Ilyes "Stephano" Satouri is the star of the 14th episode of my 'Grilled' interview feature.
Some of the topics discussed: -How good he was back during his 70-3 ladder streak. -If Stephano's career would have been drastically different had he not won IPL3 -The tournament which stands out as the most perfect StarCraft of his career. -The tournament he felt he should have won but didn't. -Why ZvZ continues to be his weakness. -How he, hypothetically, thinks he would do in GSL Code S if he competed there. -His thoughts on VortiX, NesTea, MaNa and viOLet. -The foreigner who is the best in each of the following categories: best mechanics, smartest, best under pressure and best at huge comebacks.
If other Zergs copied Stephano's style:
Everybody is using it, since quite a long time. Well, against Terran especially, everyone goes infestor and ultralisk. Against Protoss, like at least some point, everyone was going the 12 minutes max roaches. Now it's kind of like pointless to do it anymore.
Talking about what he is good at in the game:
"I would say maybe the map control, like I look a lot to the mini-map. I can spot everything on the mini-map, I don't have to show it on the screen, so drops don't really work against me. Unique positioning, most of the time I always take perfect fights. Especially against Terran, I don't have to circle them."
On not liking to take risks:
"I really don't like to take risks, basically I know I'm better than them, so if I play safe and good and get into the late-game I know I can win. That's where I need to get, the late game, but it doesn't really happen a lot to me, again cos they play very random and I can get surprised a lot."
On patch-zergs:
"[...] the fact that so many Zerg players got better, proves there is a 'patch-zerg' thing. I don't want to name anybody, there is a lot, everyone knows it."
The 45m26s video interview can be watched at Team Acer.
Even if patch-zergs are a thing, the fact the community uses it to trash every decent zerg result is what's awful, even sans infestors (which is the much bigger issue anyway compared to some queen range increase).
On November 28 2012 06:01 PiQLiQ wrote: Life is about taking risks sometimes
He does take a lot
icwutudidthar
I think that comment about patch-zergs could tarnish the scene though since there are clearly some zergs that are just plain good at tearing the others apart.
On November 28 2012 05:56 Xpace wrote: That patchzerg comment is priceless. Best foreigner pro in Starcraft 2 history, hero of the foreigners, says there's a lot of them!
He probably prefers it when zerg is weak. So only high skilled zergs like himself can win games.
On November 28 2012 05:56 Xpace wrote: That patchzerg comment is priceless. Best foreigner pro in Starcraft 2 history, hero of the foreigners, says there's a lot of them!
He probably prefers it when zerg is weak. So only high skilled zergs like himself can win games.
He wants zerg to be nerfed so when he quits, nobody will be able to overcome his results and so he will stay the best foreign zerg until the end of time. Evil and Genius plan.
On November 28 2012 05:56 Xpace wrote: That patchzerg comment is priceless. Best foreigner pro in Starcraft 2 history, hero of the foreigners, says there's a lot of them!
He probably prefers it when zerg is weak. So only high skilled zergs like himself can win games.
He wants zerg to be nerfed so when he quits, nobody will be able to overcome his results and so he will stay the best foreign zerg until the end of time. Evil and Genius plan.
You expressed your logic in a invalid sense. Taking all the variables into consideration he would want zerg to be nerfed to the point where these "patchzergs" wont get chance beat him in zvz, so the probability of this winrate will go up due to lack of zvz but still strong enough for him to beat toss/terran to win ez money.
On November 28 2012 05:51 MCXD wrote: Real mature, Stephano.
Even if patch-zergs are a thing, the fact the community uses it to trash every decent zerg result is what's awful, even sans infestors (which is the much bigger issue anyway compared to some queen range increase).
your tears are like honey to me.
On a related note :
Absolutely great interview with awesome questions asked and Stephano answering them as DA BOSS!!! I love how honest he is and how he spares nobody! And its time some zerg out there showed some balls and said infestors are imba.
Stephano: Balance Zerg please so the abundance of mediocore-bad Zergs aren't winning games they shouldn't be winning, and so the Zergs that are actually good will still be winning; so that the good players are the ones standing out and getting the credit they deserve.
On November 28 2012 05:56 Xpace wrote: That patchzerg comment is priceless. Best foreigner pro in Starcraft 2 history, hero of the foreigners, says there's a lot of them!
He probably prefers it when zerg is weak. So only high skilled zergs like himself can win games.
He wants zerg to be nerfed so when he quits, nobody will be able to overcome his results and so he will stay the best foreign zerg until the end of time. Evil and Genius plan.
You expressed your logic in a invalid sense. Taking all the variables into consideration he would want zerg to be nerfed to the point where these "patchzergs" wont get chance beat him in zvz, so the probability of this winrate will go up due to lack of zvz but still strong enough for him to beat toss/terran to win ez money.
"There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
Overall a good interview although there are some major weak points in my opinion:
1) Stephano gets harder and harder to understand. After 20 minutes he switches into some french english mumbling.
2) The interviewer asks like a thousand really specific and in my opinion uninteresting questions about foreigners but he fails to ask some critical questions with non-obvious answers.:
E.G: Stephano says he just plays for money and at the same time that he doesn't practice. Why and I'm asking that myself for months is nobody asking him:" WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PRACTICING IF YOU WANT TO WIN MONEY????" On WCS Finals there was a 100 fucking K on the line. Why doesn't he practice to cash in on that. What is he doing if he's not practicing? He's a fulltime progamer. Why is he not practicing for fuckin sake?
3) To many questions about far too few topics. No questions whatsoever about:
1) How he's feeling with EG as a new team. Advantages/Disadvantages, atmosphere/mood, whether his recent decline in skill is related to the switch or not, the 12 year old abuse etc.
2) What's he planning on doing afterwards
3) Anything about the "Starcraft is dying" Story and what he thinks about LoL and Dota, etc.
4) his thoughts on HOTS obviously, balance and unit design choices etc.
How come there is no time to ask any of these questions in a 45 minute interview?
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
That's just sad, I wouldn't play at all if it were only for money. Doesn't he want to go to med school or sth?
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
Blizzard is not at fault here, playing the same game, no matter how good it is, everyday for several hours on the same maps is boring as fuck. It's a job and jobs eventually get boring at some point.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
The state of the game is terrible and the game is kinda figured out. What did you expect? @To AbideWithMe : Stephano doesn't play HotS he can't talk about balance and stuff. o_o
On November 28 2012 07:51 JonIrenicus wrote: My god, he thinks only about money. Seems like his life on sc2 is all about money and nothing else.
I wonder if he is greedy.
Money. money money key aspect of Stephano's life
To be fair, you cannot survive without money in today's society, and not every progamer has the opportunities that Stephano has by playing in top-tier tournaments. Passion and loving the job is important, but you have to make money at least.
On November 28 2012 07:51 JonIrenicus wrote: My god, he thinks only about money. Seems like his life on sc2 is all about money and nothing else.
I wonder if he is greedy.
Money. money money key aspect of Stephano's life
If you are going to go to work in a field with little money in it.. the three things that will make a difference for you will be Money, Money and Money.
On November 28 2012 07:46 AbideWithMe wrote: Overall a good interview although there are some major weak points in my opinion:
1) Stephano gets harder and harder to understand. After 20 minutes he switches into some french english mumbling.
2) The interviewer asks like a thousand really specific and in my opinion uninteresting questions about foreigners but he fails to ask some critical questions with non-obvious answers.:
E.G: Stephano says he just plays for money and at the same time that he doesn't practice. Why and I'm asking that myself for months is nobody asking him:" WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PRACTICING IF YOU WANT TO WIN MONEY????" On WCS Finals there was a 100 fucking K on the line. Why doesn't he practice to cash in on that. What is he doing if he's not practicing? He's a fulltime progamer. Why is he not practicing for fuckin sake?
3) To many questions about far too few topics. No questions whatsoever about:
1) How he's feeling with EG as a new team. Advantages/Disadvantages, atmosphere/mood, whether his recent decline in skill is related to the switch or not, the 12 year old abuse etc.
2) What's he planning on doing afterwards
3) Anything about the "Starcraft is dying" Story and what he thinks about LoL and Dota, etc.
4) his thoughts on HOTS obviously, balance and unit design choices etc.
How come there is no time to ask any of these questions in a 45 minute interview?
I'm a pretty big fan of Stephano and I really want to know the answer to 2). His apparent lack of practice does not make any sense at all if he wants to win money. I've paid attention to the activity on his accounts and what he says about practice in his tweets and interviews and they're consistent with one another so it doesn't seem he's lying about not practicing, which means I guess he's incredibly lazy or somewhat irrational.
As to 4), IIRC, he said HoTS was shit at some point because the units were imbalanced, which is a pretty silly criticism (although not inaccurate) given he was playing it when the beta was released.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I actually don't think he's going anywhere, whether or not he has fun. There was a long article on Stephano where he said it would be difficult to walk away from esports, which isn't surprising given his tremendous success.
Since he's ruled out a career in medicine, he's never going to make more money (inflation adjusted) than he's making right now and he's never going to do anything that requires so little effort from him assuming he works a normal job (given that he's not practicing). I would have been really excited at the prospect at seeing Stephano go at it for another couple years and was one of his biggest fanboys, but if he really doesn't have in him to even practice 3 hours a day regularly, he's likely as good as he'll ever be right now, which means, given his current shape, I can't see him seriously contending for a GSL or winning a premier foreign tournament like an IPL or MLG championship.
@emzeeshady: oh pleasw shut up. Cant you see they are pressured by kespa to say that? If you have seen former pros in afreeca. They all have said sc2 is complete garbage.
On November 28 2012 07:46 AbideWithMe wrote: Overall a good interview although there are some major weak points in my opinion:
1) Stephano gets harder and harder to understand. After 20 minutes he switches into some french english mumbling.
2) The interviewer asks like a thousand really specific and in my opinion uninteresting questions about foreigners but he fails to ask some critical questions with non-obvious answers.:
E.G: Stephano says he just plays for money and at the same time that he doesn't practice. Why and I'm asking that myself for months is nobody asking him:" WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PRACTICING IF YOU WANT TO WIN MONEY????" On WCS Finals there was a 100 fucking K on the line. Why doesn't he practice to cash in on that. What is he doing if he's not practicing? He's a fulltime progamer. Why is he not practicing for fuckin sake?
3) To many questions about far too few topics. No questions whatsoever about:
1) How he's feeling with EG as a new team. Advantages/Disadvantages, atmosphere/mood, whether his recent decline in skill is related to the switch or not, the 12 year old abuse etc.
2) What's he planning on doing afterwards
3) Anything about the "Starcraft is dying" Story and what he thinks about LoL and Dota, etc.
4) his thoughts on HOTS obviously, balance and unit design choices etc.
How come there is no time to ask any of these questions in a 45 minute interview?
I'm a pretty big fan of Stephano and I really want to know the answer to 2). His apparent lack of practice does not make any sense at all if he wants to win money. I've paid attention to the activity on his accounts and what he says about practice in his tweets and interviews and they're consistent with one another so it doesn't seem he's lying about not practicing, which means I guess he's incredibly lazy or somewhat irrational.
As to 4), IIRC, he said HoTS was shit at some point because the units were imbalanced, which is a pretty silly criticism (although not inaccurate) given he was playing it when the beta was released.
He did answer question #2. The game isn't fun. Would you do something for hours on end if you didn't like it?
On November 28 2012 07:46 AbideWithMe wrote: Overall a good interview although there are some major weak points in my opinion:
1) Stephano gets harder and harder to understand. After 20 minutes he switches into some french english mumbling.
2) The interviewer asks like a thousand really specific and in my opinion uninteresting questions about foreigners but he fails to ask some critical questions with non-obvious answers.:
E.G: Stephano says he just plays for money and at the same time that he doesn't practice. Why and I'm asking that myself for months is nobody asking him:" WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PRACTICING IF YOU WANT TO WIN MONEY????" On WCS Finals there was a 100 fucking K on the line. Why doesn't he practice to cash in on that. What is he doing if he's not practicing? He's a fulltime progamer. Why is he not practicing for fuckin sake?
3) To many questions about far too few topics. No questions whatsoever about:
1) How he's feeling with EG as a new team. Advantages/Disadvantages, atmosphere/mood, whether his recent decline in skill is related to the switch or not, the 12 year old abuse etc.
2) What's he planning on doing afterwards
3) Anything about the "Starcraft is dying" Story and what he thinks about LoL and Dota, etc.
4) his thoughts on HOTS obviously, balance and unit design choices etc.
How come there is no time to ask any of these questions in a 45 minute interview?
I'm a pretty big fan of Stephano and I really want to know the answer to 2). His apparent lack of practice does not make any sense at all if he wants to win money. I've paid attention to the activity on his accounts and what he says about practice in his tweets and interviews and they're consistent with one another so it doesn't seem he's lying about not practicing, which means I guess he's incredibly lazy or somewhat irrational.
As to 4), IIRC, he said HoTS was shit at some point because the units were imbalanced, which is a pretty silly criticism (although not inaccurate) given he was playing it when the beta was released.
He did answer question #2. The game isn't fun. Would you do something for hours on end if you didn't like it?
On November 28 2012 07:46 AbideWithMe wrote: Overall a good interview although there are some major weak points in my opinion:
1) Stephano gets harder and harder to understand. After 20 minutes he switches into some french english mumbling.
2) The interviewer asks like a thousand really specific and in my opinion uninteresting questions about foreigners but he fails to ask some critical questions with non-obvious answers.:
E.G: Stephano says he just plays for money and at the same time that he doesn't practice. Why and I'm asking that myself for months is nobody asking him:" WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PRACTICING IF YOU WANT TO WIN MONEY????" On WCS Finals there was a 100 fucking K on the line. Why doesn't he practice to cash in on that. What is he doing if he's not practicing? He's a fulltime progamer. Why is he not practicing for fuckin sake?
