[Interview] Harstem on disappointment with Blizzard, despi…

2017 was truly the greatest year of Harstem, as his prominent featuring in the WCS Circuit intro video gave him more screen time than any other progamer except for Neeb. The veteran Protoss player took some time to talk with TeamLiquid.net about Blizzard's disastrous handling of the 2018 season so far, the overall improvements in WCS, and how to deal with pirates.


*This interview has been edited and condensed.

Wax: It’s been a while since TeamLiquid.net talked to you. What have you been up to in the off-season?

Harstem: Just practicing, mostly. I haven’t really stopped—I never really stop. Usually I would go to Korea or some other country to practice there, but this year I didn’t do it. I didn’t really feel like travelling too much. I got a girlfriend right now as well, which was part of the reason I stayed home.

So ever since BlizzCon, you haven’t had a break?

Yeah, after BlizzCon we had HomeStory Cup, of course. After that, I just kept on practicing. I always kind of keep on practicing. I can’t remember a time of more than three days that I haven’t practiced in the past five, six years. Actually, when I won GPL, after that I went on a holiday for ten days. So that would be the only time I remember that I didn’t play for that long.

Why did you take a break after GPL? Did you feel like you earned it?

Yeah, I think I did earn it. I won a tournament. I also think it was time. At that point, I had been playing four years maybe? Full time, without any real breaks. I think it’s healthy to take a break every once in a while. I don’t do it enough.

Conversely, do you think the reason you didn’t take a break before was because you didn’t feel like you deserved it?

Kind of. It feels like you’re wasting time. You could be practicing. Back in high school a lot of my friends would play Runescape. It’s a very grindy game. What they used to say when they would lose time was “we’re losing XP right now.” We’d be stuck in class for thirty more minutes, when they could have gotten their woodcutting up a level or something like that.

It kinda feels like that in StarCraft as well. Whenever I’m not playing at all, it feels like, “ah I’m losing XP. I’m losing my StarCraft experience.”

We’re about a week out from WCS Leipzig. How do you feel about the tournament?

I’m very interested in how it’s going to go. It’s very difficult to predict tournaments ahead of time, a lot depends on the bracket. I think Neeb is very good right now, I think Serral was insanely good. I think a lot of it is really how we left off last year. I’m feeling a bit better than I did at the start of last year, but I’m feeling very similar to how I felt at the end. Which would put me somewhere in the top sixteen, top eight foreigners. I’d be… content getting a top eight finish. It’d be like pretty much what I expect from my skill level right now. Of course, I’m aiming for more, but that’s what I feel. And I feel everyone else kind of stayed at the same level. The only real underrated player that could make a splash would be Reynor, I guess?

How about DnS? He's been causing a stir in Korea.

He’s been in Korea, so I really can’t say anything about it. But you know what happens with people who go to Korea for a short while? The first tournament they go to, they get completely destroyed. It’s not really uncommon. I have no clue why that happens, I really don’t know why.

It happened to me. When I came back from Korea, when I was there for three months, I lost 0-2 to Bly, 0-2 to Bunny in HomeStory Cup. Two months later I won GPL, and three months after that I won HomeStory. I’m not sure how it works, but MaNa told me the same thing. And MaNa told me ThorZaIN told him the same thing. I think it’s a foreigner thing, because Koreans come here all the time and take all of our wins.

Maybe it’s something in the head. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it’s common for it to happen. Overconfidence probably has something to do with it. You think “I know tricks that they don’t” and then Bly just twelve pools you three times in a row.

It’s pretty interesting that you answered the Leipzig question as more of a fan, thinking about who might be good, talking about the state of the scene first, instead going at it from your perspective. Why’s that?

I don’t like looking ahead of it like that. I think it only really sets you up for disappointment. Like, I know that I’m aiming for the win. So I don’t really feel like… I can’t really say that much about it. All I want is to win, obviously. Every player that goes there wants to win.

Also why it’s interesting is because Blizzard really pulled a quick one on us with the way they introduced the maps.

That case is… not fully resolved?

