[TLCMAT] S5 Champion Interview!

Banner by the ever-so-freaking-talented shiroiusagi

GEMINI IS YOUR 2018 TLCMAT SEASON 5 CHAMPION!!!

Congratulations on being the champion for TLCMAT Season 5! Let us proceed to the champion's interview, shall we?

You are the 2018 TLCMAT Season 5 champion. How did you feel when you received your congratulatory PM?

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I think I felt more relieved than anything. I was the most shocked after I saw that I beat BisuDagger by the margin that I did so after that I think I knew I was going to win.

Everyone that has been following the TLCMAT should be aware of the fact that this was a royal road accomplishment. How were you able to pull off such an unbelievable achievement?

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Honestly, I couldn't have done it without my loyal friends from /r/allthingsprotoss and Twitter. I made use of the following that I had there and it definitely helped me out a ton. It felt nice to see them always showing up in the results.

You had to face Seeker in the finals. How were you feeling? At any point, did you feel like you were going to lose?

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Like I said, after I saw how much I beat BisuDagger by I wasn't afraid of losing in the finals. Earlier on I would have been maybe but once the combined force of Bisu and his powerful toddler was slain it was truly over.

Since this was your first time participating in the TLCMAT, there were people within the community who had probably never even heard of you before. What do you expect to change, now that you've won a TLCMAT?

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Obviously I've taken my rightful place as the most popular community member in the entire StarCraft scene so this will surely lead me to earning unfathomable amounts of dirty esports dollars as I become hired by every Blizzard run event for the rest of time.

Or nothing really at all will change. Too early to tell.

There's going to be a full year before the next season of TLCMAT takes place. As the champion, what are your future plans?

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Hopefully to remain relevant enough in the scene to be nominated next time and do well again. This next few months is going to be really difficult for me because of school and I don't know how much time I can devote to making SC2 content, so I'm a little bit worried about fading away a little bit honestly.

What was the most fun part about TLCMAT this season? What was the most boring part?

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It was fun to talk a little smack and also feel like I joined a fun community event. I mentioned it in my playoff interview too; I'm not super active on TL.net compared to other places so I definitely felt like the outsider but it was cool to kinda mingle a bit in a fun competitive way.

The boring part was waiting a month between each poll to know the results :^)

BAH! Boring questions… Let’s dick around now.
One day, you're kidnapped from home and taken to an abandoned factory in the middle of nowhere. You wake up to find yourself alone in a room with three doors that lead outside. You see a sign that says "Congrats TLCMAT champion! Now that you've stolen my victory from me, it's time to ruin your life!" (Yes, it was Seeker that did this to you)
The rules are simple: You have to choose a door and exit out of it no matter what. Once you've chosen, you can't change your choice. Choose correctly and you live. Choose incorrectly and you die.

Door 1 has a face of hero
Door 2 has a face of Trap
Door 3 has a face of HerO

Which do you choose? Why?

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So, this one isn't as clear cut as it looks like on the surface. Anyone reading would say, "Pfft, obviously Gemini picks the HerO door" and to them I say you're probably right. However, there is something else here. With HerO having retired and seen his career fizzle out in a rather unimpressive fashion, leading to near obscurity, the door could potentially symbolize my eventual fate of fizzling out of the public sphere into the empty abyss slowly wondering why I ever took that decision to follow my one true love. But the 2nd door isn't that easy to pick either. Sure Trap is my 2nd, nearly equal love, however that could also be the perfect deceptive tactic that the kidnapper wanted. The door itself is a trap and is hoping that I blindly follow my current favorite in the hopes he can somehow save me. Which leads us then to the 1st door, which doesn't exactly seem all that appealing at all. I've never had any connection to the BW zerg player. He's also the one that is the least known of the 3 heroes so HerO's name doesn't get misspelled as his that often anyway. Why would one of the doors have hero's face on it? Surely the reason being that I'd never pick that door for all the aforementioned reasons, which would make it the perfect place to hide the ACTUAL HerO who is the only one with the keys to my safety.