3) To many questions about far too few topics. No questions whatsoever about:
1) How he's feeling with EG as a new team. Advantages/Disadvantages, atmosphere/mood, whether his recent decline in skill is related to the switch or not, the 12 year old abuse etc.
2) What's he planning on doing afterwards
3) Anything about the "Starcraft is dying" Story and what he thinks about LoL and Dota, etc.
4) his thoughts on HOTS obviously, balance and unit design choices etc.
How come there is no time to ask any of these questions in a 45 minute interview?
I'm a pretty big fan of Stephano and I really want to know the answer to 2). His apparent lack of practice does not make any sense at all if he wants to win money. I've paid attention to the activity on his accounts and what he says about practice in his tweets and interviews and they're consistent with one another so it doesn't seem he's lying about not practicing, which means I guess he's incredibly lazy or somewhat irrational.
As to 4), IIRC, he said HoTS was shit at some point because the units were imbalanced, which is a pretty silly criticism (although not inaccurate) given he was playing it when the beta was released.
I guess he thinks he's making enough money with his current practice hours
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
A lot of Kespa players said SC2 was "more fun" then Starcraft
Could you give a link or something to read about this?
On November 28 2012 07:46 AbideWithMe wrote: Overall a good interview although there are some major weak points in my opinion:
1) Stephano gets harder and harder to understand. After 20 minutes he switches into some french english mumbling.
2) The interviewer asks like a thousand really specific and in my opinion uninteresting questions about foreigners but he fails to ask some critical questions with non-obvious answers.:
E.G: Stephano says he just plays for money and at the same time that he doesn't practice. Why and I'm asking that myself for months is nobody asking him:" WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PRACTICING IF YOU WANT TO WIN MONEY????" On WCS Finals there was a 100 fucking K on the line. Why doesn't he practice to cash in on that. What is he doing if he's not practicing? He's a fulltime progamer. Why is he not practicing for fuckin sake?
3) To many questions about far too few topics. No questions whatsoever about:
1) How he's feeling with EG as a new team. Advantages/Disadvantages, atmosphere/mood, whether his recent decline in skill is related to the switch or not, the 12 year old abuse etc.
2) What's he planning on doing afterwards
3) Anything about the "Starcraft is dying" Story and what he thinks about LoL and Dota, etc.
4) his thoughts on HOTS obviously, balance and unit design choices etc.
How come there is no time to ask any of these questions in a 45 minute interview?
I'm a pretty big fan of Stephano and I really want to know the answer to 2). His apparent lack of practice does not make any sense at all if he wants to win money. I've paid attention to the activity on his accounts and what he says about practice in his tweets and interviews and they're consistent with one another so it doesn't seem he's lying about not practicing, which means I guess he's incredibly lazy or somewhat irrational.
As to 4), IIRC, he said HoTS was shit at some point because the units were imbalanced, which is a pretty silly criticism (although not inaccurate) given he was playing it when the beta was released.
I guess he thinks he's making enough money with his current practice hours
Or simply that spending more time on the same damn maps and running the same strategies over and over is a waste because he will hardly get better.
On November 28 2012 07:51 JonIrenicus wrote: My god, he thinks only about money. Seems like his life on sc2 is all about money and nothing else.
I wonder if he is greedy.
Money. money money key aspect of Stephano's life
You don't know what his private life is like. What if he grew up poor? Not all aspiring pros and and pros are middle to upperclass white guys who can get away with playing and being mediocre and bother playing years on end.
This usually bothers me, but I can forgive Acer since their website is actually good
Well actually the reason why he is able to go to these events and produce this content is because acer is paying for it, so the least we can do is show that's it worth it by bringing traffic to their website. It helps that it's very high quality content of course.
I'm not quiet sure how to begin this post I believe the zerg army is quite inferior in the overall scheme of things. There scouts armory has a lot.of.chinks in it,a little inside rumour dragons in the new expansion (read it a don ragu interview) who caught the latest episode of.gsl I thought the strategies of all.major players was pitiful. What do u guys think
Interview too long. I don't really like video interviews but will watch them if they are 10-15 minutes. If an interview goes to the point where it's longer than that there needs to be a text form of it IMO.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
A lot of Kespa players said SC2 was "more fun" then Starcraft
On November 28 2012 10:10 JJH777 wrote: Interview too long. I don't really like video interviews but will watch them if they are 10-15 minutes. If an interview goes to the point where it's longer than that there needs to be a text form of it IMO.
You're right. Any chance you could transcribe it for us?
On November 28 2012 09:17 rogiebearassasin wrote: I'm not quiet sure how to begin this post I believe the zerg army is quite inferior in the overall scheme of things. There scouts armory has a lot.of.chinks in it,a little inside rumour dragons in the new expansion (read it a don ragu interview) who caught the latest episode of.gsl I thought the strategies of all.major players was pitiful. What do u guys think
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
A lot of Kespa players said SC2 was "more fun" then Starcraft
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
A lot of Kespa players said SC2 was "more fun" then Starcraft
ive never seen a progamer say that lol
Well, bw or not when you have to practice hundred of times the same build I'm not sure there still is some fun in it. I think it's obvious progamer aren't playing for fun. That may upset people, but this is the same with basically all jobs, video game or not.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
A lot of Kespa players said SC2 was "more fun" then Starcraft
ive never seen a progamer say that lol
Liquid.Sea said it in his interview when he switched to team liquid. I think others have said similar things.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
A lot of Kespa players said SC2 was "more fun" then Starcraft
ive never seen a progamer say that lol
Liquid.Sea said it in his interview when he switched to team liquid. I think others have said similar things.
Isn't there a print screen of Sea on stream typing something like "SC2 bad", or "BW better" or something like that. Cannot remember exactly what he said by any means. But it had that meaning.
On November 28 2012 10:10 JJH777 wrote: Interview too long. I don't really like video interviews but will watch them if they are 10-15 minutes. If an interview goes to the point where it's longer than that there needs to be a text form of it IMO.
You're right. Any chance you could transcribe it for us?
Just check the questions and hear the answers to the one you find interesting. Very easy!
I've never realized just how lazy Stephano seems to be... He doesn't want to do GSL because he doesn't want to put in the work of researching his opponents and there isn't enough money in it. I used to love this guy, now I'm just like, meh.
I honestly think he truly believes that he is just intellectually superior to everyone else and wants to go out of his way to show how lazy he is because he feels that it makes him seem more like a "natural." I'm not saying he's not, but it's sad how far he goes out of his way to make sure people see how little effort he puts into it. What a douche. Seriously. He'll never fully realize his potential, but whatever.
I can't imagine doing the exact same thing day in day out would be fun anymore. That's why progaming is a job and no longer just "playing a couple of hours of video games with meh buddies on the weekend".
Ok, take your FAVORITE video game/activity/hobby whatever and do that 8 hours a day for 6 days a week. I will give you 4 dollars if you don't hate it after 2 months of that.
On November 28 2012 07:46 AbideWithMe wrote: Overall a good interview although there are some major weak points in my opinion:
1) Stephano gets harder and harder to understand. After 20 minutes he switches into some french english mumbling.
2) The interviewer asks like a thousand really specific and in my opinion uninteresting questions about foreigners but he fails to ask some critical questions with non-obvious answers.:
E.G: Stephano says he just plays for money and at the same time that he doesn't practice. Why and I'm asking that myself for months is nobody asking him:" WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PRACTICING IF YOU WANT TO WIN MONEY????" On WCS Finals there was a 100 fucking K on the line. Why doesn't he practice to cash in on that. What is he doing if he's not practicing? He's a fulltime progamer. Why is he not practicing for fuckin sake?
3) To many questions about far too few topics. No questions whatsoever about:
1) How he's feeling with EG as a new team. Advantages/Disadvantages, atmosphere/mood, whether his recent decline in skill is related to the switch or not, the 12 year old abuse etc.
2) What's he planning on doing afterwards
3) Anything about the "Starcraft is dying" Story and what he thinks about LoL and Dota, etc.
4) his thoughts on HOTS obviously, balance and unit design choices etc.
How come there is no time to ask any of these questions in a 45 minute interview?
I'm a pretty big fan of Stephano and I really want to know the answer to 2). His apparent lack of practice does not make any sense at all if he wants to win money. I've paid attention to the activity on his accounts and what he says about practice in his tweets and interviews and they're consistent with one another so it doesn't seem he's lying about not practicing, which means I guess he's incredibly lazy or somewhat irrational.
As to 4), IIRC, he said HoTS was shit at some point because the units were imbalanced, which is a pretty silly criticism (although not inaccurate) given he was playing it when the beta was released.
He did answer question #2. The game isn't fun. Would you do something for hours on end if you didn't like it?
What don't you understand about the disconnect between wanting to make money and not practicing? He clearly is not maximizing his earnings. With just a modicum of effort he could earn more. Here are some recent results from Stephano (who until a couple months ago was probably the most consistently high performing SC2 player around), which well illustrate the fact that he needs to practice and that his lack of practice is hurting his bottom line: He was stomped 4-0 by Lucifron (stim to the win), lost a series against TT1 (in NASL and now he's not qualified for the playoffs) (in one of the games he had a lead, teched to blord infestor on metropolis and still lost -- I can't imagine a more humiliating loss), looked in general not like himself at DH and got 2-0'd by Fraer, lost 2-0 to Idra in a tournament with a ton of foreigners and Korean protoss in it (and 100000K on the line). If he didn't care about money then not practicing makes perhaps some sense because he doesn't care about anything. But he does care about money so he's either irrational or extremely lazy. Nearly no one likes work but you do it anyway.
Also as an aside Stephano even when he practiced never practiced "hours on end". He would practice 3 hours usually. When he streamed he'd practice 4-5 hours and there was a one or two week period when he was in Korea where he was playing 8 hours a day. 3 hours a day is an extremely minimal commitment for anyone in any discipline I'm aware of (including esports) who effectively makes a living from that discipline (music, fighting, basketball, baseball, chess, etc.).
On November 28 2012 08:41 Spermwahale wrote: @emzeeshady: oh pleasw shut up. Cant you see they are pressured by kespa to say that? If you have seen former pros in afreeca. They all have said sc2 is complete garbage.
To be fair, the fact they are former pros probably means they didn't enjoy sc2 or were not good at it (which is likely related). As for Kespa pressure, that could be true. But do current progamers really need Kespa pressure to tout the 'SC2 is fun' line? Even if Kespa allowed you to say whatever you want, why would you say something negative about the game you are making money off of?
When you practice 10 + hours a day, I am sure even if progamers say they have 'fun'. It is different from the 'fun' that we as gamers have.
On November 28 2012 10:39 ref4 wrote: I can't imagine doing the exact same thing day in day out would be fun anymore. That's why progaming is a job and no longer just "playing a couple of hours of video games with meh buddies on the weekend".
Ok, take your FAVORITE video game/activity/hobby whatever and do that 8 hours a day for 6 days a week. I will give you 4 dollars if you don't hate it after 2 months of that.
I guess lack of interest is sometimes an explanation when a pro gamer is in slump. E.g. Bisu.
On November 28 2012 08:41 Spermwahale wrote: @emzeeshady: oh pleasw shut up. Cant you see they are pressured by kespa to say that? If you have seen former pros in afreeca. They all have said sc2 is complete garbage.
To be fair, the fact they are former pros probably means they didn't enjoy sc2 or were not good at it (which is likely related). As for Kespa pressure, that could be true. But do current progamers really need Kespa pressure to tout the 'SC2 is fun' line? Even if Kespa allowed you to say whatever you want, why would you say something negative about the game you are making money off of?
When you practice 10 + hours a day, I am sure even if progamers say they have 'fun'. It is different from the 'fun' that we as gamers have.
On November 28 2012 10:39 ref4 wrote: I can't imagine doing the exact same thing day in day out would be fun anymore. That's why progaming is a job and no longer just "playing a couple of hours of video games with meh buddies on the weekend".
Ok, take your FAVORITE video game/activity/hobby whatever and do that 8 hours a day for 6 days a week. I will give you 4 dollars if you don't hate it after 2 months of that.
I guess lack of interest is sometimes an explanation when a pro gamer is in slump. E.g. Bisu.
You can't really say Bisu's in a slump until Proleague starts again.
On November 28 2012 10:37 Kyrao wrote: I've never realized just how lazy Stephano seems to be... He doesn't want to do GSL because he doesn't want to put in the work of researching his opponents and there isn't enough money in it. I used to love this guy, now I'm just like, meh.
I honestly think he truly believes that he is just intellectually superior to everyone else and wants to go out of his way to show how lazy he is because he feels that it makes him seem more like a "natural." I'm not saying he's not, but it's sad how far he goes out of his way to make sure people see how little effort he puts into it. What a douche. Seriously. He'll never fully realize his potential, but whatever.
Mindgames. He says he is lazy, but what if he is actually doing a hard work to catch his opponents off guard? Then, by making us think that way, he could be lazy indeed. No one knows. Lying in interviews is a part of strategy IMO.
On November 28 2012 08:41 Spermwahale wrote: @emzeeshady: oh pleasw shut up. Cant you see they are pressured by kespa to say that? If you have seen former pros in afreeca. They all have said sc2 is complete garbage.
To be fair, the fact they are former pros probably means they didn't enjoy sc2 or were not good at it (which is likely related). As for Kespa pressure, that could be true. But do current progamers really need Kespa pressure to tout the 'SC2 is fun' line? Even if Kespa allowed you to say whatever you want, why would you say something negative about the game you are making money off of?
