WCS Europe Season 3 Challenger League

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Interviews by monk

Get to Know your WCS EU Challenger Player is back! Though we had a brief break (mostly due to zero foreigners qualifying during season 2), we now have a whole host of new interviews ready for you. But before we continue with the NA interviews, we decided it's only fair for the WCS Europe players to get a chance as well. So here's a look at our first European up-and-comer, uThermal.

uThermal

Why don't you start off by introducing yourself!
Hey I'm uThermal, a 17 year old Dutch terran player from the Netherlands, hoping to one day win a tournament with the worst race!

Why do you think Terran is the worst race? The last tournament finals was a TvT!
Terrans are performing bad in everything, Dreamhack Bucharest being the only exception, and if you look at non-korean terrans things have been looking sad forever : P

Also, I think you already accomplished your goal. What about the frag-o-matic 15.0 survival?
Everyone attending that tournament was so bad that if I had lost I would've locked myself in my basement for 3 months ^_^

Wow, you just called Harstem bad. He's probably really angry at you now and will track you down to do unspeakable things to you.
He's in Taiwan right now, I don't think he will take the time to travel back.

You don't think he's mad enough? Or that he just won't read the interview?
I let him win on purpose in some of the tournaments we played. He should be thankful, not mad.

Ok let's take a step back. Where does your nickname come from and it is a reference to thermal conductivity?
I didn't think of the meaning of thermal when I created the name, I used to be in clans with friends in other games, but since you can only use letters in bnet, we just decided to all put the letter u in front of our names, thermal is just a name I saw someone else use in another game, and decided to steal it : D

Do you just like how the word sounds or do you like the meaning of the word in any way? Also, u is a very arbitrary letter.
I think the word thermal itself would be a pretty lame name, I just think uThermal has some kind of ring to it.

I agree! Being that you're from the Netherlands, do you especially look up to players such as Ret or Grubby?
I look up to Harstem and Grubby as persons, not especially as players. I wish to become alot better than them, but when I grow up I want to be as cool as them ^_^

Yea, they're very cool people. Did you know that the TL headquarters recently moved to the Netherlands as well? Perhaps you can sneak in to steal some incriminating evidence, then force Nazgul to recruit you.
In fact I was already planning on doing this, I'm afraid you just gave away my secret plans. Maybe it's a good thing so I won't make the other players in TL look bad ;D

Speaking of other TL players, I just saw that you lost to TLO today. Sorry to hear that =( How were the games though?
I played terribly, thinking back I don't even know what I was doing haha, I don't mind losing to TLO though, as I like him alot as a person. By the way, wasn't TLO in EG? haha

Oh yea, good point. I guess that's still going on? The agreement was a week, right? Maybe TLO and incontrol should have switched spots in tournaments too. Would you have rather played Liquid`Incontrol instead?
I have no idea how long the agreement was, I'd definitely rather have played liquid incontrol, I'd do anything to avoid playing zergs

I'm browsing reddit right now and I noticed this handy chart on players who qualified for WCS season 3. Any comments?
Terran =(, I think next to region locking they should also implement a feature that in the qualifiers at least 85% have to be Terran players to make it fair.

Speaking of qualifiers, how were those? Easy? And any memorable or especially difficult games?
I don't like to admit it, but my bracket was really easy, my only difficult opponent was zanster. I think the qualifier was especially easy because I proxy 11/11ed almost every game ^_^

Is that your tip on how to qualify for WCS? Proxy 11/11 every game?
I think that's the best advice anyone could ever get, 11/11 is the classic build of terran and I'll make sure no one will ever forget it!

Seeing that you have fairly strong opinions on balance and Terran, what do you think about the proposed changes blizzard is suggesting for the next season?
I think they almost couldn't have been worse haha, I think the roach burrowed movement speed increase is great, usually when people use that the roaches are all dead before they arrive, buffing the oracle is the most random buff ever done and I think the problem with mech in tvz and tvp is not the upgrades but their hard counters like swarmhosts are too strong. I think the mine/tank buff/nerf will destroy terran completely in tvz, but since I never win tvz anyways I guess a chance might be ok ^^

But but innovation taught me that you could just rally units across the map and win! What's wrong with that?
Innovation got destroyed in his last few tvz series in the gsl, I think if even the best tvzer gets destroyed by zergs it's obvious there;s something wrong, I guess zergs learned to make more drones instead of panicing ^_^

Are you a fan of Innovation? Any particular players you look up to play-wise?
I'm definitely not a fan of innovation, I think hes too boring, playwise im a big fan of Byun as he seems to like to do stupid builds like me, only difference is that they actually work when he does them :D Also I'm a big fan of Bomber because he actually wins after he manner mules people, this is something I still struggle with.

Do you remember game in the GSTL where Bomber manner mule'd marineking, then proceeded to lose the game?
I will never forget that, that's what always happens to me ^_^

Or when taeja lost to elfi after manner muling him at least 5 times...Anyways, you like Byun! Me too! Do you also like his puppy?
I would prefer it if he had a cat

Oh so you're one of those people. Do you have a cat? Any pets?
I had a cat, it passed away recently, I had it for about 13 years, I'm thinking about getting a new one soon.

I'm sorry to hear that. Do you have any reservations about replacing him? I know some pet owners say they'll never replace their pets.
I think it's only bad to stay hung up on stuff like that, he had a great life with us and there's always a time they have to go, you're only hurting yourself if you keep thinking about this, you need to drop it and enjoy your life!

Wow, i never expected to get such sage life advice from this interview. Any other general advice you have to give to our audience?
You know what they say, money doesn't make people happy, so if you want to get rid of it, be free to donate to my paypal.

But won't that not make you happy either? The second part of that advice doesn't seem to follow the first part.
I'm sacrificing myself to make many other people happy, it will be hard on me but I think I'll make it out alive.

Wow, what a great person. that says a lot about your character. You know what else says a lot about your character? My next question
Exciting

You get to be on a team with any 5 players in the world. Who would be on this team with you?
bomber yoda soulkey byun and forgg

You see, I ask everyone this question and everyone has slightly different ways of answering it. Some people answer the current 5 best players in the world. Some people answer their 5 best friends. Some answer only players of their own race, and some people are really timid and answer players on their current team so that they don't offend anyone. What do you think your answers say about you?
It says I like to hang with the cool people :[

How do you know they're cool though? Have you met them all before? If not, they could all be cat-tourturing psychopaths.
By their playstyle I can tell I can learn so many cool things from them, Bomber and yoda would teach me how to manner mule at proper times, Soulkey would teach me how to stare at people that they become so scared they cant play anymore, byun would teach me how to win with stupid builds and forgg could teach me how to win tvt without gambling on build orders, about the cat thing, sometimes you just have to trust people.

More sage advice! I think this interview is approaching 30 questions, so it's about time to wrap it up. Any shoutouts or final pieces of advice?
I want to advise my next opponents to not scout for 11/11 because I will surely not do it. Recently I've joined a new team : AT Gaming, I want to thank them and the sponsors : CM Storm, Kingston HyperX, Spam and Avermedia. In the short time I've been with them, they have already been great to me. In return, I will make sure to dominate my following tournaments with alot of proxy2- macro builds for them. And of course, thank you for the interview!

You can follow and find out more about uThermal here:

Interviews: monk