However I can't actually know any of that. So it seems that our dear readers were correct as I blindly fall for my true love and stumble through the 3rd door because my loyalty knows no bounds as I can't be seen preferring anything over HerO given the choice. I live by my loyalty to HerO or die by it.

Now that you're filthy rich with a shit-ton of meaningless esports dollars, TL members (staff included) start showing up to your place at random times throughout the entire day begging for financial help. You don't want to deal with them because you're too busy getting ready to release your TL featured article on why HerO is the GOAT. What do you do to make sure those people NEVER bother you again?

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I immediately release the article for everyone to read and they're repulsed as it's just a giant fanfic of the joys of life as me and HerO living happily ever after in a love story for the ages.

You've received an all expense paid vacation trip to South Korea, personally funded by HerO himself. He wants to meet with you and congratulate you in person for winning TLCMAT. He agrees to take you out on a romantic 1-on-1 date. What would the two of you end up doing from sun up to sun down?

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Well of course, being the wonderfully endearing and nice guy that he is, HerO would wake up early to make me breakfast in bed. Only to find out that I was already in the kitchen preparing the same thing for him. We shyly eat the breakfast we've each prepared for the other and get ready to go about our day.

The day then obviously consists of nearly 12 hours of nonstop StarCraft 2 practice where I coach HerO about all the beautiful intricacies of the new LotV meta that he's missed out on and bring him back up to speed. I watch in star struck awe as his perfect mouse accuracy and unaltered mechanics take the info I feed him and sky rocket him straight up to 7k MMR, beating the likes of Maru, INnoVation, soO, Rogue, Classic, and even Serral on the way there. It's just like old times in 2014 where I'd stay up all night hypnotized by his graceful mouse movements and keyboard strokes. I've never seen him filled with so much passion before.

We finish out the night together looking at old VODs from years past of HerO's greatest games and achievements. Reminiscing about the good times and the bad of when he was the best multitask aggressive Protoss player on the planet. I slowly find myself falling asleep cuddled in his arms, his warm embrace helping to make me feel safe. Safe that I'll never lose him to retirement ever again. My eyes close for just a few seconds and open again to blinding sunlight. HerO is gone. My alarm clock is blaring the BW Protoss Shuttle spawn sound effect on repeat. I realize it was all just a dream. Just like all the others...

You wake up from bed one night and you're hit with an incredibly bright light. When you regain consciousness, you've noticed that you've been sent to an alternate universe. In this universe, winning TLCMAT means you are actually the suckiest person on TL. So obviously, you have to try to lose and get eliminated first rather than make it through. What would you do/say to ensure your elimination?

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I'd write some giant article about how the two greatest and most well loved StarCraft 2 casters in Korea are actually awful at their job and just rely on hyperbole and reusing the same lazy narratives to make their casts interesting.

Or I'd just say that avilo was right all along or something.

Guess what? The prize for winning TLCMAT in the alternate universe was another bright light that would send you back to your original universe where you originally came from. In the previous question, you ensured your elimination. What do you do to try to get back into the tournament? Because surely whatever you did to ensure your elimination means that TL hates you now, you know?

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I write a bunch of cover up tweets saying that I'm loving the discussion the article is creating and that I never intended to single any one person out and that I hope this is a lesson for everyone involved.

(I love you Olli<3)

OBLIGATORY!!! Anything else you would like to say?

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As much as I like to meme, I do wanna say thanks to anyone who's reading or was voting for me. TLCMAT in reality is just a for fun shits and gigs thing with not really that much importance but it is just a nice reminder to know so many people support and appreciate the work that I've done to vote for me as much as they did. So I just wanna say another thanks to anyone who was voting as it does mean a lot. I was a kid in high school who never thought he'd fit in or be known for anything, so I do really appreciate it.

Also, sorry HerO if you somehow found this and read it in its entirety. Trust me, I just play it up as a joke. I'm completely normal. You've met me in person you should know (right, guys?)

[TLCMAT] S5 Champion Interview!

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