The New Face of American StarCraft 2

Alex "Neeb" Sunderhaft’s sudden rise to fame has unarguably been meteoric and along with his low profile on the internet has made him nothing short of an enigma. There's barely any information about him aside from a few interviews and representative pictures of him. Also there’s no denying that Neeb burst onto the scene with a fairly impressive debut when his then team StarCraft2Strategy almost took out FXO North America but it wasn’t until the start of the World Championship Series that people would soon come to know him as a mainstay in the North American StarCraft 2 scene.


Like most StarCraft 2 players, Neeb began fairly early at the age of 9, “I began playing games when I was really, really young. As soon as I started playing pc games when I was maybe 9-10 I was hooked, so I never really got into console games.” Says Neeb. He began his foray into multiplayer games with Runescape, enjoying the experience of playing online with others, it would soon lead to him picking up Riot’s League of Legends, “My game choices back then were always influenced by my cousins and what they played. They were the ones to introduce me to Runescape, and then a few years later, into League of Legends” Says Neeb.

Neeb was first put in the spotlight by the team known as FXO.NA, probably one of the most formidable teams on the North American amateur scene; FXO.NA is known for having future talent like Drunkenboi, Maker, Desrow among others. “FXO.NA was like a giant group of friends. We were all somewhat serious about gaming and at similar skill levels. This set us up nicely to talk, practice, and interact with one another. The management was generally great, which was also nice” says Neeb about his former team.


Unfortunately the team disbanded in mid-2013 and he was without an before officially joining Fnatic, a move that seemed in the offing, “I actually wasn’t surprised when I joined Fnatic, When I first realized I wanted to play games at a competitive level, I was confident that I could become good. Joining a mainstream and popular team such as Fnatic was always one of the many Esports related goals I had” says Neeb.


Despite the timezone difference majority of his team mates, Neeb does not feel that has had any bearing over his relationship with the team, “The past few months have been pretty much lots of school work and the rest of the time being dumped into SC2. Talking/practicing with teammates isn’t one of my priorities until after I play my 20 games/day, but with school playing 20 games gets really tough. On top of that, most of the team is from Europe, so when I get home from school it’s evening there. I would like to interact more with the team in the future though” Says Neeb. With team mates like Harstem and upcoming stalwarts Miniraser and Zanster he’s quite confident about his growth in the game as well as being a team player.


Neeb came into prominence with his strong performance in an online team league, Fnatic had also recently announced a partnership with Empire, which means we might see Neeb competing in the ATC, “I’ve been doing team league games for what seems like an eternity now. I played a lot of them back when I was on FXO, so I got tired of them really quick. Those were less popular leagues though. Fnatic is involved in team leagues that have higher viewership/more money, so right now I look forward to playing in them. The feeling of contributing to a victory and working with your team to win is nice, but other than that it feels the same as playing in individual leagues” says Neeb


Taking up the role of a professional gamer has also brought about a changing in gaming gear. The all important question is, does it really make a difference to a professional or amateur? “Having good gaming gear won’t increase your skill level or make you a better player, but it does allow you to play comfortably and at your skill level, you won’t be held back by your mouse and keyboard being low quality” says Neeb.