EPT
WCS Jönköping will welcome a new Challenger out of North America, the Canadian Terran 
Semper. As he manages a tough balancing act between academics and StarCraft II, Semper hopes to make his mark as a competitor in WCS.
*This interview has been edited and condensed.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Waxangel/semperwcs.jpg)
Wax: To begin with, could you introduce yourself briefly, for people who aren't familiar with you?
Semper: I'm Semper, my friends call me Alex. You may notice my name (Alex Dimitriu) sounds a bit strange for a Canadian; that is because I was born in Romania, in a city called Botosani all the way up north of the country. My parents, my brother and I moved to Canada when I was nine-years-old, and that is where I was introduced to StarCraft 2 a couple of years later, when I was 15. I was introduced to it by my best friend, who had just bought the game when it was first released. I didn't immediately fall in love with the game, it took me until I watched GSL and saw Mvp dominate to do so. I just loved how crisp his builds were and how he controlled the game, which is why I stuck to Terran.
So it's my understanding you're going to school right now as well? How's that situation working out?
Yes, I study law at the University of Montreal, recent winners of CSL :D. I just finished my second year and I am overall pretty happy with how I've managed to balance studies and SC2. The first year was by far harder than the second one, as I was forced to take six classes for two semesters in a row. Trust me when I say that having six law classes in one semester is the equivalent of practicing six to eight hours of SC2 every day, and during the finals period, that bumps up to 12 to 14 hours a day. I was struggling with my grades and with keeping up in SC2.
During my second year, I took five classes then went down to four. I've had more time to practice SC and my grades have gotten better. I still don't have nearly as much time as a full-time progamer to commit to the game, but I can at least have the occasional good run. I'm also not taking any summer classes so I can focus on WCS while also relaxing for a bit.
I gotta ask, how do you balance those kind of priorities? Is it like "I need to study just hard enough to not fail, and then everything else goes to StarCraft"?
No, I would say it's something more like "how do I study enough to get A's while not failing in StarCraft?" School comes first to me during the school year, but if I don't keep trying to compete in SC2, I feel like something is missing in my life so I never fully took a break. The most time I've spent away from the game at a time is probably two weeks, during finals time. Since almost every final exam in my program is worth 70% of my final grade, I really can't afford to mess around. Of course, while I study I like to keep my girlfriend's stream on mute (she also plays Starcraft), or any Terran that I like. Watching ByuN destroy Zergs on ladder boosts my studying for sure
The thing is, there's someone who gives you a concrete letter grade in school, which you can measure yourself by. I guess there's ladder MMR in StarCraft, but it's not quite the same. Was there ever a time you felt like you got an "F" at StarCraft, and felt like you really had to get that grade up?
Yeah, plenty of times. StarCraft is a game that can make you feel like you're on top of the world one day, and like you're completely worthless the next day. Finishing 5-8th at Cheesadelphia, where I was one of the favorites to win the tournament, or at the very least make it to the final, was definitely a moment where I felt like I got an "F". The same weekend as that tournament happened, I played Neeb in the quarter-finals of Nation Wars 4 and I threw away a pretty significant lead in a game that I wanted to win very badly. Those days are always really hard to handle but learning from those losses and getting over them quickly is very important and that's when I feel like I have to get my "grade up".
I remember talking to Polt a while back, during a period where he was a full-time student in the US before he got his athlete visa. When I asked him how he managed to go to class while winning WCS America, he said something like "don't sleep." Can you relate to that?
I actually wish I was able to skip sleep and still go through my day normally. Unfortunately, lack of sleep and playing well or studying efficiently don't go together for me. If I don't sleep at least six hours per night (but really, I need eight), I feel slow and grumpy all day long, to the point where skipping on sleep ends up wasting my time in terms of efficiency. Playing StarCraft while tired never works out for me. My macro slips up, my micro consists of me move commanding units into my enemy and it feels like my eyes can't stick to the screen while I play. If I study while tired, I have to re-read paragraphs two or three times before I understand what was said. Personally, I need my sleep, then I need to get school work done as fast as possible so I can get it off my mind. Then I can play some StarCraft and have one or two hours at the end of the day to hang out with my girlfriend and/or my friends and play some Overwatch or other relaxing games.
What kind of goals do you have for yourself at the top-tier foreigner level, beyond the regional tournaments in the northeast? Was getting the Jönköping spot a surprise, or something you feel like you should have achieved?
I feel like I'm in a privileged spot in some ways because I am doing quite well in school so I am in no way "all in" on StarCraft. Thus, I feel little pressure to get incredible results on a consistent basis. I am still a competitor, and I want to win tournaments very badly, but I think that being a full time progamer without a backup plan would be too much pressure for me to handle. I don't think I'll ever go that route unless some weird circumstances take me there.
