
1. First of all congratulations on your win. What was your game plan going into this match?
Thx. Hmm its simple answer to win this. But it was hard because of these maps. They aren't good for PvsT in my opinion.

2. In the both games you opened with Dark Templar and went into Arbiter. Was this something you planned specifically for these matches?
Yes. Arbiters are just good in these maps. Especially on Longinus because it's imba map for PvsT. If I went into carriers I will lose so fast. Trust me.

3. After your win on Longinus you were obviously confident. At what point did you think you had won the second match?
When I won the tough game on Longinus. I knew that on Blue Storm will be much much easier because Aribters are better there thats all.

4. Who have you been practicing with to prepare for these games?
I've played just a 5 games with Tarson and that was my all training.
I've played a lot games on TSL ladder so I don't need to practice something special.

5. You are one of many Polish playesr qualified for TSL. Why is poland so strong in Starcraft?
Hmm. We have big community. There are a lot of polish players who are playing this game so thats why we are good in this, I guess.

6. Well again congratulations and we will see you again in the next round! Any final words?
Best regards for CK's from Netwars. Thx for interview. GL&HF

RedeemeR[Media] < RoX.Advokate @ Longinus II
RedeemeR[Media] > RoX.Advokate @ Blue Storm
RedeemeR[Media] < RoX.Advokate @ Zodiac

Interview with RoX.Advokate
1. Congratulations on your win! Did you expect to win?
Thanks. Actually yes , i expected i will win and it wont be hard, but definitly it wasnt piece of cake, inc played good last 2 games and especially last one when at one moment i was thinkin im out ...

2. Yes, both the Blue Storm and Zodiac games were particularly back and forth. What do you think was the turning point for each game?
Cant tell much about bluestorm game , because i have to watch replay , but zodiac one i watched just next minute it finished and i can tell that there are many turning points it in but first and key one is that i let him close me with early lukers , while bad microing my first M+m.

3. How did you practice for the Longinus game, and how did it play out?
well ive expected straight game there and i ve trained this way a lot but it was unexpected 3 expansion start for me,
though long isnt hard map and game finished very fast , even with my fail to fast kill his third expansion at 2x gas.

4. Did the first game influence your play in the second? Were you surprised by his build and tactics?
Not very surprised but id say his tactics are not common! and about influence - yeap playing with 1-0 is not same as 0-1 , also bluestorm is a nice map for tvz .

5. How did you feel going into the deciding game? When did you know you had won?
Badly , because i had like 0 games on zodiac , prefering to win 2-0 with ok maps. So i wasnt really happy before the game but after some nice attacks when i ruined his hive it was almost my win. until the moment i ve lost my main+all exps , but one , that moment i was just few secs before typing out gg and quit but then i made some nice vessels irradiates on drones and 100% lost game turned into hard win

6. Who have you been practicing with to prepare for these games? Were you familiar with iNcontroL's style before these games and if so did you prepare anything in particular to deal with his style of play?
Most of my practice games were with RoX.Alf. And he got absolutely another style of tvz (more common , korean one with 3 hatch muta etc....) , so inc style wasnt the thing i prepared for ;p

7. Congrats! You're one of the few Terrans who made it into the Round of 32. How far do you expect to go in the tournament?
we ll see.....

[SD]KwaK > Machine[Media] @ Longinus II
[SD]KwaK > Machine[Media] @ Blue Storm

Interview with [SD]KwaK
1. Congratulations on your win! Did you expect to win?
Nope I think I had 50/50% chance to win I don't like the PvZ matchup.

2. How did you practice for the Longinus game, and how did it play out?
I practiced with LRM)MistrZZZZLegenD as well as my [SD] team partners.

3. Did your win in the first game influence your play in the second?
I was more relaxed after my win and was able to play without any stress.

4. Your build on Longinus was daring. Was this decision influenced by the map?
On Longinus I used a proxy gate strategy since I think it is a good strategy; with some micro I could win.