When you practice 10 + hours a day, I am sure even if progamers say they have 'fun'. It is different from the 'fun' that we as gamers have.
former pros in afreeca?
not sure if serious...
edit: referring to Spermwahale's quote
Afreeca is the korean eqvuilent to Twitch/Own3d, a lot of former BW pros like to stream through it.
On November 28 2012 08:41 Spermwahale wrote: @emzeeshady: oh pleasw shut up. Cant you see they are pressured by kespa to say that? If you have seen former pros in afreeca. They all have said sc2 is complete garbage.
To be fair, the fact they are former pros probably means they didn't enjoy sc2 or were not good at it (which is likely related). As for Kespa pressure, that could be true. But do current progamers really need Kespa pressure to tout the 'SC2 is fun' line? Even if Kespa allowed you to say whatever you want, why would you say something negative about the game you are making money off of?
When you practice 10 + hours a day, I am sure even if progamers say they have 'fun'. It is different from the 'fun' that we as gamers have.
Fantasy said in an interview that he wasn't enjoy SC2 and then a week later after he advance in the first round of Code A he was talking about how much he was enjoying it. That to me sounds like someone talked to him about watching his mouth. I think a lot of the former BW pros don't like the switch because they are used to playing something completely different. You honestly can't blame them, a lot of them were basically forced to switch to a game that they had no interest in at all.
BW afreeca players don't like SC2 that's why they don't play it lol
also classical musicians tend to enjoy their jobs, which requires a lot of practice/time. And I remember Bisu would say he still enjoyed playing BW when he was good at it, but Jaedong said he played mainly for the competition rather than the game.. TBH I think enjoying a game relates a lot to your success, so ofc Fantasy would say he's having fun if he's winning lol
On November 28 2012 08:41 Spermwahale wrote: @emzeeshady: oh pleasw shut up. Cant you see they are pressured by kespa to say that? If you have seen former pros in afreeca. They all have said sc2 is complete garbage.
To be fair, the fact they are former pros probably means they didn't enjoy sc2 or were not good at it (which is likely related). As for Kespa pressure, that could be true. But do current progamers really need Kespa pressure to tout the 'SC2 is fun' line? Even if Kespa allowed you to say whatever you want, why would you say something negative about the game you are making money off of?
When you practice 10 + hours a day, I am sure even if progamers say they have 'fun'. It is different from the 'fun' that we as gamers have.
former pros in afreeca?
not sure if serious...
edit: referring to Spermwahale's quote
Afreeca is the korean eqvuilent to Twitch/Own3d, a lot of former BW pros like to stream through it.
On November 28 2012 10:39 ref4 wrote: I can't imagine doing the exact same thing day in day out would be fun anymore. That's why progaming is a job and no longer just "playing a couple of hours of video games with meh buddies on the weekend".
Ok, take your FAVORITE video game/activity/hobby whatever and do that 8 hours a day for 6 days a week. I will give you 4 dollars if you don't hate it after 2 months of that.
I guess lack of interest is sometimes an explanation when a pro gamer is in slump. E.g. Bisu.
You can't really say Bisu's in a slump until Proleague starts again.
you can't really say bisu is slumping when he hasn't gotten good at sc2 yet.
On November 28 2012 10:39 ref4 wrote: I can't imagine doing the exact same thing day in day out would be fun anymore. That's why progaming is a job and no longer just "playing a couple of hours of video games with meh buddies on the weekend".
Ok, take your FAVORITE video game/activity/hobby whatever and do that 8 hours a day for 6 days a week. I will give you 4 dollars if you don't hate it after 2 months of that.
I guess lack of interest is sometimes an explanation when a pro gamer is in slump. E.g. Bisu.
You can't really say Bisu's in a slump until Proleague starts again.
you can't really say bisu is slumping when he hasn't gotten good at sc2 yet.
Soon he will retake his spot as Rain's mentor, not his practice bitch =)... JUST WAIT! He will revolutionized sc2 with his 2 base phoenix dt play!
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
That's just sad, I wouldn't play at all if it were only for money.
Why not? A lot of us work jobs we don't like. Or hate, even. And most of us don't do it for a $96k salary You'd play a game for that kind of money. I'd stand in the streets wearing a banana suit for that kind of money.
Interesting how one of the best foreigners is one of the least passionate as well. So far Stephano's perspective on the matter seems to be the most objective in terms of the real world.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
A lot of Kespa players said SC2 was "more fun" then Starcraft
Do you know why they said so? Otherwise you shouldn't say that.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
A lot of Kespa players said SC2 was "more fun" then Starcraft
1) they want to make people think sc2 is fun (which is a problem they never had with bw).
2) the best players really loved the game. just read Jaedongs interviews from back then. and read about his time as a free agent when he basically said: i don't care if i get more money elsewhere, i just want to play bw with my team (OZ). I remember when Flash got the question in an interview about what he liked to do in his spare time. he answered "try playing the other races"...
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
A lot of Kespa players said SC2 was "more fun" then Starcraft
Do you know why they said so? Otherwise you shouldn't say that.
It's funny that you guys said that most pros don't have fun in SC2 like you know what they think LOL. Pros who play the game with passion like Rain(he even said that in his free time his hobby is still SC2),Parting,Creator,Life and many more who you can tell how passionate they are about the game are always the most successful.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
A lot of Kespa players said SC2 was "more fun" then Starcraft
1) they want to make people think sc2 is fun (which is a problem they never had with bw).
Tbh, with that logic you can doomsay anything in the world. "They want to let you think x is y" Unless you have proof that is like that you cannot speak like you know their feelings.
There are multiple reasons why the KeSPA players would say SC2 is more fun for them at the moment.
It brings them a new challenge and ultimately many of them have been playing brood war for their entire childhood/teens.
These guys grew up playing the same game day after day after day.
When I first played SC2 it was refreshing to play another RTS, but I did get bored of it awfully quick.
Look, I'm not surprised many of the pro's or am's are tired of it already when playing and practicing takes out a lot of the fun.
It's supposed to wear them down because it is a job. Not a hobby.
It's their job to practice and perform well. That's why you see lots of them lose their passion for the game or they hit their personal ceiling and just cannot break reach the next level. Time to move on.
You can't get to the level Stephano achieved in something like Starcraft without enjoying it/finding it fun to some degree. In any kind of high risk/high reward career path, be it sports or pursuing a musical career, without the drive or the talent to pursue your craft at the start, you'll never get going past the initial hurdles. Once they get to the top and achieve their goals, then yeah they may grow weary of the activity that used to sustain their every waking hour.
If you're a fan of climbing mountainsides, it doesn't necessarily follow that you'll enjoy the view from the peak.
Really want to check this interview out more thoroughly tomorrow, but it shows aspects of the Stephano that I like for sure. I always like it when players can objectively look at their own race and find not only the difficult parts, but also recognise where they're having it easier than their opponents.
It's also interesting to see players self-assess where their skills lie and measuring that up with the community's perception. In Stephano's case his position and map vision/drop defence looks to be a pretty accurate summation. I'd still love to know his decision making processes sometimes, as he sometimes makes amazing reads based on almost no information. However that may just be an instinctive thing that he has no real explanation for.
On November 28 2012 13:01 DanLee wrote: How is "I really don't like to take risks." the headline for this interview? That is like the least interesting thing he said in the entire interview.
"[...] the fact that so many Zerg players got better, proves there is a 'patch-zerg' thing. I don't want to name anybody, there is a lot, everyone knows it."
The 45m26s video interview can be watched at Team Acer.
I guess there's no limit of how hard can you troll, Stephano.
On November 28 2012 07:46 AbideWithMe wrote: Overall a good interview although there are some major weak points in my opinion:
1) Stephano gets harder and harder to understand. After 20 minutes he switches into some french english mumbling.
2) The interviewer asks like a thousand really specific and in my opinion uninteresting questions about foreigners but he fails to ask some critical questions with non-obvious answers.:
E.G: Stephano says he just plays for money and at the same time that he doesn't practice. Why and I'm asking that myself for months is nobody asking him:" WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PRACTICING IF YOU WANT TO WIN MONEY????" On WCS Finals there was a 100 fucking K on the line. Why doesn't he practice to cash in on that. What is he doing if he's not practicing? He's a fulltime progamer. Why is he not practicing for fuckin sake?
3) To many questions about far too few topics. No questions whatsoever about:
1) How he's feeling with EG as a new team. Advantages/Disadvantages, atmosphere/mood, whether his recent decline in skill is related to the switch or not, the 12 year old abuse etc.
2) What's he planning on doing afterwards
3) Anything about the "Starcraft is dying" Story and what he thinks about LoL and Dota, etc.
4) his thoughts on HOTS obviously, balance and unit design choices etc.
How come there is no time to ask any of these questions in a 45 minute interview?
I'm a pretty big fan of Stephano and I really want to know the answer to 2). His apparent lack of practice does not make any sense at all if he wants to win money. I've paid attention to the activity on his accounts and what he says about practice in his tweets and interviews and they're consistent with one another so it doesn't seem he's lying about not practicing, which means I guess he's incredibly lazy or somewhat irrational.
As to 4), IIRC, he said HoTS was shit at some point because the units were imbalanced, which is a pretty silly criticism (although not inaccurate) given he was playing it when the beta was released.
He did answer question #2. The game isn't fun. Would you do something for hours on end if you didn't like it?
What don't you understand about the disconnect between wanting to make money and not practicing? He clearly is not maximizing his earnings. With just a modicum of effort he could earn more. Here are some recent results from Stephano (who until a couple months ago was probably the most consistently high performing SC2 player around), which well illustrate the fact that he needs to practice and that his lack of practice is hurting his bottom line: He was stomped 4-0 by Lucifron (stim to the win), lost a series against TT1 (in NASL and now he's not qualified for the playoffs) (in one of the games he had a lead, teched to blord infestor on metropolis and still lost -- I can't imagine a more humiliating loss), looked in general not like himself at DH and got 2-0'd by Fraer, lost 2-0 to Idra in a tournament with a ton of foreigners and Korean protoss in it (and 100000K on the line). If he didn't care about money then not practicing makes perhaps some sense because he doesn't care about anything. But he does care about money so he's either irrational or extremely lazy. Nearly no one likes work but you do it anyway.
Also as an aside Stephano even when he practiced never practiced "hours on end". He would practice 3 hours usually. When he streamed he'd practice 4-5 hours and there was a one or two week period when he was in Korea where he was playing 8 hours a day. 3 hours a day is an extremely minimal commitment for anyone in any discipline I'm aware of (including esports) who effectively makes a living from that discipline (music, fighting, basketball, baseball, chess, etc.).
The amount you stream doesnt equal the amount he puts into the game or plays off stream. He uses that no training or practicing facade to get into his opponents heads. He is just saying things but in reality he probably does put forth the effort and all to try to win games, sometimes you just get into a slump
On November 28 2012 07:46 AbideWithMe wrote: Overall a good interview although there are some major weak points in my opinion:
1) Stephano gets harder and harder to understand. After 20 minutes he switches into some french english mumbling.
2) The interviewer asks like a thousand really specific and in my opinion uninteresting questions about foreigners but he fails to ask some critical questions with non-obvious answers.:
E.G: Stephano says he just plays for money and at the same time that he doesn't practice. Why and I'm asking that myself for months is nobody asking him:" WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PRACTICING IF YOU WANT TO WIN MONEY????" On WCS Finals there was a 100 fucking K on the line. Why doesn't he practice to cash in on that. What is he doing if he's not practicing? He's a fulltime progamer. Why is he not practicing for fuckin sake?
3) To many questions about far too few topics. No questions whatsoever about:
1) How he's feeling with EG as a new team. Advantages/Disadvantages, atmosphere/mood, whether his recent decline in skill is related to the switch or not, the 12 year old abuse etc.
2) What's he planning on doing afterwards
3) Anything about the "Starcraft is dying" Story and what he thinks about LoL and Dota, etc.
4) his thoughts on HOTS obviously, balance and unit design choices etc.
How come there is no time to ask any of these questions in a 45 minute interview?
I'm a pretty big fan of Stephano and I really want to know the answer to 2). His apparent lack of practice does not make any sense at all if he wants to win money. I've paid attention to the activity on his accounts and what he says about practice in his tweets and interviews and they're consistent with one another so it doesn't seem he's lying about not practicing, which means I guess he's incredibly lazy or somewhat irrational.
As to 4), IIRC, he said HoTS was shit at some point because the units were imbalanced, which is a pretty silly criticism (although not inaccurate) given he was playing it when the beta was released.
He did answer question #2. The game isn't fun. Would you do something for hours on end if you didn't like it?
What don't you understand about the disconnect between wanting to make money and not practicing? He clearly is not maximizing his earnings. With just a modicum of effort he could earn more. Here are some recent results from Stephano (who until a couple months ago was probably the most consistently high performing SC2 player around), which well illustrate the fact that he needs to practice and that his lack of practice is hurting his bottom line: He was stomped 4-0 by Lucifron (stim to the win), lost a series against TT1 (in NASL and now he's not qualified for the playoffs) (in one of the games he had a lead, teched to blord infestor on metropolis and still lost -- I can't imagine a more humiliating loss), looked in general not like himself at DH and got 2-0'd by Fraer, lost 2-0 to Idra in a tournament with a ton of foreigners and Korean protoss in it (and 100000K on the line). If he didn't care about money then not practicing makes perhaps some sense because he doesn't care about anything. But he does care about money so he's either irrational or extremely lazy. Nearly no one likes work but you do it anyway.
