You have advanced to Code S for the fifth time in a row. How do you feel?
I wasn't supposed to be in Up and Downs in the first place. Code S is where I belong.
What made you think you belong in Code S
I believe in my own skill and my confidence is at an all time high.
How did you prepare once you saw your group?
Same as usual. Mostly on ladder and alongside Proleague at the same time.
Speaking of Proleague, is it not difficult to be in multiple leagues simultaneously?
Having to come to Seoul twice a week is physically draining
Why not move into the team house?
Personally, I don't like being around too many people. It's still easier to play from home.
Did you expect to come first in the group?
I expected at least second place. I expected either Squirtle or Dream to be the other player to make it out. Squirtle has always been good and after seeing Dream take out Rain, I predicted he would take second or third place. .
Almost all your games were macro oriented
I didn't feel the need to take a risk. I was confident that I could catch up even if I had a bad start.
You recently won some foreign tournaments. Your best result in GSL on the other hand is round of 4. You must want a championship
Yes and I want it to be this season since it's the last season for Wings of Liberty.Starting 2013 with a championship will make it easier to prepare for HotS.
Just like yourself, many see a lot of meaning in doing well this season. On the other hand, some are preparing for HotS so which are you?
HotS doesn't sit right with me. The other two races got fun toys to play with but Terran hasn't changed much at all. It's like the reaper is the only thing that did get buffed. TvT is even more annoying now. Widow mine is good in TvZ but useless in TvP. I guess the Medivac buff is helpful in that matchup.
Anything to add?
We face off against SKT1 tomorrow in Proleague. Please cheer me on as I try to take down Rain. I want to thank Twitch, Razer, theLittleappfactory and Barracuda for their sponsorships.
You have advanced to Code S for the fifth time in a row. How do you feel?.
This is the last season for Wings of Liberty so it means that much more to be back in Code S. I find the fact that this is the last season very meaningful.
Many players share that view
Winning the very last season is an attractive concept to all.
How did you prepare for today's group?
Rather than trying to figure out my opponents, I worked on my own play. I spent time improving my fundamentals and optimising builds.
Any memorable games from today?
The last game I played. I think it went well because I wasn't under any pressure and I had fun.
Since taking second place in GSL 2012 Season 2, you fell into a slump.
I think I lost motivation. I've always said that I would try to show my best but I'll let my games do the talking this time. I think I got lazy with practice as I got worse too. I've been working hard again since two weeks ago so a little bit more polishing should be enough to get me back into good shape. I think I'm close to being fully back.
Parting who represented your team alongside you as Protosses recently left the team
I was really taken aback since I had no idea he wanted to. Then again, it's understandable. Our team won't be in disarray or anything because of his departure. I was a bit saddened since Parting has been doing so well lately. I guess I'll just have to make up for his absence.
Is there anyone you think is a hindrance or want to take vengeance on?
Parting (laugh). The only time we played each other officialy was at WCG. I want to face him on a GSL stage. It's not because he left the team but because I want a fun match.
Anything to add?
I want to thank the spnosors Redbull and Zowie Gear. I also want to thank my team-mates who helped with practice.
On January 08 2013 01:26 Waxangel wrote: this is like the sixth "I'm practicing harder to get back to where I was" interview from Squirtle I've seen tt
Maybe he fell six places/levels from where he was?
On January 08 2013 01:26 Waxangel wrote: this is like the sixth "I'm practicing harder to get back to where I was" interview from Squirtle I've seen tt
I guess that players run out of new and exciting answers for every single interview after a while.
On January 08 2013 01:26 Waxangel wrote: this is like the sixth "I'm practicing harder to get back to where I was" interview from Squirtle I've seen tt
You tend to run out of things to say when you get interviewed too much, aka win too much.
On January 08 2013 01:26 Waxangel wrote: this is like the sixth "I'm practicing harder to get back to where I was" interview from Squirtle I've seen tt
Maybe he fell six places/levels from where he was?
LoL it would be nice to have an explanation on the ups and downs progamers have while playing in a teamhouse or playing at home. the two scenarios are very different. another thing i always asked myself is how do practice partners work for progamers, if they have some, how do they contact other pros to practice against a particular build or style, if they do...
I feel both Squirtle and Taeja belong in GSL. Squirtle just seems to solid (maybe he wasn't recently though) to not be in Code S, and Taeja - like he says - belongs in Code S.
Both Squirtle and TaeJa are terrible at interviews. TaeJa is always confident and doesn't speak a lot, but will indulge in balance whining if given the opportunity, while Squirtle constantly assures us he will do better in the future ever since his stint of crushed championship dreams. :p
HotS doesn't sit right with me. The other two races got fun toys to play with but Terran hasn't changed much at all. It's like the reaper is the only thing that did get buffed. TvT is even more annoying now. Widow mine is good in TvZ but useless in TvP. I guess the Medivac buff is helpful in that matchup.
Just want to quote this because it's pretty much how most Terrans feel with HotS. It might be some form of 'whining', but I do believe it's justified.
