Serral interview: "I think everyone just got better, but s…

[한국어 / Korean Translation]
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Serral's 2018 run cemented him as one of the greatest StarCraft II players of all time, sweeping the WCS Circuit before becoming the only non-Korean player to win the Global Championship at BlizzCon. Serral's dominance on the WCS Circuit was challenged early this year when he lost WCS Winter: Europe to Reynor, but he reclaimed the throne with a dominant performance at WCS Spring. Despite having been interviewed countless times on tournament stages, the champ was still down to talk to TL.net and entertain our silly questions.

*This interview has been edited and condensed.



[After beginning the interview with a truly terrible line of questioning to try and find the truth behind a Korean meme, I quickly pivoted to golf.]

Wax: You said at WCS Spring that you were playing more golf these days. Have you just managed to find more time for it?

Serral: Yeah, I guess. This year we picked up golf more, the main reason was because we actually managed to get permission to play, since in golf you actually need to pay quite a lot. In past years we didn't pay for that so we couldn't go play, but now we have that so we can just go play whenever we want.

Like a membership?

Basically. It's quite fun. I've always liked golf to some extent, but it's quite expensive still.

Who do you go with?

Well only me and my dad play right now, but my brother is in Korea, still. I don't know if he wants to play if he gets back at some point.

Who's the better player between you and your dad?

Hmm.... we are around the same I would say. Pretty bad right now *laughs*. But improving, still.

Is the golf course membership the most expensive thing you've bought with your prize money?

Well, the thing is I kind of got the membership through 'cooperation' this year, so I didn't actually pay.

You mean a sponsorship?

Not really a sponsorship exactly, just more of like a... I would call it a cooperation with my home city right now. So I'm getting some stuff out of it, and I'm doing a lot of stuff for them. It's that kind of thing.

What's your golf handicap?

Well, pretty trash right now, it's thirty.

So, very far from the equivalent of 7500 MMR in StarCraft II.

Yeah, very far... but I have been on a constant improvement curve right now. It's been going down every round I have played, so the goal is to be at least under 20 at the end of the year.

I heard from Lambo that you got a Switch and bought Super Smash Bros. Ultimate because you were mad about losing to Neeb at IEM Katowice.

I'm not sure if losing to Neeb was a part of that *laughs*, but I already had a Switch at that point. I did buy Smash after that, but I'm not sure how much it was about losing to Neeb, it was more just enjoying the game. I didn't actually play it too much, I have like 10 hours maybe on it?

Is that the new thing pros play at events?

Well we haven't played in the last two events, but that was the plan. The plan was to have some matches at every event, but the last two events we didn't play any. But also, I guess if you get far in tournaments, there's normally not too much extra time.

So no rematch against Neeb?

No, but honestly I think he's pretty afraid, and not really willing to take the rematch anyway.

Who are the best players in the pro-scene?

From the people I have played with, Lambo was the best. Then, SpeCial was pretty good. Sasha was pretty good as well, but Lambo was the best from those for sure.

[Remembering that TL.net is technically a 'serious' news website for StarCraft II, I decided to ask him about the actual game.]

At WCS Spring you said you would rather face Reynor than Goblin in the semifinals, even though Reynor would be a more difficult opponent. You never seem to take losses that badly, and I don't think I've ever heard you say that before. Was your previous loss to Reynor at WCS Winter that different?

To some extent, yeah. But after the match [at WCS Winter], I kind of felt bad just because I don't think the games were the best games ever. They were kind of tricky—to some extent, at least. Those kind of games kinda eat at you the most, so I wasn't too happy after that series. I mean, I still don't take any losses too seriously. Obviously, in the moment it always feels awful.

But yeah, I mean I would say that was probably the hardest loss to take since people kinda... I don't like rivalries and that kind of stuff, but people still kind of tend to make me and Reynor one, so it's always a bit harder to lose. I would say I took it a bit worse than when I lost to INnoVation, for example.

You said at WCS Spring you don't think anyone has more than a 50% chance to win a tournament. Considering how well things went for you last year, would you say your skill level has changed, or that last year you just caught all the lucky breaks? Or did everyone else just get better compared to last year?

I think everyone got better, but I don't feel like like my skill level got any lower... I think everyone just got better, but so did I.

It's just like I said at WCS Spring, 50% always. I think last year there were a lot of times I could have lost events at like top eight, and I got a bit lucky. It was kind of just a lucky streak, like winning a bunch back-to-back always is. You always need some luck to win stuff—I don't think anyone is THAT much better [than anyone else].

Everyone seems to forget you lost to Scarlett at IEM PyeongChang and Maru at WESG in 2018.