Also as an aside Stephano even when he practiced never practiced "hours on end". He would practice 3 hours usually. When he streamed he'd practice 4-5 hours and there was a one or two week period when he was in Korea where he was playing 8 hours a day. 3 hours a day is an extremely minimal commitment for anyone in any discipline I'm aware of (including esports) who effectively makes a living from that discipline (music, fighting, basketball, baseball, chess, etc.).
The amount you stream doesnt equal the amount he puts into the game or plays off stream. He uses that no training or practicing facade to get into his opponents heads. He is just saying things but in reality he probably does put forth the effort and all to try to win games, sometimes you just get into a slump
That's like a really......cool tactic then. What advantages is he supposed to have if he repeatedly tells everybody that he doesn't practice? This might work once befor a large tourney so that everybody underestimates his power (I'm not even sure whether this works. Nobody will just play worse because he thinks his opponent might not be in top shape. At least after the first game you know for sure what's happening) but this surely doesn't work as a long time strategy. Everybody knows that he is the best and most consisting foreigner. Nobody would just suddely underestimate him because he said that he doesn't practice. And he has been saying it for month and still won major tournaments.
I really think Stephano is honest in this case. I mean look at WCS Finals. He told everybody before that hadn't practiced before. Even Idra said he thought he would win against him because Stephano (idra was pretty civil in that case) had been travelling a lot recently. But then....BOOM....Stephano's plan worked really fucking well and he....lost 2-0. Really good plan. And another flaw of this evil master plan is that his strongest contestants won't even know about this facade as they are korean and don't listen to english interviews. I'm pretty sure a MKP cares little to nothing about that Stephano has supposedly not practiced before a match. Foreigners who might fall for that shit....again....again..and again are actually no contestans anyway.
On November 28 2012 10:37 Kyrao wrote: I've never realized just how lazy Stephano seems to be... He doesn't want to do GSL because he doesn't want to put in the work of researching his opponents and there isn't enough money in it. I used to love this guy, now I'm just like, meh.
I honestly think he truly believes that he is just intellectually superior to everyone else and wants to go out of his way to show how lazy he is because he feels that it makes him seem more like a "natural." I'm not saying he's not, but it's sad how far he goes out of his way to make sure people see how little effort he puts into it. What a douche. Seriously. He'll never fully realize his potential, but whatever.
I disagree with 99% of this post with the exception of the last line. I don't necessarily think the guy is lazy, I'm sure he practices just as much as everyone else despite what he actually SAYS because I don't think you can maintain the skill level that he has without having a decent amount of practice hours under your belt. As far as him feeling like he's intellectually superior...I think he's just a kid, with a ton of fame, and a ton of money that all just kinda happened in the last year or so. Those things are hard for any kid his age to handle without letting just a little bit of it go to your head. I don't blame him at all for having the brash attitude that he has, in fact I think it's kind of endearing...but that's just me. Haha. I DO however, agree that he will never reach his true potential. I kind of think he's a lot like Tracy McGrady from the NBA. (I know, I know people HATE the sports references) A lot of people thought T-Mac had the skill set and the athleticism to MJ, but he just wouldn't focus enough on his game, because he knew that a lot of his natural would just allow him to coast through and make his money. Of course injury had a lot to do with his career, but some of his injuries could have been afforded had he kept himself in better shape. I think Stephano has the potential to be one the greatest players sc2 has ever seen and I don't mean that as hyperbole, I really believe that, but he will never apply himself the way that it would take someone to become that great at it. This is all just my opinion of course, take it with a grain of salt.
P.S. Sorry for the rambling...I'm bad at posting coherently.
I love the comment he makes about his efforts. Something along the lines of "I don't get disappointed if I don't win because I know I didn't work for it."
On November 28 2012 08:16 The_Darkness wrote: Did he address why he is practicing so little these days?
As long as I remember, stephano tells us that "he doesn't practice a lot". He said the same during his prime days, when he took out koreans like it was the easiest thing to do.
Now let's ask ourselves honestly the next question: is sc2 a game where you can compete with the top without a certain amount of practice? If stephano can, then he is the only genius in the world who can, and I'm not buying it.
On November 28 2012 08:16 The_Darkness wrote: Did he address why he is practicing so little these days?
As long as I remember, stephano tells us that "he doesn't practice a lot". He said the same during his prime days, when he took out koreans like it was the easiest thing to do.
Now let's ask ourselves honestly the next question: is sc2 a game where you can compete with the top without a certain amount of practice? If stephano can, then he is the only genius in the world who can, and I'm not buying it.
I thought there were people who proved that stephano actually played more then he said? I might be wrong but I swear some people had proof or w/e that stephano played more then what he says.
I agree with you I think he does play more then he says he does, although I do think the past week or 2 he might not have played to much because of all the traveling (I swear to god he's traveled like to 3 different countries in the past 2 weeks am I mistaken on that?)
stephano was playing wc3 for years before, barely winning any money, he wont quit esports, he might quit sc2, but he will play other rts if it reaches new heights in esports.
On November 28 2012 08:16 The_Darkness wrote: Did he address why he is practicing so little these days?
As long as I remember, stephano tells us that "he doesn't practice a lot". He said the same during his prime days, when he took out koreans like it was the easiest thing to do.
Now let's ask ourselves honestly the next question: is sc2 a game where you can compete with the top without a certain amount of practice? If stephano can, then he is the only genius in the world who can, and I'm not buying it.
I don't think SC2 is mechanically demanding enough that this is the case. There have been Koreans who openly practice less than average and yet can compete at very high levels (Genius, San and Life come to mind). I think you need to practice more than everyone to be the very best and stay there. That's why I believe the KeSPA players will eventually distinguish themselves from the rest (players like Bogus already have shown how their intense drive to practice constantly pays off). But for now I think its reasonable that Stephano doesn't practice much, he really hasnt been improving much lately, if at all.
On November 28 2012 10:37 Kyrao wrote: I've never realized just how lazy Stephano seems to be... He doesn't want to do GSL because he doesn't want to put in the work of researching his opponents and there isn't enough money in it. I used to love this guy, now I'm just like, meh.
I honestly think he truly believes that he is just intellectually superior to everyone else and wants to go out of his way to show how lazy he is because he feels that it makes him seem more like a "natural." I'm not saying he's not, but it's sad how far he goes out of his way to make sure people see how little effort he puts into it. What a douche. Seriously. He'll never fully realize his potential, but whatever.
I disagree with 99% of this post with the exception of the last line. I don't necessarily think the guy is lazy, I'm sure he practices just as much as everyone else despite what he actually SAYS because I don't think you can maintain the skill level that he has without having a decent amount of practice hours under your belt. As far as him feeling like he's intellectually superior...I think he's just a kid, with a ton of fame, and a ton of money that all just kinda happened in the last year or so. Those things are hard for any kid his age to handle without letting just a little bit of it go to your head. I don't blame him at all for having the brash attitude that he has, in fact I think it's kind of endearing...but that's just me. Haha. I DO however, agree that he will never reach his true potential. I kind of think he's a lot like Tracy McGrady from the NBA. (I know, I know people HATE the sports references) A lot of people thought T-Mac had the skill set and the athleticism to MJ, but he just wouldn't focus enough on his game, because he knew that a lot of his natural would just allow him to coast through and make his money. Of course injury had a lot to do with his career, but some of his injuries could have been afforded had he kept himself in better shape. I think Stephano has the potential to be one the greatest players sc2 has ever seen and I don't mean that as hyperbole, I really believe that, but he will never apply himself the way that it would take someone to become that great at it. This is all just my opinion of course, take it with a grain of salt.
P.S. Sorry for the rambling...I'm bad at posting coherently.
100% agree with yours. There are a lot of examples in (other) sports where the more talented athletes are also the more lazy ones. It's natural/ logical. The biggest names are the rare talented/ not lazy ones I think. Who knows, maybe Stephano realizes one day that he can achieve more like for instance Agassi did at one point.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
A lot of Kespa players said SC2 was "more fun" then Starcraft
Could you give a link or something to read about this?
Were in couple of random interviews. But it's kinda logical. You've been playing the same game (bw) for year after year. A little bit of fresh air (sc2) is of course more fun. But for how long will it stay fun?
Quite a few prominent figures have vouched for Stephano's laziness though. Rotterdam is the most recent one that I roughly remembered. He mentioned that he was with Stephano for about a week or so (for NASL?) and he did not see Stephano practice at all. Yet, Stephano went to win a tournament just immediately after that. I think quite a few others have mentioned similar stories as well.
It's really not unheard of for someone to just cruise with their talent. As someone mentioned, Andre Agassi completely hated tennis and kinda just wing it until after his comeback. A lot of NBA players (seems) to do that as well. A recent football(soccer) example would be someone like Ronaldinho/Adriano. Great talents but were content with doing just enough and instead prefer to indulge in parties and women.
Of course we can't say for sure unless we talk to someone who really follow Stephano day to day. And we know that Stephano is quite vocal about how he does not really enjoy the game and is just in it for the money. So it makes sense that he only put the minimum effort required to get him the amount of money that he is satisfied with.
I think most of the skepticism is just because most people are offended ( rightly or wrongly) by his lack of passion for the game and some see his nonchalance/lack of effort as disrespectful towards those who do work hard. Or that some wonders how good he would be if he possess the drive and are upset that we might never find out.
Personally, i think it's Stephano's prerogative to do what he wants with his talentand I appreciate his honesty about his true goals and intentions.
On November 28 2012 08:16 The_Darkness wrote: Did he address why he is practicing so little these days?
As long as I remember, stephano tells us that "he doesn't practice a lot". He said the same during his prime days, when he took out koreans like it was the easiest thing to do.
Now let's ask ourselves honestly the next question: is sc2 a game where you can compete with the top without a certain amount of practice? If stephano can, then he is the only genius in the world who can, and I'm not buying it.
I thought there were people who proved that stephano actually played more then he said? I might be wrong but I swear some people had proof or w/e that stephano played more then what he says.
I agree with you I think he does play more then he says he does, although I do think the past week or 2 he might not have played to much because of all the traveling (I swear to god he's traveled like to 3 different countries in the past 2 weeks am I mistaken on that?)
The thing is that we don't actually know how much other pros really practice. I mean everybody knows that there are certain people like Kas, Happy and Sase who grind ladder for hours or for example Naniwa who has mentioned multiple times how much he atually practices. But what do we know about the average European Pro. I can't imagine medium tier pros practice that much. They make far too many mistakes for that. Look for example at the ultimate foreigner match between Sheth and ToD at Lonestar 2. These guys don't play 10 hours a day for sure and it shows. Nerchio has said for example that he normally practices for about 2 hours a day normally but 10 hours before tournments. Darkforce said that Stephano practices more than most other European pros.
I mean it's a fact that Stephano has played a lot of games in the past to actually get as good as he is now. For example he started playing Ling Bling Muta in ZvT as everybody else when he started. He needed some time for sure to figure out his infestor based play. He has also participated in tons of online tournaments so he has a lot of games on his back for sure. He also was in Korea for two times to grind out some games and if you think about Stephanos play little amouts of practice actually make sense. He has never really changed his style in ZvT nor ZvP with the exception of going from Roach Max to faster Infestor and 4th Base. His mechanics and apm where quite stunning at the time he entered the scene but now they are actually pretty average. I watched his games vs Idra in WCS and his queen in the main was at 200 energy at 20 minutes without any harassment. His creep spread is also not that special anymore. What made Stephano so successful was his ability to play ZERG right. Droning hard and going for a late game composition fast. He never really changed that and due to his strong defense and engegament capabilities people weren't able to abuse his style. He also had remarkable infestor control. Even today you see medium Zergs moving their infestors into the enemy army. Stephano was always about preserving his infestors. There are tons of people who played zerg wrong in my opinion when Stephano was doing it completely right. Losira is a prime example. While Stephano went for a safe Deathball of Broodlord Infestor in ZvP Losira went for retarded Stuff like Baneling Drops and Ultralisks just to lose all his overlords. Zergs stayed far too long on Mutalisks in ZvT as well. I even remember people asking Stephano to play Mutas on his stream and he said: "No. Mutas are weak in ZvT".
I feel it's just that Stephano did a lot of things right when playing SC2 but many of these things didn't actually require large amounts of practice. Now that he has become a role model for certain match-ups the little amount of practice actually hurts him more than anything as people find holes in his play and he is unable to move on and step up his play without investing time again.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
Blizzard is not at fault here, playing the same game, no matter how good it is, everyday for several hours on the same maps is boring as fuck. It's a job and jobs eventually get boring at some point.
I really like these long interviews because you can go deeper into the subject and you really get to know the players beyond the usual PR stuff.
I can understand that ppl can be annoyed by Steph but deep down I think he's just an honest guy who does his thing without caring too much about what others think about it. So far it has served him well.
On November 28 2012 20:46 Hider wrote: Im still waiting for the stephano-terran player who do very well despite not practicing.
This won't happen at all since Terran is the mechanically most demanding race and you already see pretty much every foreign Terran struggling hard despite good amounts of practice.
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
Blizzard is not at fault here, playing the same game, no matter how good it is, everyday for several hours on the same maps is boring as fuck. It's a job and jobs eventually get boring at some point.
Sc2 is just less fun than bw.
True but don't believe all the BW pros took pleasure at in-house practice after years. No matter how good the game is, they are pros with a schedule and everything, it's a job (hence the word "pro"), not entertainement. Many pros have already stated that, NaDa comes to mind.
I don't think Nadal and Djokovic take pleasure in every ball they hit. and on many occasions they would probably rather stay in bed or with their families than go work their asses off in conditionning and drills.