5. You seemed to really have chosen for playing on macro on Blue Storm. When did you know you had won?
On Blue Storm I used a FE build because proxy gates aren't as good. A player can never know 100% when he has won, but when I killed his expansion and kept making more expansions I thought I had advantage. Then just macro and... gg.

LRM)Reason < HayprO @ Longinus II
LRM)Reason < HayprO @ Blue Storm

Interview with HayprO
1. Congratulations on your win today. How were you feeling going into the matches?
thank you. as always i was very nervous and just hoped to not make a fool of myself.

2. You opponent was aggressive with zealots at the beginning of the game on Longinus yet you managed to recover. Did you ever feel that you were going to lose?
i was expecting that sort of play on longinus and thought that my sunks and 20+ lings were gonna hold it, but somehow he managed to break through. after i defended i knew that the archons were gonna come so i made as many lurks as i could, and it worked out.

3. In the second match we saw a heavy stream of units constantly hitting the 11 o'clock expansion. At what point did you realize you had won the game?
Yeah i did indeed just send unit after unit. I after his big attack in mid vs my lurks i knew i had won the game cuz i had lots of hatcheries and could just waste units even though i used defilers too which i almost never do


4. Did you prepare of practice anything in particular for this match/opponent?
i played some games vs zpux, cloud and mondragon on both longinus and blue storm, but when i think about it, not a single game on zodiac so im happy that map wasnt needed.

5. Congatulations again on your win. Any final comments?
i wanna once again thank u for letting me play in this very well organized tournament.

Good luck! We will see you in the next round

ToT)GOsia < FT.aCt)Love @ Longinus
ToT)GOsia > FT.aCt)Love @ Blue Storm
ToT)GOsia > FT.aCT)Love @ Zodiac

Interview with ToT)Gosia(
1. Congratulations on your win! did you expect to win?
No, I didn't expect to win that match.

2. How did you practice for the Longinus game, and how did it play out ?
Well, I've played around 5 zvts lately. Don't think it was some kind of a hard practice but still. I don't really think that I've used the same build orders as in the practice matches. Usually when it comes to the important games I'm kinda stressed so I cannot play my best. But surely it paid off somehow, since my control was a bit better as in the practice games tho the difference wasn't great

3. Did your loss in the first game influence your play in the second?
I don't really think so. I didn't expect to win at all, and the thing that I've lost on a map that I really doesn't match my zvt style it was kinda obvious that I'm gonna lose. I'm happy that I've managed to win the 2 remaining games and come out on the top after all .

4. How did you feel going into the deciding game? When did you know you had won?
I knew I had won, when he turned his forces back while I did that small drop. My main purpose was to delay his push, the drop was the key to do that. He didn't tend to do many turrets in previous games nor any other kind of a defense in case of a drop. So I knew that would help me a lot to win the game.

5. Who have you been practicing with to prepare for these games?
Like I said I've played 5 games with Haypro, his tvz is really good, he has a good sense of the game. His tvz is definitely top notch non-korean at the moment.

6. You chose to not make any mutalisks despite their popularity in modern ZvT. Why did you opt for lurker builds instead?
Actually in game 2 I knew he would scout my spire, and opt for some anti-muta bo. Somehow I didn't notice that I made blue storm 1.1 and had to confess that spire was only to cheat him. I don't really like to play mutas in important games, it requires a lot of control, and you know when you're stressed you don't play as well as you use to in practice games. That is prolly the main factor why I don't tend to use mutas in official games.

7. What did you think about Love's two-factory pushes in game 1 and game 3?
The build orders he used in both of these games were good, considering that you can abuse the terrain on longinus quite easily it's fine. On the other hand 2 factory builds are very weak against ultras. If I would've managed to get ultras earlier, the game wouldn't have been so short!

8. Your next opponent is your teammate ToT)Mondragon(, any thoughts on that? Any last comments?
No comments on my match vs Mondragon ;p. You know I wont stand a chance against him, actually I don't stand a chance against anyone from my group, but I'll fight for the swarm! Also I'd like to greet everyone who's supporting my gaming ambitions. Obviously I'd like to greet Gosia, whole ToT and DA] clans.