Interview With TL User Trump

FC.Strike: Just to start off, I’ve been digging around, but I realized that there’s not actually a lot of information out there about you. So why don’t you tell us about yourself, the games you’ve played competitively in the past, and your experience with Starcraft 2.

Trump: Always played games a lot, even RTSes, but didn't get 'really good' at one until Starcraft 2. Started with the Age of Empires series for RTS, and then Warcraft 2 & 3. I'm one of the few people who really sucked at Starcraft 1 because of the outdated interface. I've been in Starcraft 2 since the start of beta and have been playing it quite a bit which gives me a pretty big edge.

Trump: And I'm also a roleplaying game lover at heart. I liked World of Warcraft and the Final Fantasy series. Weird mix for being an RTS player.

FC.Strike: I definitely know that I personally identify with the WoW / Final Fantasy thing - maybe it's in our asian blood

FC.Strike: So you're basically saying that you started out with a blank slate in SC2 when it comes to high level RTS play?

Trump: Blank slate in that I wasn't a SC1 gamer and that I wasn't in high level RTS play sure; but the divertsity of RTS games I've played help in me already having a baseline on what to spend my actions on / building economy / formulating strategies & countering / etc which is pretty much the heart of SC2.

FC.Strike: Alright, cool. Let's start digging a little deeper. I understand that you currently have 700 points on the NA 1v1 Diamond Ladder, making you the 25th highest ranked player. In your experience, what are the main things that separate the 400-500 point mid tier diamond players from the upper tier 700+ point players?

Trump: All the way down to 25th now? Alas!

FC.Strike: Yeah, you were sitting at 7th place just a few days ago.

Trump: 1st at some fleeting time in the wee hours of the night. I have a screenshot!

Trump: Anyways, the differences...

Trump: At 'low' diamond players generally have a very good build order down. They (mostly) build workers constantly. They (mostly) build units constantly. They (mostly) make attacks when it's beneficial for them (like right after researching a key upgrade)

Trump: At 'mid' diamond (400-500) the "mostly" increases to "almost certainly"

Trump: and at 'high' diamond (700+) they're the shakers and doers. They make their own build order, they're very flexible, they attack not when it's beneficial for just them but when it's actually negative for the opponent

Trump: more fancy stuff like micro, drops, etc. Just overall a big improvement on 'gamesense' and micro

Trump: 'gamsense' being the concept of knowing where the opponent's army is, what it is, what they plan on doing (in the future) rather than currently

Trump: so it's like scouting++

Trump: it's sort of like looking into the future and knowing what they're going to do in the next couple seconds/minutes. Like looking ahead in chess. That's probably the big difference for the high diamonds

FC.Strike: I guess that explains why you're constantly trying to make up new and exciting strategies on your streams. Speaking of that, where does the inspiration for some of these new builds come from? Or is it more of an internal type of thing?

FC.Strike: I remember you using thor/marauder in TvT before it was the "cool thing to do"

Trump: My inspiration comes from getting beat. Thor/Marauder for example - near the end of starcraft2 beta I faced cauthonluck and I got beat by exactly that. Hellion/Marine rush into Thor. So I started adopting it. And now it's a pretty common strategy. But going back that's what makes the high diamond players high diamond right now - they're the ones with the new cool 'unfair' strategies which dominate the mainstream strategies.

Trump: Designing a strategy is basically a process of thinking about what everyone is curently doing and then formulating a build that will counter it. When everyone was going very heavy viking, thors ended up being good because they would crush everything. Now people have switched to marauders and thor no long as good.

Trump: As for further inspiration, I do peridoically watch the top level games and see if there's something I can...'acquire' from them.

FC.Strike: Haha I see

FC.Strike: It sounds like you do a lot of metagaming (I'm sure people will give me a hard time for using that word, but you know what I mean). When you encounter a strategy on the ladder that isn't part of the mainstream, how willing are you to completely deviate from your planned strategy on the fly?

Trump: That's another thing that separates top diamond from 'normal diamond'. Top diamond players realize that this... "planned strategy" only lasts for about the first 4 minutes of the game (in game minutes), or roughly to 30-40 food. It's an "opener". And then you HAVE to completely deviate from anything to counter anything else that isn't "normal"

Trump: The other news is that most 'straegies' after playing a lot of games have been seen so I sort of have contingencies for everything the opponent might do and it's just a matter of transitioning into the 'counter'

FC.Strike: I suppose it just comes down to good scouting and game sense then?

Trump: It comes down to 'experience' - once you've 'experienced' a lot of strategies being done to you you sort of get a sense of the timing to expect certain things to come at you and what to do in that situation.

FC.Strike: Alright, let's talk racial balance for a bit. There’s been a lot of controversy in the past about EMP in TvP and general TvZ imbalance. What’s your take on the matter?

Trump: My take on the matter is that Blizzard is the one with all the data about what % of top diamond matches are won by T in TvP, in TvZ, etc, and they try to keep that at ~50%. And it is, to my knowledge, around that at the moment, so there is no imbalance.

Trump: Given those statistics, players need to realize that there are counters and ways around everything. It's sometimes hard to see, especially in the heat of a game and your entire army including 6 high templar gets EMP'd in one shot but watching the replays might shine some light on how you could have avoided bunching up your army, how you could have killed the opponent before he got EMP, how you could have gotten a less EMP-vulnerable-army, etc

FC.Strike: Those are some certainly bold words, I'm sure that response will bait out some flames here and there

FC.Strike: Moving away from racial balance, I realize that there are quite a few bronze - gold level players out there. Do you have any words of advice for them? What do you think is the best way to improve in the lower leagues?

Trump: Macro better. I made a video just for them.



FC.Strike: I guess the old K.I.S.S. rule works just fine in this case.

Trump: Yep. To get out of gold you just need to 1) Have a good (basic) build order. Too fancy and you won't be handle it if you don't have the basics down. 2) Build Units. 3) Build SCVs and expand.

FC.Strike: Cool cool. Maybe those gold players will make less new threads on Team Liquid and go play the game some more (one can only hope)

FC.Strike: Wrapping up, do you have any plans or dreams for yourself with regard to Starcraft 2? I noticed that you're not too active in the tournament scene so far.

Trump: I didn't have any plans coming in but since I've become a featured streamer on teamliquid (thanks teamliquid!) and I had a very brief moment as #1 worldwide in the ladder (...at 4:00 am early in release) I'll be a bit more ambitious in becoming better and teaching players how to get better as well. I've been looking into more tournaments also.

FC.Strike: Sounds good! Thanks for your time, Trump. Any last words for your fans?

Trump: I'd like to thank my fans for tuning into my stream before it was the cool thing to do and for keeping my stream civil despite it being the internets. Might be the classical music helping. Thanks for the interview.