On November 28 2012 18:45 Penev wrote: I've never realized just how lazy Stephano seems to be... He doesn't want to do GSL because he doesn't want to put in the work of researching his opponents and there isn't enough money in it. I used to love this guy, now I'm just like, meh.
I honestly think he truly believes that he is just intellectually superior to everyone else and wants to go out of his way to show how lazy he is because he feels that it makes him seem more like a "natural." I'm not saying he's not, but it's sad how far he goes out of his way to make sure people see how little effort he puts into it. What a douche. Seriously. He'll never fully realize his potential, but whatever.
I think you completely miss the point. He isn't smarter than other players. He's certainly quite gifted but I don't think he's better than TLO/Nerchio/Ret/Scarlett if you look at pure SC2 skills. He just has that great mental strenght that is required in most sports and that allows him to be almost at 100% at every tournament he plays. Idra said it, and Stephano admitting it in an interview doesn't make him a douchebag.
As far as carrer choices go, it's up to him and I don't think we can judge him on that. Him saying GSL would be a bad carrer move because he doesn't feel he can get very far is rather a display of modesty.
Besides that, he DOES practice, just less than others. You can't be a top player by playing 10 games a week.
Where is the honor...No respect for the game of the fans... Used to love him but hes a little bit too cocky and disrespectful. I wonder how EG feels about such statements when they pay him a good amount - A contract of close to six figures should have a minimum hours of practice per day required...
On November 28 2012 07:46 AbideWithMe wrote: Overall a good interview although there are some major weak points in my opinion:
1) Stephano gets harder and harder to understand. After 20 minutes he switches into some french english mumbling.
2) The interviewer asks like a thousand really specific and in my opinion uninteresting questions about foreigners but he fails to ask some critical questions with non-obvious answers.:
E.G: Stephano says he just plays for money and at the same time that he doesn't practice. Why and I'm asking that myself for months is nobody asking him:" WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PRACTICING IF YOU WANT TO WIN MONEY????" On WCS Finals there was a 100 fucking K on the line. Why doesn't he practice to cash in on that. What is he doing if he's not practicing? He's a fulltime progamer. Why is he not practicing for fuckin sake?
3) To many questions about far too few topics. No questions whatsoever about:
1) How he's feeling with EG as a new team. Advantages/Disadvantages, atmosphere/mood, whether his recent decline in skill is related to the switch or not, the 12 year old abuse etc.
2) What's he planning on doing afterwards
3) Anything about the "Starcraft is dying" Story and what he thinks about LoL and Dota, etc.
4) his thoughts on HOTS obviously, balance and unit design choices etc.
How come there is no time to ask any of these questions in a 45 minute interview?
I'm a pretty big fan of Stephano and I really want to know the answer to 2). His apparent lack of practice does not make any sense at all if he wants to win money. I've paid attention to the activity on his accounts and what he says about practice in his tweets and interviews and they're consistent with one another so it doesn't seem he's lying about not practicing, which means I guess he's incredibly lazy or somewhat irrational.
As to 4), IIRC, he said HoTS was shit at some point because the units were imbalanced, which is a pretty silly criticism (although not inaccurate) given he was playing it when the beta was released.
He did answer question #2. The game isn't fun. Would you do something for hours on end if you didn't like it?
What don't you understand about the disconnect between wanting to make money and not practicing? He clearly is not maximizing his earnings. With just a modicum of effort he could earn more. Here are some recent results from Stephano (who until a couple months ago was probably the most consistently high performing SC2 player around), which well illustrate the fact that he needs to practice and that his lack of practice is hurting his bottom line: He was stomped 4-0 by Lucifron (stim to the win), lost a series against TT1 (in NASL and now he's not qualified for the playoffs) (in one of the games he had a lead, teched to blord infestor on metropolis and still lost -- I can't imagine a more humiliating loss), looked in general not like himself at DH and got 2-0'd by Fraer, lost 2-0 to Idra in a tournament with a ton of foreigners and Korean protoss in it (and 100000K on the line). If he didn't care about money then not practicing makes perhaps some sense because he doesn't care about anything. But he does care about money so he's either irrational or extremely lazy. Nearly no one likes work but you do it anyway.
Also as an aside Stephano even when he practiced never practiced "hours on end". He would practice 3 hours usually. When he streamed he'd practice 4-5 hours and there was a one or two week period when he was in Korea where he was playing 8 hours a day. 3 hours a day is an extremely minimal commitment for anyone in any discipline I'm aware of (including esports) who effectively makes a living from that discipline (music, fighting, basketball, baseball, chess, etc.).
The amount you stream doesnt equal the amount he puts into the game or plays off stream. He uses that no training or practicing facade to get into his opponents heads. He is just saying things but in reality he probably does put forth the effort and all to try to win games, sometimes you just get into a slump
What are you basing your conviction that he actually practices on? Because I've been following Stephano's career since the IPL qualifiers. I've watched his accounts; when he says he's not pracitcing, he's not practicing. No one has ever identified a smurf account that could be his. In the EU it's easy to spot since it would presumably have a very high win rate. One or two were suggested (Tentaculat) but replays were found and the hotkey set up was different so it wasn't him. It's possible he's just playing loads of custom games against other pros on a smurf account and those pros are refusing to divulge that fact that he's secretly toiling non-stop, but that's preposterous.
Bling has confirmed that he doesn't practice and so has Rotterdam (when they've been around him). Even when Stephano goes to Korea supposedly to train, there are usually one or two days where he plays a lot and then a bunch of days where he doesn't play at all or only plays 5 or so games. Until about three or so months ago, he was practicing somewhat regularly; now the only time he plays is in tournaments and his play lately as I describe above is to put it mildly not inspirational for someone who was a top 3 zerg.
I'm really surprised EG didn't require Stephano to stream regularly since their sponsors' names are on the overlays. I honestly don't know how they make any money from Stephano; he doesn't even robotically repeat the sponsors' names like the rest of EG does and now he's, for the first time, actually starting to play badly and not make it into tournaments (NASL, e.g.). Perhaps having a big salary has sapped him of some of his motivation to train.
On November 28 2012 18:45 Penev wrote: I've never realized just how lazy Stephano seems to be... He doesn't want to do GSL because he doesn't want to put in the work of researching his opponents and there isn't enough money in it. I used to love this guy, now I'm just like, meh.
I honestly think he truly believes that he is just intellectually superior to everyone else and wants to go out of his way to show how lazy he is because he feels that it makes him seem more like a "natural." I'm not saying he's not, but it's sad how far he goes out of his way to make sure people see how little effort he puts into it. What a douche. Seriously. He'll never fully realize his potential, but whatever.
I think you completely miss the point. He isn't smarter than other players. He's certainly quite gifted but I don't think he's better than TLO/Nerchio/Ret/Scarlett if you look at pure SC2 skills. He just has that great mental strenght that is required in most sports and that allows him to be almost at 100% at every tournament he plays. Idra said it, and Stephano admitting it in an interview doesn't make him a douchebag.
As far as carrer choices go, it's up to him and I don't think we can judge him on that. Him saying GSL would be a bad carrer move because he doesn't feel he can get very far is rather a display of modesty.
Besides that, he DOES practice, just less than others. You can't be a top player by playing 10 games a week.
Umm, he actually probably is smarter than the other players which is why he has massively better results than they do and he has influenced the metagame more than any other foreign, or Korean, zerg. His multitasking, micro and sense of when and where to engage has always been better than pretty much every Zerg, especially TLO and Ret -- that's not even close. His truly exceptional focus, multitasking, map awareness, etc. is why he has gone on legendary ladder runs and even wrecked face when he went to Korea and played on ladder, which no foreigner has come close to doing, especially right away.
Scarlett is very talented and so is Nerchio but Nerchio has always been a notch below Stephano in most aspects of Zerg, and Scarlett needs to play a lot more games against top flight competition before she can even be considered to be in Stephano's league (although the talent is there). At this point Nerchio has probably surpassed him and the top Korean zergs (Life, Leenock and Hyun), I have to say, are playing way, way better than he is, in just about every way imaginable, which until recently was not at all the case. Stephano's effectively been on a three month vacation from Starcraft. If he finds his motivation to practice again he'll be a top 5 zerg; if he trains seriously, he could be the best in the world. If he continues down his current path, the best that he can hope for is that he'll continue to be a top tier foreigner.
On November 28 2012 21:25 Snake.69 wrote: Where is the honor...No respect for the game of the fans... Used to love him but hes a little bit too cocky and disrespectful. I wonder how EG feels about such statements when they pay him a good amount - A contract of close to six figures should have a minimum hours of practice per day required...
He was always like that. How could you love him then?
On November 28 2012 18:45 Penev wrote: I've never realized just how lazy Stephano seems to be... He doesn't want to do GSL because he doesn't want to put in the work of researching his opponents and there isn't enough money in it. I used to love this guy, now I'm just like, meh.
I honestly think he truly believes that he is just intellectually superior to everyone else and wants to go out of his way to show how lazy he is because he feels that it makes him seem more like a "natural." I'm not saying he's not, but it's sad how far he goes out of his way to make sure people see how little effort he puts into it. What a douche. Seriously. He'll never fully realize his potential, but whatever.
I think you completely miss the point. He isn't smarter than other players. He's certainly quite gifted but I don't think he's better than TLO/Nerchio/Ret/Scarlett if you look at pure SC2 skills. He just has that great mental strenght that is required in most sports and that allows him to be almost at 100% at every tournament he plays. Idra said it, and Stephano admitting it in an interview doesn't make him a douchebag.
As far as carrer choices go, it's up to him and I don't think we can judge him on that. Him saying GSL would be a bad carrer move because he doesn't feel he can get very far is rather a display of modesty.
Besides that, he DOES practice, just less than others. You can't be a top player by playing 10 games a week.
in terms of pure SC2 skills, he is way better than TLO, a rank above Ret, I don't know much about Scarlett and Nerchio just has his own aggressive style so it's harder to judge there. TLO is innovative but it often doesn't work out especially against koreans because korean players who play standard are able to deal with weird unexpected builds. Ret's late game control is pretty poor and often plays too greedy imo. Nerchio's aggressive style falls against korean good terrans because it's not easy to play aggressive his way if he doesn't trade efficiently
And besides, Stephano is kinda the first one to refine a build that deals well with most of the toss timings after FFE.
No one ever come close to stephano's minimap awareness, his game 1 in dreamhack against STC has shown us how amazing his mini map awareness is, never missed a single drop.
On November 28 2012 07:46 AbideWithMe wrote: Overall a good interview although there are some major weak points in my opinion:
1) Stephano gets harder and harder to understand. After 20 minutes he switches into some french english mumbling.
2) The interviewer asks like a thousand really specific and in my opinion uninteresting questions about foreigners but he fails to ask some critical questions with non-obvious answers.:
E.G: Stephano says he just plays for money and at the same time that he doesn't practice. Why and I'm asking that myself for months is nobody asking him:" WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU NOT PRACTICING IF YOU WANT TO WIN MONEY????" On WCS Finals there was a 100 fucking K on the line. Why doesn't he practice to cash in on that. What is he doing if he's not practicing? He's a fulltime progamer. Why is he not practicing for fuckin sake?
3) To many questions about far too few topics. No questions whatsoever about:
1) How he's feeling with EG as a new team. Advantages/Disadvantages, atmosphere/mood, whether his recent decline in skill is related to the switch or not, the 12 year old abuse etc.
2) What's he planning on doing afterwards
3) Anything about the "Starcraft is dying" Story and what he thinks about LoL and Dota, etc.
4) his thoughts on HOTS obviously, balance and unit design choices etc.
How come there is no time to ask any of these questions in a 45 minute interview?
I dont see how could people compare Stephano to figures like Agassi, Ronaldinho, TMac etc just to show how much of a genius he is. These athletes played the best of their respective sport and are widely regarded as the best. Meanwhile, Stephano never played the best starcraft in the world and refused to play in the hardest league. Theres nothing to admire about his talent cuz the guy is only a minor leagues player
On November 29 2012 01:44 Arceus wrote: I dont see how could people compare Stephano to figures like Agassi, Ronaldinho, TMac etc just to show how much of a genius he is. These athletes played the best of their respective sport and are widely regarded as the best. Meanwhile, Stephano never played the best starcraft in the world and refused to play in the hardest league. Theres nothing to admire about his talent cuz the guy is only a minor leagues player
rofl
he has beaten players who were supposed to be the best in the world multiple times. he is the only foreigner with over 200.000 $ in prize money. the next best foreigner has not even above 100.000 $. he playes many tournaments around the world with always some of the best players in the world in it. if you play more tournaments your style can be countered more easily because more players can try to adept your style.
but for you he is only a minor league player. trololol wtf is wrong with you guys.
typical Stephano Interview...arrogant as always...
But thank you for putting up such an long interview. Team Acer is really a good source for interviews etc. It seems like they are putting alot of effort into...good stuff
On November 28 2012 07:41 Zheryn wrote: "There is absolutely no fun in playing Starcraft 2 anymore, the only thing that's fun is to win." Can't see Stephano being around that much longer. Probably won't see anything of Stephano in HotS.
I don't think most pros have "fun" playing starcraft. they just want to and have to win.
It's just a job for most pros, which makes it sad.
Blizzard, oh how you have fucked up...
Blizzard is not at fault here, playing the same game, no matter how good it is, everyday for several hours on the same maps is boring as fuck. It's a job and jobs eventually get boring at some point.
Sc2 is just less fun than bw.
fun is all a matter of opinion. In my opinion SC2 is more fun than bw.
and yeah I foresee Stephano falling off the radar pretty soon, I mean, he got knocked out by IdrA of all people at BWC.