It’s not gonna be resolved, they’re just gonna keep going forward with the maps. It would be absolutely insane for them to take back that decision, because everyone has been practicing these maps. If they are still going to respond to this with something, it’s already too late. The moment something like this happens, you need to IMMEDIATELY jump on it if you’re Blizzard. If you don’t… it’s just insanity. And Blizzard really isn't known for their quick responses. I think if they’re going to take it back now, it would be just as dumb, basically. Everyone has been playing only these maps, ladder has been completely dead. Everyone is just playing custom games on these maps. Make your mind up.

I have seen a lot of people go on the forums and Reddit, saying things like “oh, it will be interesting for the viewers, and this is an interesting twist.” But if we take a look at how Blizzard has always handled WCS events with regard to maps, it always seemed like they wanted players who had been preparing for a long time to get a head start. So far, it’s always been that we at least had a good amount of time on the map pool already—couple of a weeks, a month. This could be the first time that they changed that, at the complete, last moment. It seems very inconsistent from Blizzard.

I don’t think this was intentional. It wasn’t an intentional, “oh we’re gonna spice up the tournament.” And I think that’s the one thing I really have an issue with. If it was their intention, and they’re gonna do this every single time—2 days before the tournament we want some fireworks, we’re gonna change the map pool—I still think it would be really stupid, because I feel StarCraft is not that kind of game. But I could kind of understand. I could live it with more, because it would have been a conscious decision.

Here it seems more like incompetence than a decision. That’s the thing that bothers me. Because lately, we’ve been having a lot of incompetence rather than poor decisions. The scheduling of the qualifiers, the bracket f*** up... which I think is honestly the worst I’ve ever had something happen. Obviously what happened with IEM PyeongChang in America was terrible as well. And these are all instances where Blizzard isn’t necessarily directly at fault, but they’re responsible. If they feel like a company isn’t handling their tournament well, they’re the one who can say “you fucked up, you’re not getting it anymore.”

On the other hand, they announced a couple of minor changes to the WCS rules. What do you think about the redistribution of the prize pool, which is something pros have been on about for a while?

Brilliant. Very good. I think it’s a very good change. When I talk bad about Blizzard, I’m just disappointed. It’s not that I think Blizzard completely is incompetent or that I think it’s a terrible company. I’m just very disappointed that a lot things seem to be happening that are caused solely by just mistakes, basically. Over and over. Which is very frustrating. There are not a lot of bad decisions anymore.

I think that’s the difference with Blizzard from a couple of years back. I felt like a lot of bad decisions were being made back then. But right now, a lot of good decisions are being made, but a lot seems to be going wrong in the execution. And I’m not sure why that happens, maybe they’re just very unlucky? But how many times can you get unlucky?

I think every change they’ve made to WCS system has been good, since we’ve had this system. 2016, 2017, and now... They keep on improving it. I really think this is a very good system.

Are there any major issues left to be tackled?

Honestly, I can’t think of anything. I’m sure there are many people who can think of something, but not right now. I don’t think a lot about these things that much.

Actually, there's one thing that used to be better, that was a bad decision. They used to have everything be double elimination in the qualifier, and then top four would go to WCS. The top six would get paid slightly more than top eight, twelve, whatever the format was. That was a good system, last year’s qualifiers were very good. Also, they also stopped doing the ladder qualifier for some reason, but maybe that will come back.

Alright, to wrap up we go to our world famous pirate question. Your girlfriend has been kidnapped by pirates, and is trapped on a boat floating somewhere in the Gulf of Aden. You can recruit three StarCraft II people to go with you on a rescue mission. Who do you pick, and why?

I think last time I had PartinG as a distraction, maybe SortOf for the brains? Okay, we need brains, distractions, and muscle.

For the muscle I’ll use Miniraser, obviously. He's one of my oldest friends, probably the most powerful one I know. He’s there to kick any doors in.

I want Elazer there, for the randomness. You don’t know what he’ll do. This guy is absolutely crazy. When this guy gets two drinks in him, he becomes completely unpredictable. He can do ANYTHING.

We need some brains in there. Who’s really smart? I think back then I picked Nerchio… For the brains we’ll use souL. Known for his big brains and intelligence. souL famously got 25 out of 25 on his English test in high school. For people who are counting along at home, that’s 100%. He also has some muscle. In Valencia, we were going out of a bar, and he just pulled off the door handle. The best part of it was he wasn’t even surprised. He just put the door handle on the floor like it happens every day.