For Jönköping, I was actually pretty confident going into the final qualifier. I am the type of player that takes nothing for granted, so even if I was 400 MMR above the top-eight threshold before the final day, I was still worried that I might somehow mess it up so I tried my hardest to win every game. I ended up finishing first in the NA rankings and even though the highest tier players decided to skip the ladder qualifiers, it gave me a good amount of confidence. After seeing that I had to play MaSa for the spot in Sweden, I was not very happy. If you look at our Aligulac, I think I was 0-13 in series against him before our match, and I had a pretty solid mental block against him. But somehow, I managed to forget the past before our series and I managed to win after an exhausting two-hour series.
So what are you looking to get out of Jönköping? Trying to place as high as possible? Or just getting more experience playing in high-stakes matches against top players?
For someone that hasn't traveled much, I find it funny that I've already been to Jönköping for Dreamhack winter in 2015 (if I remember correctly). I've gotten lost in the city, I had trouble finding my way back to the hotel after the Twitch afterparty, thus I have my fair share of experience getting around the city, which can be pretty convenient. So I'm not just going there to visit the place, I want to do well and I will prepare as much as I can. Since I don't know who I'll be playing against, I have to be ready to play any matchup. I know I will most likely be an underdog, but I have a good amount of experience playing from that position. I am excited to play on a big stage again.
Hypothetically, if you had been given the time and opportunity, do you feel like you would have given full-time pro SC2 a shot? Like, for instance, if you had already started to be a high-level player in 2011.
Yes. I remember thinking back in 2011 that I would love to take a break from school just to try to play the game competitively for a while. But it took me a long time to progress to anywhere near the pro level and once I got into college, I decided that full-time pro SC2 is off the table unless something drastic happens. The landscape of SC2 has significantly changed since 2011. The game is no longer in it's "golden era" and I felt demotivated for a while, but 2017 has been a good year for me so far and I don't even think about what could have been. I feel quite motivated and I enjoy playing the game. I do sometimes get jealous of players that made the decision to go full-time and enjoy success while doing it, especially when school takes up most of my time!
Oh, I forgot to ask you about how you came up with your ID
Oh man, I was expecting that one and my answer is really simple!
When I was younger, I was playing mostly FPS games. My favorite game at the time was called Return to Castle Wolfenstein and I enjoyed Call of Duty 4. My favorite style of play in those games was to try to be more sneaky than most people, taking enemies by surprise, so I came up with my original name: Secret. However, after transitioning into SC2, Secret didn't feel like the right name for me and I remember seeing other players having the same name as me and I got asked if I was a fan of the K-pop band Secret, back when GSL used to have K-pop bands perform live. I got tired of having what felt like an overused name, so I decided I needed a change.
One day, I put on one my favorite shirts at the time, which had "Semper" written on it in a cool looking font. I thought "Semper" sounded well, it was easy to pronounce and easy on the eyes. On top of that, it means "always" in latin and I like that word. Since then, it's been my username! Unfortunately, having gone through many washing machine cycles, the word "Semper" on the shirt is no longer recognizable. I'm washed up
Kappa
Alright, let's do our famous pirate question! I just call it famous because if I keep saying it, maybe it will actually become famous. If your loved ones were kidnapped by pirates, and you could only try to rescue them with a crew of three other SC2 players, who would you pick and why?
I would probably get one of each race, so we can fight about balance even after it doesn't matter at all whether the game is balanced or not. Gotta keep yourself entertained somehow. My Terran pick is easy since every Terran is experienced with having to overcome difficult situations, like the Blink era, or Phoenix-Adept. Since I can only pick one, I'll go with uThermal since he is usually the best foreign Terran and Starcraft skills obviously translate into survival / rescue skills. I just hope he doesn't uninstall on me
For Zerg, I would pick Cham because he often delays practice with me to go to the gym so he's obviously very strong by now. Maybe I would send him undercover as a pirate. He's a likable guy so I feel like they would at least consider him legit long enough for us to swoop in and rescue my loved ones.
For Protoss, I would pick Zest because his good looks could distract the pirates long enough that we can take them out swiftly. Communication with him might be an issue, but he doesn't need to say much anyway.
I feel like this rescue mission won't be as hard as it seems.
Okay, thanks for your time! Let's wrap up with any shoutouts, comments, or things you wanna say.
Shoutout to my team ROOT and my teammates for helping me improve and providing a nice environment to be in. Thanks to my girlfriend - Poizon - for helping me keep calm during tough series (something I need to work on)! Thanks to everyone still watching and supporting SC2, the support tweets after getting a good result are always motivating :D.
Watch how Semper's tense series against Masa to decide who would qualify for WCS Jönköping
You can follow Semper on Twitter at @ROOTSemper, and you can find his competitive statistics on Aligulac.com.
You can read more interviews with the WCS Challengers who will compete at WCS Jönköping during June 17-19!