Really interesting interview and I guess this answers a lot of questions that community has had especially why it recently looks like Stephano has been "slumping". He likes to play his normal standard, safe, strong strategies and varies those very little and because people know this, he is quite vulnerable to cheese and surprising stuff that is specifically designed to work against his strategy and that is why he can lose even to players considered "worse" than him.
Even though the following is a very simplified example and I'm not saying this is exactly what the situation is with Stephano, I think in principle this is a good way to describe two completely different ways to approach the game and based on the interview I would say that out of these two, Stephano likes to follow Path 1:
PATH 1: Use the strategy that you have determined to be the strongest for each match up + if you are a good player, this probably wins against most players who are not actively trying to counter this specific strategy - loses to opponents who are specifically going for cheesy, risky or otherwise surprising strategies that counter this strategy but would not necessarily be good against some other, 2nd of 3rd best strategy of a good player
PATH 2: Use 2-4 strategies that you have determined to be the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th stongest strategies in each match up and then vary between those strategies + if you are a good player, even if you are using the 4th strongest strategy you might win simply because your opponent is not able to come up with luck, cheese, or blind counter -based strategies that would be the direct counter to your strategy - most of the time when you are not using the strongest strategy you know you are automatically at a disadvantage from the very beginning of the game if your opponent is also good and using the strongest strategy
I think Path 1 is the best option to choose when you are playing random players who do not know you and your playstyle in advance, like on ladder, for example. But for a pro player that is well known and plays in tournaments, Path 2 should overall lead to a better result (assuming that the result is what matters to you).
Again, this is just my opinion and the above is clearly a simplified example but overall I think it pretty well describes two different playstyles and two different ways to approach the game. Path 1 is more aimed at playing the best Starcraft you can and Path 2 is more aimed at showing the best win/loss ratio for a tournament player. I guess it's simply if you want to play the game or the player.
On November 29 2012 01:44 Arceus wrote: I dont see how could people compare Stephano to figures like Agassi, Ronaldinho, TMac etc just to show how much of a genius he is. These athletes played the best of their respective sport and are widely regarded as the best. Meanwhile, Stephano never played the best starcraft in the world and refused to play in the hardest league. Theres nothing to admire about his talent cuz the guy is only a minor leagues player
rofl
he has beaten players who were supposed to be the best in the world multiple times. he is the only foreigner with over 200.000 $ in prize money. the next best foreigner has not even above 100.000 $. he playes many tournaments around the world with always some of the best players in the world in it. if you play more tournaments your style can be countered more easily because more players can try to adept your style.
but for you he is only a minor league player. trololol wtf is wrong with you guys.
All he's ever done is dominate foreigners and go about 50-50 with good koreans on foreign turf. You can't compare the results of foreign tournaments to GSL and now OSL performance. He is a minor leaguer by choice.
On November 29 2012 01:44 Arceus wrote: I dont see how could people compare Stephano to figures like Agassi, Ronaldinho, TMac etc just to show how much of a genius he is. These athletes played the best of their respective sport and are widely regarded as the best. Meanwhile, Stephano never played the best starcraft in the world and refused to play in the hardest league. Theres nothing to admire about his talent cuz the guy is only a minor leagues player
rofl
he has beaten players who were supposed to be the best in the world multiple times. he is the only foreigner with over 200.000 $ in prize money. the next best foreigner has not even above 100.000 $. he playes many tournaments around the world with always some of the best players in the world in it. if you play more tournaments your style can be countered more easily because more players can try to adept your style.
but for you he is only a minor league player. trololol wtf is wrong with you guys.
All he's ever done is dominate foreigners and go about 50-50 with good koreans on foreign turf. You can't compare the results of foreign tournaments to GSL and now OSL performance. He is a minor leaguer by choice.
This exactly.
You'd think that with EG shelling out loads of money for someone like Stephano.. That he would be motivated to be the best possible player and compete and win in the best possible leagues (GSL/OSL).. But he refuses to, even with how much he's making.
And whats this? He doesn't want to compete at GSL because he doesn't think he'll get that far? Ohhh cry me a river baby.
Look at Naniwa.. Did he think he would get that far in GSL? Yet Stephano continues to dodge. The guy has no motivation whatsoever.
This is probably best Stephano interview ever. He seemed relaxed and in the mood for interviewing and the guy asking the questions just fired away one after the other... Beautiful. Thanks !
On November 29 2012 01:44 Arceus wrote: I dont see how could people compare Stephano to figures like Agassi, Ronaldinho, TMac etc just to show how much of a genius he is. These athletes played the best of their respective sport and are widely regarded as the best. Meanwhile, Stephano never played the best starcraft in the world and refused to play in the hardest league. Theres nothing to admire about his talent cuz the guy is only a minor leagues player
rofl
he has beaten players who were supposed to be the best in the world multiple times. he is the only foreigner with over 200.000 $ in prize money. the next best foreigner has not even above 100.000 $. he playes many tournaments around the world with always some of the best players in the world in it. if you play more tournaments your style can be countered more easily because more players can try to adept your style.
but for you he is only a minor league player. trololol wtf is wrong with you guys.
All he's ever done is dominate foreigners and go about 50-50 with good koreans on foreign turf. You can't compare the results of foreign tournaments to GSL and now OSL performance. He is a minor leaguer by choice.
This exactly.
You'd think that with EG shelling out loads of money for someone like Stephano.. That he would be motivated to be the best possible player and compete and win in the best possible leagues (GSL/OSL).. But he refuses to, even with how much he's making.
And whats this? He doesn't want to compete at GSL because he doesn't think he'll get that far? Ohhh cry me a river baby.
Look at Naniwa.. Did he think he would get that far in GSL? Yet Stephano continues to dodge. The guy has no motivation whatsoever.
GSL is great but it's not the holy competition either, like OSL/MSL were in broodwar. The money and the attention is in the US/europe, korea is simply not the mecca of esports like it used to be. I would rather travel all around the world and have my own apartment than stay in korea and sleep in some weird progaming house surrounded by people you can't talk with due to language barrier.
For those of you who'd perhaps like to read an anecdote regarding amount of practice and skill, I currently live with EGSuppy at a house near where we go to school and he, as a full time student at Berkeley who currently holds a 4.0 and is involved in multiple club activities, *barely touches the game* compared to the Koreans and top foreigners against whom he typically performs rather well.
However, his play is meticulously planned, and whenever he has time or shortly before important tournaments, he'll sit down and practice for hours straight, though still nothing compared to the *daily schedule* of Korean progamers.
To all the people raving about Stephano being a "genius" and "hardly practicing," honestly SC2 is easy enough of a game mechanically and mentally that practicing for 10+ hours a day doesn't push skills forward except maybe marginally. Nothing in SC2 approaches the mechanical virtuosity and aptitude demonstrated by Korean S class BW pros, who've mastered every facet of control, who've conditioned themselves to have multiple clocks ticking by the second in their heads, who know every single timing of almost every viable situation in and out.
Honestly, Suppy and Stephano aren't even that special. A lot of the little Korean 14-15 kids that routinely wreck the later stages of Code S, and even win silver and gold titles are *full time secondary school students* subject to Korea's rigorous secondary school class schedule. Some of these little kids like Life, Leenock, Creator, and Maru have even mentioned the impact that going to school full time have had on their practice. Yeah, little kids pick things up very quickly, and there were fewer but existent successful young BW players, and Stephano and Suppy themselves are rather young, but all of these examples just show that many pros have found success with light practice routines.
Didn't watch the interview, but seriously, people who believe the "no practice" BS really need to have their brain checked out. He might not play 10 hours a day like some people do, but when you're on a certain mechanical level, sc2 practice really has quickly diminishing returns. Playing 3-4 fresh/focused hours a day on average should really be considered very decent practice, especially when the metagame is so stable as it has been for ages now.
I play around 50-100 games a season and have been mid masters EU in every season except one when I didn't play. I'm not saying the skill level of mid masters is anywhere near the level of top pros, but a 100 games per season averages probably ~25 minutes of playing per day (which is nowhere near 3-4 hours either).
On November 29 2012 03:39 chenchen wrote: For those of you who'd perhaps like to read an anecdote regarding amount of practice and skill, I currently live with EGSuppy at a house near where we go to school and he, as a full time student at Berkeley who currently holds a 4.0 and is involved in multiple club activities, *barely touches the game* compared to the Koreans and top foreigners against whom he typically performs rather well.
However, his play is meticulously planned, and whenever he has time or shortly before important tournaments, he'll sit down and practice for hours straight, though still nothing compared to the *daily schedule* of Korean progamers.
To all the people raving about Stephano being a "genius" and "hardly practicing," honestly SC2 is easy enough of a game mechanically and mentally that practicing for 10+ hours a day doesn't push skills forward except maybe marginally. Nothing in SC2 approaches the mechanical virtuosity and aptitude demonstrated by Korean S class BW pros, who've mastered every facet of control, who've conditioned themselves to have multiple clocks ticking by the second in their heads, who know every single timing of almost every viable situation in and out.
Honestly, Suppy and Stephano aren't even that special. A lot of the little Korean 14-15 kids that routinely wreck the later stages of Code S, and even win silver and gold titles are *full time secondary school students* subject to Korea's rigorous secondary school class schedule. Some of these little kids like Life, Leenock, Creator, and Maru have even mentioned the impact that going to school full time have had on their practice. Yeah, little kids pick things up very quickly, and there were fewer but existent successful young BW players, and Stephano and Suppy themselves are rather young, but all of these examples just show that many pros have found success with light practice routines.
thats why I think the KeSPA players might push the skill ceiling to a new height. I dont know what it looks like, but players like Bogus has already shown a glimpse of next level control and timing
On November 29 2012 03:39 chenchen wrote: For those of you who'd perhaps like to read an anecdote regarding amount of practice and skill, I currently live with EGSuppy at a house near where we go to school and he, as a full time student at Berkeley who currently holds a 4.0 and is involved in multiple club activities, *barely touches the game* compared to the Koreans and top foreigners against whom he typically performs rather well.
However, his play is meticulously planned, and whenever he has time or shortly before important tournaments, he'll sit down and practice for hours straight, though still nothing compared to the *daily schedule* of Korean progamers.
To all the people raving about Stephano being a "genius" and "hardly practicing," honestly SC2 is easy enough of a game mechanically and mentally that practicing for 10+ hours a day doesn't push skills forward except maybe marginally. Nothing in SC2 approaches the mechanical virtuosity and aptitude demonstrated by Korean S class BW pros, who've mastered every facet of control, who've conditioned themselves to have multiple clocks ticking by the second in their heads, who know every single timing of almost every viable situation in and out.
Honestly, Suppy and Stephano aren't even that special. A lot of the little Korean 14-15 kids that routinely wreck the later stages of Code S, and even win silver and gold titles are *full time secondary school students* subject to Korea's rigorous secondary school class schedule. Some of these little kids like Life, Leenock, Creator, and Maru have even mentioned the impact that going to school full time have had on their practice. Yeah, little kids pick things up very quickly, and there were fewer but existent successful young BW players, and Stephano and Suppy themselves are rather young, but all of these examples just show that many pros have found success with light practice routines.
thats why I think the KeSPA players might push the skill ceiling to a new height. I dont know what it looks like, but players like Bogus has already shown a glimpse of next level control and timing
no matter how good a player is, randomness still exists in SC2 where a inferior player who practices 2 hours a day will have a shot against a player who practices 12 hours a day because they chose the right "strategy".
On November 29 2012 03:39 chenchen wrote: For those of you who'd perhaps like to read an anecdote regarding amount of practice and skill, I currently live with EGSuppy at a house near where we go to school and he, as a full time student at Berkeley who currently holds a 4.0 and is involved in multiple club activities, *barely touches the game* compared to the Koreans and top foreigners against whom he typically performs rather well.
However, his play is meticulously planned, and whenever he has time or shortly before important tournaments, he'll sit down and practice for hours straight, though still nothing compared to the *daily schedule* of Korean progamers.
To all the people raving about Stephano being a "genius" and "hardly practicing," honestly SC2 is easy enough of a game mechanically and mentally that practicing for 10+ hours a day doesn't push skills forward except maybe marginally. Nothing in SC2 approaches the mechanical virtuosity and aptitude demonstrated by Korean S class BW pros, who've mastered every facet of control, who've conditioned themselves to have multiple clocks ticking by the second in their heads, who know every single timing of almost every viable situation in and out.
Honestly, Suppy and Stephano aren't even that special. A lot of the little Korean 14-15 kids that routinely wreck the later stages of Code S, and even win silver and gold titles are *full time secondary school students* subject to Korea's rigorous secondary school class schedule. Some of these little kids like Life, Leenock, Creator, and Maru have even mentioned the impact that going to school full time have had on their practice. Yeah, little kids pick things up very quickly, and there were fewer but existent successful young BW players, and Stephano and Suppy themselves are rather young, but all of these examples just show that many pros have found success with light practice routines.
thats why I think the KeSPA players might push the skill ceiling to a new height. I dont know what it looks like, but players like Bogus has already shown a glimpse of next level control and timing
no matter how good a player is, randomness still exists in SC2 where a inferior player who practices 2 hours a day will have a shot against a player who practices 12 hours a day because they chose the right "strategy".
it's only random if you don't scout or don't plan ahead i.e.
sees Protoss taking two gases early, but blows all orbital energy on mules and not building an engi bay, then rage quits when gets hit by DT
On November 29 2012 03:31 Lukeeze[zR] wrote: GSL is great but it's not the holy competition either, like OSL/MSL were in broodwar. The money and the attention is in the US/europe, korea is simply not the mecca of esports like it used to be. I would rather travel all around the world and have my own apartment than stay in korea and sleep in some weird progaming house surrounded by people you can't talk with due to language barrier.
