MarineLorD on KeSPA Cup: I'm going to slay as many Koreans…

TL.net: First off, congratulations! Did you expect to go through the qualifier on the first place?

MarineLorD: Hey, thanks, honestly I thought I had very low chances. I had good confidence in my TvP and my TvT, but I was afraid of the few best zergs in Europe, especially Snute and Nerchio. So, no I wasn't expecting to do that well at all.

So Nerchio probably was the toughest opponent you had to face, right? What makes him so hard to beat?

I had a lot of tough opponents honestly. I had a tough series against SortOf. Bunny was a little bit scary, the guy didn't practice the past year or whatever and he won against ShoWTimE, so I had to play very well. Against PtitDrogo I felt confident, but I had a really tough Bo5 against him—adept power—but yeah, it's obviously true that Nerchio is very good.

At the same time his gameplay is making the game really unfun to me. For example, on Frozen Temple / Galactic Process the chance of a 3rax reaper is decently high (very strong on those two maps). So a zerg shouldn't always open hatch first, especially on those two maps… Nerchio opened hatch first both times this time, he got lucky on Galactic and unlucky on Frozen. I think the early game is very random this year—more than ever—which makes it very frustrating as a pro. In a macro game I felt like it would be close vs Nerchio and most likely if the map was zerg favoured I would lose, if the map was terran favoured I would win.

Do you think the random nature of the game will help you out against the Koreans, or is it more to your disadvantage?

It depends on what the match-up is, as it can always help to be lucky of course. But I feel like those top Koreans aren't going to let me play with the luck and lock this "luck part" of the game away by accepting to be behind with a very safe opener, especially in TvZ and TvP. My best chance would be to have a zerg group and show something that was never really used in competitive matches. They play 20 times more than me, so I can't really play them in a fair macro game, as I'm most likely worse than them.

In my opinion ZvT is way easier to play from the zerg side than the terran side, so if you add both those thoughts together my chance in an extremely normal game vs a top world zerg opponent are not high. I also want to dodge terran, every time I come to Korea from Europe with my 80 to 90% winrate, I start with a great 20 to 30% winrate in TvT in practice there.

Speaking of going to Korea: Is qualifying for an event in Korea anything special for you, or do you treat it as any other tournament?

The level is way higher for the same prize, it's going to be really tough. I'm just going enjoy to see my favourite players play with / next to me, and I’ll make sure that those few days of practice make me good enough to do very well in WESG Kiev. I only had one competitive goal toward the end of this year, which is to qualify for the main event in China, and considering it will probably be on the new huge patch, I think my chances will be way higher than usually, like it was at Nation Wars.

Of the three Korean terrans in KeSPA Cup—ByuN, Maru, TY—with which one would like to practice the most?

On this current patch, it's very, very hard to say. Maru didn't do well at all outside of Proleague, but he is a god and it’s hard to rate him. I would love to know more about his TvZ. ByuN is the best player of the three, but he is streaming and he plays in every online cup, which gives me a lot of knowledge from him already. TY is very weird to me: Sometimes I love his style and it will fit me, sometimes he will play stuff that doesn't fit me at all, so I guess with a lot of thinking I would choose Maru.

What’s your opinion on the number of Global Events this year—would you like more opportunities to play against Koreans?

As usual Blizzard said they would give us a few Global Events, in the end we only have one in Korea—it doesn't surprise me anymore. But yes, obviously I would love at least two or three really big Global Events per year with foreigners against Koreans.

Nerchio just beat ByuN in SHOUTcraft, do you think he can win KeSPA Cup? Who's your favourite?

I honestly feel Nerchio can do very well vs terran, especially when you don't know him his ZvT is extremely tough. He is going to be very ahead vs most normal builds, but because of his lack of scouting if you do something weird to him he might die, if you play normal he will be ahead and kill you—your name being MarineLorD or ByuN won't change this fact. It's hard to say. I feel like since two months protoss isn't broken anymore, like it was the past three years, so I think every top tier player does have a chance. I'd say herO, Stats, Solar and ByuN are favoured.

What would mean more to you: The glory of being the first foreigner to win a Korean tournament in SC2, or banking 200.000$ from WESG?

I'm going to KeSPA Cup to slay as many Korean as I can, not to win it all honestly. If the WESG final is confirmed to be on the new patch, I'll practice as hard as for Nation Wars and I'll do my best to take the trophy home.

That is a great statement, we look forward to it! Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Any shoutouts, special mentions or banter before we end this?

Thanks to you for the interview, shoutout to Millenium and my sponsors Logitech, Orange and Alienware. I'll do my best to change those professional Korean gamers, so they'll become some great memers before the end of the event.

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