More interviews are coming soon™
Semper. As he manages a tough balancing act between academics and StarCraft II, Semper hopes to make his mark as a competitor in WCS.*This interview has been edited and condensed.
Wax: To begin with, could you introduce yourself briefly, for people who aren't familiar with you?
Semper: I'm Semper, my friends call me Alex. You may notice my name (Alex Dimitriu) sounds a bit strange for a Canadian; that is because I was born in Romania, in a city called Botosani all the way up north of the country. My parents, my brother and I moved to Canada when I was nine-years-old, and that is where I was introduced to StarCraft 2 a couple of years later, when I was 15. I was introduced to it by my best friend, who had just bought the game when it was first released. I didn't immediately fall in love with the game, it took me until I watched GSL and saw Mvp dominate to do so. I just loved how crisp his builds were and how he controlled the game, which is why I stuck to Terran.
So it's my understanding you're going to school right now as well? How's that situation working out?
Yes, I study law at the University of Montreal, recent winners of CSL :D. I just finished my second year and I am overall pretty happy with how I've managed to balance studies and SC2. The first year was by far harder than the second one, as I was forced to take six classes for two semesters in a row. Trust me when I say that having six law classes in one semester is the equivalent of practicing six to eight hours of SC2 every day, and during the finals period, that bumps up to 12 to 14 hours a day. I was struggling with my grades and with keeping up in SC2.
During my second year, I took five classes then went down to four. I've had more time to practice SC and my grades have gotten better. I still don't have nearly as much time as a full-time progamer to commit to the game, but I can at least have the occasional good run. I'm also not taking any summer classes so I can focus on WCS while also relaxing for a bit.
I gotta ask, how do you balance those kind of priorities? Is it like "I need to study just hard enough to not fail, and then everything else goes to StarCraft"?
No, I would say it's something more like "how do I study enough to get A's while not failing in StarCraft?" School comes first to me during the school year, but if I don't keep trying to compete in SC2, I feel like something is missing in my life so I never fully took a break. The most time I've spent away from the game at a time is probably two weeks, during finals time. Since almost every final exam in my program is worth 70% of my final grade, I really can't afford to mess around. Of course, while I study I like to keep my girlfriend's stream on mute (she also plays Starcraft), or any Terran that I like. Watching ByuN destroy Zergs on ladder boosts my studying for sure
The thing is, there's someone who gives you a concrete letter grade in school, which you can measure yourself by. I guess there's ladder MMR in StarCraft, but it's not quite the same. Was there ever a time you felt like you got an "F" at StarCraft, and felt like you really had to get that grade up?
Yeah, plenty of times. StarCraft is a game that can make you feel like you're on top of the world one day, and like you're completely worthless the next day. Finishing 5-8th at Cheesadelphia, where I was one of the favorites to win the tournament, or at the very least make it to the final, was definitely a moment where I felt like I got an "F". The same weekend as that tournament happened, I played Neeb in the quarter-finals of Nation Wars 4 and I threw away a pretty significant lead in a game that I wanted to win very badly. Those days are always really hard to handle but learning from those losses and getting over them quickly is very important and that's when I feel like I have to get my "grade up".
I remember talking to Polt a while back, during a period where he was a full-time student in the US before he got his athlete visa. When I asked him how he managed to go to class while winning WCS America, he said something like "don't sleep." Can you relate to that?
I actually wish I was able to skip sleep and still go through my day normally. Unfortunately, lack of sleep and playing well or studying efficiently don't go together for me. If I don't sleep at least six hours per night (but really, I need eight), I feel slow and grumpy all day long, to the point where skipping on sleep ends up wasting my time in terms of efficiency. Playing StarCraft while tired never works out for me. My macro slips up, my micro consists of me move commanding units into my enemy and it feels like my eyes can't stick to the screen while I play. If I study while tired, I have to re-read paragraphs two or three times before I understand what was said. Personally, I need my sleep, then I need to get school work done as fast as possible so I can get it off my mind. Then I can play some StarCraft and have one or two hours at the end of the day to hang out with my girlfriend and/or my friends and play some Overwatch or other relaxing games.
What kind of goals do you have for yourself at the top-tier foreigner level, beyond the regional tournaments in the northeast? Was getting the Jönköping spot a surprise, or something you feel like you should have achieved?
I feel like I'm in a privileged spot in some ways because I am doing quite well in school so I am in no way "all in" on StarCraft. Thus, I feel little pressure to get incredible results on a consistent basis. I am still a competitor, and I want to win tournaments very badly, but I think that being a full time progamer without a backup plan would be too much pressure for me to handle. I don't think I'll ever go that route unless some weird circumstances take me there.