I'd highly disagree. GSL is the holy grail of competition in SC2, especially for a foreigner. Any foreigner who makes it to Ro8 of GSL will get far far more attention than a Ro8 at any other tournament.
Is it just me or does it seem that the vast majority of these players who perform very well on relatively little practice are all Zerg players? I really think there is a connection here because you can get away as Zerg by simply playing standard and reacting to your opponent every single game due to the larve mechanic and they superiority in the late game.
Compare that to Protoss and Terran where they have to learn multiple openings, aggressive timings, etc. to keep opponents guessing, and it would be no surprise if Protoss and Terran required more practice to perform at the highest levels.
I've never really been a fan of stephano myself, though I do like how he doesn't really put on a facade to the public and just tells things how he sees them in interviews. People seem to have latched onto him as the foreign-hope or whatever but I really do not think he will survive the meta shift when HotS comes out due. People who think Stephano would do well in GSL is clearly not thinking straight. The format structure for the GSL would destroy him as people would gameplan against his style to the n'th degree and he has said so himself multiple times.
On November 29 2012 03:39 chenchen wrote: For those of you who'd perhaps like to read an anecdote regarding amount of practice and skill, I currently live with EGSuppy at a house near where we go to school and he, as a full time student at Berkeley who currently holds a 4.0 and is involved in multiple club activities, *barely touches the game* compared to the Koreans and top foreigners against whom he typically performs rather well.
However, his play is meticulously planned, and whenever he has time or shortly before important tournaments, he'll sit down and practice for hours straight, though still nothing compared to the *daily schedule* of Korean progamers.
To all the people raving about Stephano being a "genius" and "hardly practicing," honestly SC2 is easy enough of a game mechanically and mentally that practicing for 10+ hours a day doesn't push skills forward except maybe marginally. Nothing in SC2 approaches the mechanical virtuosity and aptitude demonstrated by Korean S class BW pros, who've mastered every facet of control, who've conditioned themselves to have multiple clocks ticking by the second in their heads, who know every single timing of almost every viable situation in and out.
Honestly, Suppy and Stephano aren't even that special. A lot of the little Korean 14-15 kids that routinely wreck the later stages of Code S, and even win silver and gold titles are *full time secondary school students* subject to Korea's rigorous secondary school class schedule. Some of these little kids like Life, Leenock, Creator, and Maru have even mentioned the impact that going to school full time have had on their practice. Yeah, little kids pick things up very quickly, and there were fewer but existent successful young BW players, and Stephano and Suppy themselves are rather young, but all of these examples just show that many pros have found success with light practice routines.
To me, Stephano is interesting because he had a lax practice routine, even at its peak, and still accomplished just as much as the very best Korean pros and at present he's not practicing at all, even prior to important tournaments, yet until very recently he's still been doing better than just about everyone in the world. I'm sure there are a lot of EU and NA pros who play even less than 3 hours a day (like Suppy if your post is to be believed), but who cares about them? They've accomplished as a group absolutely nothing of note, and anyone who brags about how little he practices when he's not winning any tournaments or accomplishing anything important is a clown. With Stephano it's forgivable because the guy shows up and wins, and is clearly usually the most talented guy in the room.
I don't know how much Creator, Life and Leenock practice habits but school, unless you're trying to graduate early, have a job or a shit load of activities and extremely difficult class load, is not that time intensive and you always have the weekends free. If you're OK with a busy schedule, going to school should not be too much of a chore and you should have tons of down time, even if you're taking school seriously. Also, Life didn't have his break out until he joined Startale and started buckling down. Until that point he was just an inconsistent fringe Code A player with lots of talent. From interviews, Creator seems very serious so I imagine his work ethic eclipses the EU / NA work ethic, which of course is in general a joke (at least when it comes to e-sports), but I'm just speculating. I have no idea what Leenock does for practice.
Also, I think SC2 does require a fair amount of practice at the very highest levels. The KESPA pros are already showing better mechanics in certain aspects of the game -- Flash's 2-2 pushes already look as good if not better than Bomber's (faster with more stuff), SoO's creep spread is the best in the game, etc. If the KESPA pros generally eclipse the ESF pros (which is happening at a reasonable clip given that they just started playing) that will be a strong argument that SC2 in fact does require a tremendous amount of practice in order to excel at it.
On November 28 2012 18:45 Penev wrote: I've never realized just how lazy Stephano seems to be... He doesn't want to do GSL because he doesn't want to put in the work of researching his opponents and there isn't enough money in it. I used to love this guy, now I'm just like, meh.
I honestly think he truly believes that he is just intellectually superior to everyone else and wants to go out of his way to show how lazy he is because he feels that it makes him seem more like a "natural." I'm not saying he's not, but it's sad how far he goes out of his way to make sure people see how little effort he puts into it. What a douche. Seriously. He'll never fully realize his potential, but whatever.
I think you completely miss the point. He isn't smarter than other players. He's certainly quite gifted but I don't think he's better than TLO/Nerchio/Ret/Scarlett if you look at pure SC2 skills. He just has that great mental strenght that is required in most sports and that allows him to be almost at 100% at every tournament he plays. Idra said it, and Stephano admitting it in an interview doesn't make him a douchebag.
As far as carrer choices go, it's up to him and I don't think we can judge him on that. Him saying GSL would be a bad carrer move because he doesn't feel he can get very far is rather a display of modesty.
Besides that, he DOES practice, just less than others. You can't be a top player by playing 10 games a week.
in terms of pure SC2 skills, he is way better than TLO, a rank above Ret, I don't know much about Scarlett and Nerchio just has his own aggressive style so it's harder to judge there. TLO is innovative but it often doesn't work out especially against koreans because korean players who play standard are able to deal with weird unexpected builds. Ret's late game control is pretty poor and often plays too greedy imo. Nerchio's aggressive style falls against korean good terrans because it's not easy to play aggressive his way if he doesn't trade efficiently
And besides, Stephano is kinda the first one to refine a build that deals well with most of the toss timings after FFE.
No one ever come close to stephano's minimap awareness, his game 1 in dreamhack against STC has shown us how amazing his mini map awareness is, never missed a single drop.
I should have added that he's one of those players who managed to have a complete grasp of a certain period of the metagame. His builds have been part of his early success and yes he does have excellent map control but I don't think he's that much more skilled / talented.
What makes the difference imho is mental strengh and consistency. If you watched TLO's stream in korea he was competing no problem against top 30 GM players but his decision making can get shaken easily in big tournaments (look at his last series vs Nerchio game1). Same goes with Ret and his inconsistency despite being one of the most talented players. In his MLG interview Idra himself said that Stephano wasn't playing exceptionnaly well lately, he is just incredibly clutch in competition.
On November 29 2012 01:44 Arceus wrote: I dont see how could people compare Stephano to figures like Agassi, Ronaldinho, TMac etc just to show how much of a genius he is. These athletes played the best of their respective sport and are widely regarded as the best. Meanwhile, Stephano never played the best starcraft in the world and refused to play in the hardest league. Theres nothing to admire about his talent cuz the guy is only a minor leagues player
rofl
he has beaten players who were supposed to be the best in the world multiple times. he is the only foreigner with over 200.000 $ in prize money. the next best foreigner has not even above 100.000 $. he playes many tournaments around the world with always some of the best players in the world in it. if you play more tournaments your style can be countered more easily because more players can try to adept your style.
but for you he is only a minor league player. trololol wtf is wrong with you guys.
All he's ever done is dominate foreigners and go about 50-50 with good koreans on foreign turf. You can't compare the results of foreign tournaments to GSL and now OSL performance. He is a minor leaguer by choice.
This exactly.
You'd think that with EG shelling out loads of money for someone like Stephano.. That he would be motivated to be the best possible player and compete and win in the best possible leagues (GSL/OSL).. But he refuses to, even with how much he's making.
And whats this? He doesn't want to compete at GSL because he doesn't think he'll get that far? Ohhh cry me a river baby.
Look at Naniwa.. Did he think he would get that far in GSL? Yet Stephano continues to dodge. The guy has no motivation whatsoever.
Quite a lot of people lose their motivation (or hunger if you will) once they're comfortable. A huge EG salary and non-gaming responsibilities make things more comfortable regardless of results. So does fame/notoriety. Look at how many GSL runner-ups just disappeared? Hell, look at Fruitdealer, everyone knew he basically started coasting after the open seasons (no matter what he said in interviews). Top also admitted to just being happy with how well he did and let his condition call off (I think it was Top; it might have been another runner-ups).
Speaking of dodging the GSL compared to Naniwa... has Stephano agreed to play Naniwa yet? Or does 'stuff keep coming up'.
On November 29 2012 03:39 chenchen wrote: For those of you who'd perhaps like to read an anecdote regarding amount of practice and skill, I currently live with EGSuppy at a house near where we go to school and he, as a full time student at Berkeley who currently holds a 4.0 and is involved in multiple club activities, *barely touches the game* compared to the Koreans and top foreigners against whom he typically performs rather well.
However, his play is meticulously planned, and whenever he has time or shortly before important tournaments, he'll sit down and practice for hours straight, though still nothing compared to the *daily schedule* of Korean progamers.
To all the people raving about Stephano being a "genius" and "hardly practicing," honestly SC2 is easy enough of a game mechanically and mentally that practicing for 10+ hours a day doesn't push skills forward except maybe marginally. Nothing in SC2 approaches the mechanical virtuosity and aptitude demonstrated by Korean S class BW pros, who've mastered every facet of control, who've conditioned themselves to have multiple clocks ticking by the second in their heads, who know every single timing of almost every viable situation in and out.
Honestly, Suppy and Stephano aren't even that special. A lot of the little Korean 14-15 kids that routinely wreck the later stages of Code S, and even win silver and gold titles are *full time secondary school students* subject to Korea's rigorous secondary school class schedule. Some of these little kids like Life, Leenock, Creator, and Maru have even mentioned the impact that going to school full time have had on their practice. Yeah, little kids pick things up very quickly, and there were fewer but existent successful young BW players, and Stephano and Suppy themselves are rather young, but all of these examples just show that many pros have found success with light practice routines.
To me, Stephano is interesting because he had a lax practice routine, even at its peak, and still accomplished just as much as the very best Korean pros and at present he's not practicing at all, even prior to important tournaments, yet until very recently he's still been doing better than just about everyone in the world. I'm sure there are a lot of EU and NA pros who play even less than 3 hours a day (like Suppy if your post is to be believed), but who cares about them? They've accomplished as a group absolutely nothing of note, and anyone who brags about how little he practices when he's not winning any tournaments or accomplishing anything important is a clown. With Stephano it's forgivable because the guy shows up and wins, and is clearly usually the most talented guy in the room.
I don't know how much Creator, Life and Leenock practice habits but school, unless you're trying to graduate early, have a job or a shit load of activities and extremely difficult class load, is not that time intensive and you always have the weekends free. If you're OK with a busy schedule, going to school should not be too much of a chore and you should have tons of down time, even if you're taking school seriously. Also, Life didn't have his break out until he joined Startale and started buckling down. Until that point he was just an inconsistent fringe Code A player with lots of talent. From interviews, Creator seems very serious so I imagine his work ethic eclipses the EU / NA work ethic, which of course is in general a joke (at least when it comes to e-sports), but I'm just speculating. I have no idea what Leenock does for practice.
Also, I think SC2 does require a fair amount of practice at the very highest levels. The KESPA pros are already showing better mechanics in certain aspects of the game -- Flash's 2-2 pushes already look as good if not better than Bomber's (faster with more stuff), SoO's creep spread is the best in the game, etc. If the KESPA pros generally eclipse the ESF pros (which is happening at a reasonable clip given that they just started playing) that will be a strong argument that SC2 in fact does require a tremendous amount of practice in order to excel at it.
Korean schools are not like the American schools. In American schools you stay for 8 hours, in korean school you can stay at school far longer than 8 hours a day.
On November 29 2012 03:39 chenchen wrote: For those of you who'd perhaps like to read an anecdote regarding amount of practice and skill, I currently live with EGSuppy at a house near where we go to school and he, as a full time student at Berkeley who currently holds a 4.0 and is involved in multiple club activities, *barely touches the game* compared to the Koreans and top foreigners against whom he typically performs rather well.
However, his play is meticulously planned, and whenever he has time or shortly before important tournaments, he'll sit down and practice for hours straight, though still nothing compared to the *daily schedule* of Korean progamers.
To all the people raving about Stephano being a "genius" and "hardly practicing," honestly SC2 is easy enough of a game mechanically and mentally that practicing for 10+ hours a day doesn't push skills forward except maybe marginally. Nothing in SC2 approaches the mechanical virtuosity and aptitude demonstrated by Korean S class BW pros, who've mastered every facet of control, who've conditioned themselves to have multiple clocks ticking by the second in their heads, who know every single timing of almost every viable situation in and out.