HotS doesn't sit right with me. The other two races got fun toys to play with but Terran hasn't changed much at all. It's like the reaper is the only thing that did get buffed. TvT is even more annoying now. Widow mine is good in TvZ but useless in TvP. I guess the Medivac buff is helpful in that matchup.
Just want to quote this because it's pretty much how most Terrans feel with HotS. It might be some form of 'whining', but I do believe it's justified.
Fully agreed. But as someone else posted above, Blizzard is fine with boring, so I have no expectations... but I wish for once I could be wrong lol
HotS doesn't sit right with me. The other two races got fun toys to play with but Terran hasn't changed much at all. It's like the reaper is the only thing that did get buffed. TvT is even more annoying now. Widow mine is good in TvZ but useless in TvP. I guess the Medivac buff is helpful in that matchup.
Just want to quote this because it's pretty much how most Terrans feel with HotS. It might be some form of 'whining', but I do believe it's justified.
The problem is that Terrans for WoL were designed as a complete race compared to other 2. Blizzard said it themselves it was a mistake on their part.
HotS doesn't sit right with me. The other two races got fun toys to play with but Terran hasn't changed much at all. It's like the reaper is the only thing that did get buffed. TvT is even more annoying now. Widow mine is good in TvZ but useless in TvP. I guess the Medivac buff is helpful in that matchup.
Just want to quote this because it's pretty much how most Terrans feel with HotS. It might be some form of 'whining', but I do believe it's justified.
The problem is that Terrans for WoL were designed as a complete race compared to other 2. Blizzard said it themselves it was a mistake on their part.
Still leaves Terrans with no incentive to buy HotS since it's not very interesting for them.
HotS doesn't sit right with me. The other two races got fun toys to play with but Terran hasn't changed much at all. It's like the reaper is the only thing that did get buffed. TvT is even more annoying now. Widow mine is good in TvZ but useless in TvP. I guess the Medivac buff is helpful in that matchup.
Just want to quote this because it's pretty much how most Terrans feel with HotS. It might be some form of 'whining', but I do believe it's justified.
Fully agreed. But as someone else posted above, Blizzard is fine with boring, so I have no expectations... but I wish for once I could be wrong lol
Eh I don't know about Terran but playing as Zerg in HOTS feels like a completely new race and it is very exciting. Being able to finally use Hydras, Ultralisks and Mutas in all matchups is really fun and the Swarm Host and Viper are cool additions.
HotS doesn't sit right with me. The other two races got fun toys to play with but Terran hasn't changed much at all. It's like the reaper is the only thing that did get buffed. TvT is even more annoying now. Widow mine is good in TvZ but useless in TvP. I guess the Medivac buff is helpful in that matchup.
Just want to quote this because it's pretty much how most Terrans feel with HotS. It might be some form of 'whining', but I do believe it's justified.
I said this before but Blizzard should think about giving Terrans (or any race for that matter) new upgrades too, rather than new units and sometimes new abilities (though so far they removed Ultralisk burrow charge and nerfed Vortex).
Terran should get the Fire Suppression Bots from single player campaign as an upgrade... with two levels! The first level releases two bots, the second releases four bots. (It's more of animation thing, in my custom map I make to screw around with, I managed to make four bots spray a structure at the same time. What I did to make the animation look right was make a second behavior of fire supression bots that had the animation skip 3 seconds in, actually it skipped it's "Begin" or "Born" animation part, and skipped right into the "Stand" or whatever the middle animation was. This made it so the bots were opposition of each other sprayed the structures.)
What they did was when your structures was below 50% or lower, flying bots would put out any fires and heal your structures until they were 50% HP or higher.
Even if it was just changed to putting out fires only and no healing, it'd still be neat.
I say give it to Terran in HotS if only because seeing the bots put out fires is cool IMO.
Coolness factor Blizzard, get it right. You got it right with the single player campaign for WoL (I was pleasantly surprised at everything like the Shrike Turret upgrade for Bunkres, the bots that put out fires, etc... in terms of the shrike turret, I remember doing custom UMS in BW that involved putting a floor trap turret and a bunker in the same location so it looked like the bunker had a turret on it; kudos Blizzard).
On January 08 2013 09:56 Zozma wrote: To be fair, based on what Artosis says here, Terran would have had the Warhound if the community hadn't flipped out about it.
The warhound needed serious rework (kinda like oracles and MSC), but not removal. It was fucking obvious, they just gave up.
HotS doesn't sit right with me. The other two races got fun toys to play with but Terran hasn't changed much at all. It's like the reaper is the only thing that did get buffed. TvT is even more annoying now. Widow mine is good in TvZ but useless in TvP. I guess the Medivac buff is helpful in that matchup.
Just want to quote this because it's pretty much how most Terrans feel with HotS. It might be some form of 'whining', but I do believe it's justified.
The problem is that Terrans for WoL were designed as a complete race compared to other 2. Blizzard said it themselves it was a mistake on their part.