Yeah, I mean... I guess my start to last year was actually pretty similar [to this year] then, wasn't it?

The ZvZ gauntlet at WCS Montreal seemed particularly fortunate.

I mean, I obviously I felt like I was better, but not by that much—it's always going to be a bit of a lucky run. But, at the same time, obviously, I think I was pretty good last year, and I'm still very good, so I don't want to put everything on the being lucky part. But obviously, to some extent, it's always a bit of a lucky run.

Have you made more concrete plans about going to Korea? Like staying around longer after GSL vs. The World?

We were thinking my brother would stay a bit longer, he was supposed to come back at the start of July. So he actually is gonna stay there for one and a half months more just so that he could watch the event in case it's there. Then I might stay there a bit longer—I haven't thought about it too much yet, whether I'm going to stay at the practice house or anything.

So I guess there's no chance the scheduling works out so that you'd stay for an entire GSL?

Well, I haven't watched the schedule for anything yet, so I haven't thought about it too much. Probably not gonna stay for the whole GSL length.

Do you think that it's tough to balance between two regions with such different results? Protoss are dominating GSL, but the Circuit seems to play out so differently.

Yeah I would say it's pretty hard to balance since there's two very different regions, but I think right now Protoss are doing pretty well in Europe as well—it's not like they're struggling too much. I felt even in WCS Spring, Neeb and ShoWTimE could have got very easily through, but they lost to SpeCial, which is probably just a lack of practice for that match-up.

I think if I would have played them in the final it would have been very hard. Especially against Neeb, I think I would have probably had even less than a 50% chance to win that. But yeah, it's very hard.

I would say Protoss is... Obviously late game is very good for Zerg, but everything before that's pretty hard for Zerg, I think.

Do you keep up with GSL matches?

I don't watch too many of the games, but I do watch the results. I don't really watch too much live, but I watch some of the interesting VODs for sure. I like to watch Dark games, for example. I think Dark has a very cool
play-style. He has a very "I don't care" play-style which is very impressive in my opinion.

What do you mean by "I don't care?"

I mean just the proxy-Hatch suddenly in the Protoss base, it's kinda... it's just a very fun play style. I kinda tried to adopt it a bit at the start of the year—I was playing a bunch of proxy-Hatches and a lot of the Dark stuff. I stopped it now, honestly, but I still like his play-style a bit.

soO actually said he watched an Elazer VOD between Code S matches because he was angry at Protoss and was looking for a Nydus build to win with.

Yeah, that was the 17/17 Nydus. Not the best build ever, but it worked nicely. I actually saw that game.

If you win, it's a good build, isn't it?

Not sure if that's how it works.

Seeing Classic bring out different builds for each map in his GSL finals run, did you feel it would be harder to compete in that kind of preparation-heavy environment?

Probably. To some extent, at least. I think—the thing is, both players have the time. I think I'm also pretty good when I get some time to prepare, but at the same time they're probably more experienced in that style of a tournament, so they would probably get a bit of an advantage from that, for sure.

The thing with preparation tournaments is that I feel like you could... I would kind of just want to play more of a messy style, just like Dark likes. I think Dark likes to play his messy style because it kinda counter-effects the preparation, because if [your opponent] does something dumb, you can't actually play your actual plans anymore. I think you can prepare builds for every map, but you always need to have a backup plan and know how to follow-up if not everything goes according to plan.

We asked you our "pirates question" before, back in 2017. [If pirates kidnapped your loved ones and you could only recruit three members of the SC2 community to rescue them, who would you choose?]. Let me read your answer: "First of all you need strength, so Harstem and ShoWTimE as swordsmen. Then I would hire Nerchio as an archer and tactician due to his intelligence."

Yeah, that was a bad answer [note: this part was partially unintelligible]. I mean, I think the swordsman part was pretty good.

Would you change the roster now? Would you change out like Lambo for Nerchio now?

I mean, you need to have a big brain for that, so, mmmm... who's the big brain?

[Long pause]

I wouldn't change the swordsmen part at least, but the big brain, I would maybe drop Nerchio of out there. I don't mind Nerchio being there but Lambo is a very... I don't think he's a big brain guy, but he does some good builds for sure. The brain part is a bit hard. Let's give it to... I would have to see the player list.

How about Protoss players? Do they not qualify?

Maybe but... I don't think there's any big brain that zooms out for me right now. I don't know, too hard.

Thanks for your time. Anyone you want to shoutout or thank?

I want to thank my fans always, obviously my team for the support, and that's about it. But obviously, fans are very important.

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You can see Serral in action in WCS Summer Challenger on June 15th, and probably in every single non-GSL tournament this year.

Follow @ENCE_Serral and @ENCE on Twitter.