For Jönköping, I was actually pretty confident going into the final qualifier. I am the type of player that takes nothing for granted, so even if I was 400 MMR above the top-eight threshold before the final day, I was still worried that I might somehow mess it up so I tried my hardest to win every game. I ended up finishing first in the NA rankings and even though the highest tier players decided to skip the ladder qualifiers, it gave me a good amount of confidence. After seeing that I had to play MaSa for the spot in Sweden, I was not very happy. If you look at our Aligulac, I think I was 0-13 in series against him before our match, and I had a pretty solid mental block against him. But somehow, I managed to forget the past before our series and I managed to win after an exhausting two-hour series.
So what are you looking to get out of Jönköping? Trying to place as high as possible? Or just getting more experience playing in high-stakes matches against top players?
For someone that hasn't traveled much, I find it funny that I've already been to Jönköping for Dreamhack winter in 2015 (if I remember correctly). I've gotten lost in the city, I had trouble finding my way back to the hotel after the Twitch afterparty, thus I have my fair share of experience getting around the city, which can be pretty convenient. So I'm not just going there to visit the place, I want to do well and I will prepare as much as I can. Since I don't know who I'll be playing against, I have to be ready to play any matchup. I know I will most likely be an underdog, but I have a good amount of experience playing from that position. I am excited to play on a big stage again.
Hypothetically, if you had been given the time and opportunity, do you feel like you would have given full-time pro SC2 a shot? Like, for instance, if you had already started to be a high-level player in 2011.
Yes. I remember thinking back in 2011 that I would love to take a break from school just to try to play the game competitively for a while. But it took me a long time to progress to anywhere near the pro level and once I got into college, I decided that full-time pro SC2 is off the table unless something drastic happens. The landscape of SC2 has significantly changed since 2011. The game is no longer in it's "golden era" and I felt demotivated for a while, but 2017 has been a good year for me so far and I don't even think about what could have been. I feel quite motivated and I enjoy playing the game. I do sometimes get jealous of players that made the decision to go full-time and enjoy success while doing it, especially when school takes up most of my time!
Oh, I forgot to ask you about how you came up with your ID
Oh man, I was expecting that one and my answer is really simple!
When I was younger, I was playing mostly FPS games. My favorite game at the time was called Return to Castle Wolfenstein and I enjoyed Call of Duty 4. My favorite style of play in those games was to try to be more sneaky than most people, taking enemies by surprise, so I came up with my original name: Secret. However, after transitioning into SC2, Secret didn't feel like the right name for me and I remember seeing other players having the same name as me and I got asked if I was a fan of the K-pop band Secret, back when GSL used to have K-pop bands perform live. I got tired of having what felt like an overused name, so I decided I needed a change.
One day, I put on one my favorite shirts at the time, which had "Semper" written on it in a cool looking font. I thought "Semper" sounded well, it was easy to pronounce and easy on the eyes. On top of that, it means "always" in latin and I like that word. Since then, it's been my username! Unfortunately, having gone through many washing machine cycles, the word "Semper" on the shirt is no longer recognizable. I'm washed up
KappaAlright, let's do our famous pirate question! I just call it famous because if I keep saying it, maybe it will actually become famous. If your loved ones were kidnapped by pirates, and you could only try to rescue them with a crew of three other SC2 players, who would you pick and why?
I would probably get one of each race, so we can fight about balance even after it doesn't matter at all whether the game is balanced or not. Gotta keep yourself entertained somehow. My Terran pick is easy since every Terran is experienced with having to overcome difficult situations, like the Blink era, or Phoenix-Adept. Since I can only pick one, I'll go with uThermal since he is usually the best foreign Terran and Starcraft skills obviously translate into survival / rescue skills. I just hope he doesn't uninstall on me
For Zerg, I would pick Cham because he often delays practice with me to go to the gym so he's obviously very strong by now. Maybe I would send him undercover as a pirate. He's a likable guy so I feel like they would at least consider him legit long enough for us to swoop in and rescue my loved ones.
For Protoss, I would pick Zest because his good looks could distract the pirates long enough that we can take them out swiftly. Communication with him might be an issue, but he doesn't need to say much anyway.
I feel like this rescue mission won't be as hard as it seems.
Okay, thanks for your time! Let's wrap up with any shoutouts, comments, or things you wanna say.
Shoutout to my team ROOT and my teammates for helping me improve and providing a nice environment to be in. Thanks to my girlfriend - Poizon - for helping me keep calm during tough series (something I need to work on)! Thanks to everyone still watching and supporting SC2, the support tweets after getting a good result are always motivating :D.
Watch how Semper's tense series against Masa to decide who would qualify for WCS Jönköping
You can follow Semper on Twitter at @ROOTSemper, and you can find his competitive statistics on Aligulac.com.
You can read more interviews with the WCS Challengers who will compete at WCS Jönköping during June 17-19!
More interviews are coming soon™