That doesn't make a difference though. As a Terran I have no reason to buy HotS because it downgrades the quality of the one matchup I like playing (mirror) while leaving my non-mirrors just as un-fun as ever.
i think people forget that taeja isn't an adult yet, despite all of the great feats he has accomplished.
also TvT IS super annoying now. honestly at this point if they removed the reaper I would actually be happy as a Terran player just because TvT has devolved into rock and bigger rock.
On January 08 2013 09:56 Zozma wrote: To be fair, based on what Artosis says here, Terran would have had the Warhound if the community hadn't flipped out about it.
The warhound needed serious rework (kinda like oracles and MSC), but not removal. It was fucking obvious, they just gave up.
I don't think they gave up. The community just went ape shit over Warhound domination and Blizzard was kinda forced to do it. Who knows what would happen if we just let Bliz do their thing :shrug:
Doubt it. The community has been going apeshit over infestor domination for months and Blizzard finally responded by reducing the range by 1. The complete removal of the warhound reeks of laziness.
On January 08 2013 09:56 Zozma wrote: To be fair, based on what Artosis says here, Terran would have had the Warhound if the community hadn't flipped out about it.
The warhound needed serious rework (kinda like oracles and MSC), but not removal. It was fucking obvious, they just gave up.
I don't think they gave up. The community just went ape shit over Warhound domination and Blizzard was kinda forced to do it. Who knows what would happen if we just let Bliz do their thing :shrug:
Doubt it. The community has been going apeshit over infestor domination for months and Blizzard finally responded by reducing the range by 1. The complete removal of the warhound reeks of laziness.
Funny thing in HotS, range from 8 to 10, missile speed is fast enough that it's almost instant (it can be dodged in certain instances but it's fast now).
Definitely lazy IMO.
Should have tried the good old "make it a attacking/spellcaster unit hybrid".
It's almost like the Carrier. They tried to remove it and not do anything about it (too lazy to try to re implement BW Carrier mechanics?) but people complained enough that they added it back into the game.
The thing I'm most disappointed about in HotS is the complete nerfing of Vortex. I actually like getting out my Mothership in WoL. It had an epic sound effect when it warped in (it wasn't about "Carrier has arrived!" it was about "Mothership has arrived").
Plus I had epic times vortexing Zerg (of course).
Really though, Dustin Browder said it himself that (when they said they weren't going to do anything to the MS) that Vortex vs NP was similar to how a Ghost (for example) could EMP a bunch of high templars or how an infestor could change the whole game with one spell (money fungals, etc).
IMO, Vortex is less of a threat than EMP or Fungal, because the Mothership is slow and in most cases (outside of that famous or infamous MVP vs Squirtle game) the opponent can see it coming and can easily split their air units easily (unlike EMP or Fungal which is more instant).
Plus, you need Archons to support the Vortex, there have been several games where the Zerg had all their BL supported by Spines underneath it (completely blocking the Archons from being able to get into the Vortex).
Vortex shouldn't have been nerfed IMO. I think people overstate or overrate how much of a game changing spell it is (especially in HotS where Zerg doesn't even rely on BL + Infestor against Protoss anymore in late game anymore).
(But yes, I'm being bias here as I enjoyed Vortexing many Zerg. Though I do play Random if that sort of counters my Mothership bias >.>.)
It really just felt fun pulling off Vortexes and unlike EMP or Fungal, it's more manageable and predictable (split your army, use spines to block archons, etc). (As a Zerg when randoming, I didn't mind getting vortexed because I play random and I enjoy vortexing myself >.>.)
Edit - The problem of Vortex being a game changing spell isn't that it is a game changing spell (as even Dustin Browder said in an interview regarding the MS, it's similar to EMP and Fungal on critical units), it's the fact that late game PvZ relied solely on that one spell while other matchups had some variation.
In HotS, this is no longer a problem due to Zerg not even relying on BL + Infestor late game + Protoss having Tempest to counter those massive air units (making Vortex less of a need). If Vortex was kept in HotS (in the WoL form), it would have less of an issue (in fact, the viability of going MS Core to Mothership just for a Vortex vs just using Tempest would be questionable as Vortex can easily be countered by either NP or splitting army or something else).
TaeJa needs to just move into The Lab, or get a place on his own in Seoul. Can't believe he's still living at home and commuting to Seoul for his matches. Insanity.
On January 08 2013 04:30 darkness wrote: Why not move into the team house?
Personally, I don't like being around too many people. It's still easier to play from home.
---
Erm, isn't it better to rent a flat in Seoul then?
I don't think Taeja has the age to live by his own, but i am not expert on Korean's culture.
Also, living alone would mean you have to take care of food, cleaning, laundry, etc. One of the big advantage of a team house is that a lot of that stuff is taken care of and you can focus on practice. Maybe Taeja has a really nice environment at home where his parents take care of all that stuff for him. Obviously, the commuting sucks for him but if he is more comfortable at home, don't blame him for staying there.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aucSG.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NZeLe.jpg)
May be we can watch another epic battle between those 2 again. 