Honestly, Suppy and Stephano aren't even that special. A lot of the little Korean 14-15 kids that routinely wreck the later stages of Code S, and even win silver and gold titles are *full time secondary school students* subject to Korea's rigorous secondary school class schedule. Some of these little kids like Life, Leenock, Creator, and Maru have even mentioned the impact that going to school full time have had on their practice. Yeah, little kids pick things up very quickly, and there were fewer but existent successful young BW players, and Stephano and Suppy themselves are rather young, but all of these examples just show that many pros have found success with light practice routines.
thats why I think the KeSPA players might push the skill ceiling to a new height. I dont know what it looks like, but players like Bogus has already shown a glimpse of next level control and timing
no matter how good a player is, randomness still exists in SC2 where a inferior player who practices 2 hours a day will have a shot against a player who practices 12 hours a day because they chose the right "strategy".
it's not randomness either when both players know (sometimes roughly) what is possible from certain play and certain races; lots of players choose to take a risk and cut corners regardless.
for a long time in the sc1 pro-scene, the average game length was under 16-20 minutes. many games were a battle of 2 base vs 2 base and finding a way to secure a third base while hurting the opponent's chances at having an expansion. some players were especially strong in certain matchups yet their overall winrate would settle just above 50%. this was considered the norm for a good player. the randomness that comes in may be the condition and mentality of the player, as both are trying to maintain a level of control within the game.
as a seperate note, you should recognize how obviously biased some maps were in the BW map-pool.
just like stephano says, foreign events are usually weekend events that happen over 2-3 days where you play several games at the venue.. only to do so again the next day.
you could say that there are always random factors present that open opportunities to lesser skilled players, but i would not describe the dedication and determination that's possible of a player as random. chance or not, you have to win as a player. nothing will ever be perfectly balanced when starcraft is involved.
On November 28 2012 21:25 Snake.69 wrote: Where is the honor...No respect for the game of the fans... Used to love him but hes a little bit too cocky and disrespectful. I wonder how EG feels about such statements when they pay him a good amount - A contract of close to six figures should have a minimum hours of practice per day required...
honor? such a feeble human emotion. he's just playing a game. he openly stated its for the money to do other things, its not really such a surprising thing. i would argue it is better to be have a more emotionally detached approach to the game.
On November 28 2012 21:25 Snake.69 wrote: Where is the honor...No respect for the game of the fans... Used to love him but hes a little bit too cocky and disrespectful. I wonder how EG feels about such statements when they pay him a good amount - A contract of close to six figures should have a minimum hours of practice per day required...
"if the zergs do a little mistake they can still come back in the game" unlike other races, do u remember Idra's quote? "zerg is no a come back race" well it wasn't because of the maps... I guess...
isn't terran the hardest race to play? "with decent apm and good micro you can make your opponent crazy with drops at multiple locations" but he also said that he's good at watching minimap, and drops doesn't work on him... Well still stuff like reverse race tournaments or fun match switching races... I still see main terran players winning over non mainly terran players... Also few/many (achieved) terran programers said that terran was harder or weaker! Nahhhhhhhh Stephano I saw you losing few times vs Demuslim switching races!!!!
"Defending is harder than attacking" I still remember Stephano saying that : if his opponent would have split A LITTLE BIT his army... he would have been able to defend his attacks Which means Stephano or Zergs? Can split their armies to defend multiple front attacks x'))
"Zerg is like 30% skill, 70% strategy" well... When you can see all what your opponent is doing you can go to the Hive strategy I guess
On November 28 2012 21:25 Snake.69 wrote: Where is the honor...No respect for the game of the fans... Used to love him but hes a little bit too cocky and disrespectful. I wonder how EG feels about such statements when they pay him a good amount - A contract of close to six figures should have a minimum hours of practice per day required...
On November 29 2012 01:44 Arceus wrote: I dont see how could people compare Stephano to figures like Agassi, Ronaldinho, TMac etc just to show how much of a genius he is. These athletes played the best of their respective sport and are widely regarded as the best. Meanwhile, Stephano never played the best starcraft in the world and refused to play in the hardest league. Theres nothing to admire about his talent cuz the guy is only a minor leagues player
rofl
he has beaten players who were supposed to be the best in the world multiple times. he is the only foreigner with over 200.000 $ in prize money. the next best foreigner has not even above 100.000 $. he playes many tournaments around the world with always some of the best players in the world in it. if you play more tournaments your style can be countered more easily because more players can try to adept your style.
but for you he is only a minor league player. trololol wtf is wrong with you guys.
All he's ever done is dominate foreigners and go about 50-50 with good koreans on foreign turf. You can't compare the results of foreign tournaments to GSL and now OSL performance. He is a minor leaguer by choice.
He isn't dodging koreans. He is a PROgamer and he does his job. It's koreans like nestea and mvp who choose not to attend foreign tournaments. Not to mention that if you listened to this interview you would realize that GSL and say MLG is a completely different tournament. Like regular chess matches and blitz. Also Seed, jjakji.
On November 29 2012 07:08 tns wrote: I'll take in note :
"if the zergs do a little mistake they can still come back in the game" unlike other races, do u remember Idra's quote? "zerg is no a come back race" well it wasn't because of the maps... I guess...
isn't terran the hardest race to play? "with decent apm and good micro you can make your opponent crazy with drops at multiple locations" but he also said that he's good at watching minimap, and drops doesn't work on him... Well still stuff like reverse race tournaments or fun match switching races... I still see main terran players winning over non mainly terran players... Also few/many (achieved) terran programers said that terran was harder or weaker! Nahhhhhhhh Stephano I saw you losing few times vs Demuslim switching races!!!!
"Defending is harder than attacking" I still remember Stephano saying that : if his opponent would have split A LITTLE BIT his army... he would have been able to defend his attacks Which means Stephano or Zergs? Can split their armies to defend multiple front attacks x'))
"Zerg is like 30% skill, 70% strategy" well... When you can see all what your opponent is doing you can go to the Hive strategy I guess
On November 29 2012 01:44 Arceus wrote: I dont see how could people compare Stephano to figures like Agassi, Ronaldinho, TMac etc just to show how much of a genius he is. These athletes played the best of their respective sport and are widely regarded as the best. Meanwhile, Stephano never played the best starcraft in the world and refused to play in the hardest league. Theres nothing to admire about his talent cuz the guy is only a minor leagues player
rofl
he has beaten players who were supposed to be the best in the world multiple times. he is the only foreigner with over 200.000 $ in prize money. the next best foreigner has not even above 100.000 $. he playes many tournaments around the world with always some of the best players in the world in it. if you play more tournaments your style can be countered more easily because more players can try to adept your style.
but for you he is only a minor league player. trololol wtf is wrong with you guys.
All he's ever done is dominate foreigners and go about 50-50 with good koreans on foreign turf. You can't compare the results of foreign tournaments to GSL and now OSL performance. He is a minor leaguer by choice.
He isn't dodging koreans. He is a PROgamer and he does his job. It's koreans like nestea and mvp who choose not to attend foreign tournaments. Not to mention that if you listened to this interview you would realize that GSL and say MLG is a completely different tournament. Like regular chess matches and blitz. Also Seed, jjakji.
You do realise that MVP already has an MLG championship, WCG Championship and IEM championship? Nestea has been to a few MLG's too.
On November 29 2012 07:08 tns wrote: I'll take in note :
"if the zergs do a little mistake they can still come back in the game" unlike other races, do u remember Idra's quote? "zerg is no a come back race" well it wasn't because of the maps... I guess...
isn't terran the hardest race to play? "with decent apm and good micro you can make your opponent crazy with drops at multiple locations" but he also said that he's good at watching minimap, and drops doesn't work on him... Well still stuff like reverse race tournaments or fun match switching races... I still see main terran players winning over non mainly terran players... Also few/many (achieved) terran programers said that terran was harder or weaker! Nahhhhhhhh Stephano I saw you losing few times vs Demuslim switching races!!!!
"Defending is harder than attacking" I still remember Stephano saying that : if his opponent would have split A LITTLE BIT his army... he would have been able to defend his attacks Which means Stephano or Zergs? Can split their armies to defend multiple front attacks x'))
"Zerg is like 30% skill, 70% strategy" well... When you can see all what your opponent is doing you can go to the Hive strategy I guess
Ayaaaaaaa!!
dude, the drops from marine king are the worst kind of harassing a player can imagen. I still remember the games, adn they were horrible to watch.
Even though he sees all the dropships when mk uses them they still do damage somehow. (or he has a few tactics he executes while stephano has to defend) etc. what foreigners can't pull of due to lack in training (skill & micro).
On November 29 2012 18:22 FuzZyLogic wrote: He never said he doesn't practice, they were only addressing that specific tourney where he didn't practice due to vacation etc..
Also, I doubt any pros have fun playing sc2.. Most ladder players don't have fun so try doing it stressed out for 8 hours a day..
I very much doubt that pros feel stressed out when practicing on ladder. Ladder anxiety is something more casual players experience, but pros certainly don't. If anything, practicing 8 hours a day, every day, is tedious but not stressful.
"Patch-zergs" existing could also mean that those players were already as good as many of the other races and suddenly storm out because of the improvement of the race. This argument should have died out many months ago. I'm pretty sure Nerchio is right about Stephano's plan too.
On November 28 2012 09:17 rogiebearassasin wrote: I'm not quiet sure how to begin this post I believe the zerg army is quite inferior in the overall scheme of things. There scouts armory has a lot.of.chinks in it,a little inside rumour dragons in the new expansion (read it a don ragu interview) who caught the latest episode of.gsl I thought the strategies of all.major players was pitiful. What do u guys think
On November 29 2012 18:22 FuzZyLogic wrote: He never said he doesn't practice, they were only addressing that specific tourney where he didn't practice due to vacation etc..
Also, I doubt any pros have fun playing sc2.. Most ladder players don't have fun so try doing it stressed out for 8 hours a day..
I very much doubt that pros feel stressed out when practicing on ladder. Ladder anxiety is something more casual players experience, but pros certainly don't. If anything, practicing 8 hours a day, every day, is tedious but not stressful.
Sorry, my post wasn't very clear. Obviously they don't get stressed on ladder as it doesn't matter, more talking about the stress of staying relevant and placing well in tourneys with so many talented players in such a volatile game.
such a long, interesting interview with many good questions and this thread is mostly just filled with fighting and hate, wtf happened to this community thanks thorin
I don't see what the big deal is really. If he doesn't practice, then he doesn't practice. If he practices...he practices. =X...As long as he's doing well. It's more a shame when a player like Stork (in BW) was losing because he was spending more time playing WoW and cell-phone games =X
A big part of zerg success is understanding the other races' timings to the point where 1 base and a lot of 2 base play is no longer effective, and the realization that you can do run-bys and have infestors as support units, and that T3 is actually viable, etc. Zerg was underpowered for the first 75% of the game's lifespan, and so the players had to adjust. Terrans have been content to use T1 balls up till now, so they are slow to catch up and learn about the rest of the game.
On November 30 2012 11:20 jdsowa wrote: A big part of zerg success is understanding the other races' timings to the point where 1 base and a lot of 2 base play is no longer effective, and the realization that you can do run-bys and have infestors as support units, and that T3 is actually viable, etc. Zerg was underpowered for the first 30% of the game's lifespan, and so the players had to adjust.
False. Zergs start doing better because they cried and got buffs to the point of imbalancedness. That is not "adjusting"; it's taking advantage of an infestor that counters every unit in the game.
On November 30 2012 11:20 jdsowa wrote: Terrans have been content to use T1 balls up till now, so they are slow to catch up and learn about the rest of the game.
Faulty generalization. Terran "T3" options have been exhausted to the point of a used pornstar state. The problem isn't with Terrans not "catching up", but with Zergs having it too easy. Why do you think that Stephano agrees that Patch Zergs exist? Blizzard tends to agree which is why there's a balance map out.
Not many players would give such in depth interviews 30 minutes after being eliminated from a major tournament. Imagine trying that with Naniwa or Idra!
On November 29 2012 01:44 Arceus wrote: I dont see how could people compare Stephano to figures like Agassi, Ronaldinho, TMac etc just to show how much of a genius he is. These athletes played the best of their respective sport and are widely regarded as the best. Meanwhile, Stephano never played the best starcraft in the world and refused to play in the hardest league. Theres nothing to admire about his talent cuz the guy is only a minor leagues player
rofl
he has beaten players who were supposed to be the best in the world multiple times. he is the only foreigner with over 200.000 $ in prize money. the next best foreigner has not even above 100.000 $. he playes many tournaments around the world with always some of the best players in the world in it. if you play more tournaments your style can be countered more easily because more players can try to adept your style.
but for you he is only a minor league player. trololol wtf is wrong with you guys.
All he's ever done is dominate foreigners and go about 50-50 with good koreans on foreign turf. You can't compare the results of foreign tournaments to GSL and now OSL performance. He is a minor leaguer by choice.
He isn't dodging koreans. He is a PROgamer and he does his job. It's koreans like nestea and mvp who choose not to attend foreign tournaments. Not to mention that if you listened to this interview you would realize that GSL and say MLG is a completely different tournament. Like regular chess matches and blitz. Also Seed, jjakji.
You do realise that MVP already has an MLG championship, WCG Championship and IEM championship? Nestea has been to a few MLG's too.
Indeed, this post triggered my memory and guess what?
Every GSL Champion has competed in a foreign lan! Yes, Fruitdealer went to NYC for an IEM back in the day. The only one who's come close to missing is Jjakji, who only made it to IPL 4 b/c his trip was free.
Even some of the more relevant runner-ups have been to plenty of foreign tournaments - MKP, Leenock, Squirtle, Losira...
Nestea who has the perception of never leaving Korea has been to MLG (twice), IEM, Blizzcon, Iron Squid (also twice) *and* IPL!
On December 01 2012 15:27 Fliparoni wrote: So how did Stephano get knocked out of IPL?
By joining EG... Seriously though, I have a feeling he's overworking himself internationally these days. This tends to happen with foreigner stars. They travel a bit too much and it starts killing their own play.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vOq3N.png)
Stephano" Satouri is the star of the 14th episode of my 'Grilled' interview feature.
MaNa and 
