TL: So tell us a bit about yourself. What's your story?
Sheth: My name is Shawn Simon. I've been known fairly well on SC:BW as ChOseN. Lately I've switched names to Sheth for SC2. I played in a lot of leagues and tournaments back in SC1 and I was a pretty solid player. Played for teams such as MYM, Excello, and LighT. Now I'm playing SC2 for team Root and happy to be there!

TL: You were also in the TSL. What's the story behind that?
Sheth: Yea I was in both qualifiers for TSL. In the first TSL I quit college and made it up to the #1 spot on the ladder for a while. I was one of the few people with an even record with Draco at the time. I stopped playing and I still made the top 48, however I decided that I should go back to college and the only way for me to do that was to stop playing SC. As for TSL 2 I was 2nd in ladder for a bit, never caught Idra the punk, and then my car got crashed and I quit to work full time to pay for that...

TL: Ouch that sucks.
Sheth: Yeah... I didn't even crash it. My friend did. ^^;

TL: A reliable source told me something about you skipping church (for TSL).
Sheth: Haha yea I'm a very religious person. I had spent less time out in service, I'm a Jehovah's Witness so it was good to quit sc for a bit and get more time in doing that. That didn't have any thing to do with why I quit though. Just a nice perk. XD

TL: Cool cool. By the way, you mentioned college. How's that going, if you don't mind the stalkers?
Sheth: Not at all. Florida Gulf Coast Univeristy is where I go. And besides with B.Net 2.0 I'll probably have to type my address or something. -.-

TL: Haha. Does it have a CSL team?
Sheth: Sadly, it doesn't. The closest player who plays SC well in Florida is either CatZ or Game. If you include Nero then you have like all the good SC players in Florida.

TL: Since you mentioned B.Net 2.0, what are your thoughts about it and the new Real-ID thing?
Sheth: B.Net 2.0 I think would be absolutely fine with cross realm. Chat channels would be nice... but not nessecary. And with adding a real name to it, well for gosugamers.net and other sites I've already put up my name and picture so its not a big deal. I don't think people should be forced to do it though. Kinda like all sorts of social things, its never fun if you HAVE to put a photo.

TL: True. So what can you tell us about your team?
Sheth: Plenty. Our website should be done fairly soon. It probably will open coinciding with sc2 beta. Um as for the players, there all pretty solid. We have alot of the areas covered so we can practice with ppl on our team and feel like we have a pretty overall confidence against others. We have some who like cheese and then there are a few like me who like macro. qxc and me will hopefully be team captains whenever cw's start up. Catz and Drew are awesome leaders and we've all been on vent alot.

TL: And do you know some of them personally? Like maybe Catz?
Sheth: I've actually never met any of them in person. I will meet Catz at the next LAN, though! The South Florida LAN or the SoCal LAN if we can scrape up the money to fly there. Yeah, there's another one coming up soon, so I'm sure I'll be there. I've known Catz for forever though, so it seems like I know him personally.

TL: Can you tell us a bit about your recruitment policy?
Sheth: Right now, we have just about the perfect race ratio of 3-3-3 so we're not actively looking for more. Actually, I think we may have four Zergs, even. So if you do well in NA tournaments and seem good mannered, then we'll consider ya! Surprisingly, the mannered thing is really important because we want people who are mature and willing to go "pro" for SC2. ^^ And since it's a business technically, we don't want anyone giving us a bad name.

TL: Speaking of which, are there any good up and coming players we should be on the lookout for that maybe we haven't heard so much about yet?
Sheth: If you haven't heard about KiWiKaKi, then that will be a pleasant surprise. ^^

TL: Haha. I mean players that aren't a part of root.
Sheth: Hmmm! Let me think then... I really don't know. It's been a while and the only person who I can remember from Beta who's not that well know, but was pretty good, is a little punk kid named Ostojiy.

TL: Alright. Let's talk about balance. What do you think about it, and have you taken a look at patch 16 yet?
Sheth: Yes, I've seen patch 16. It definitely seems to just be a reverting to old stuff patch. Infested terrans back on infestors is a pretty good move, though. There were a lot of fun things to do with then, and they were kind of useless on overseers. I think balance is fairly good, however I think that as Protoss gets better they will figure out that corrupters aren't the most amazing counter to colossi, and perhaps the PvZ balance will lean towards P. As of now, I don't know, though. It's been a while since I've played the Beta, so of course I have plenty of new ideas!

TL: What kind of "fun things" and "new ideas" are you talking about? Care to share your secrets?
Sheth: With infestors that can move while burrowed, you can do tons of fun stuff like have 4 of them pop out at a 3rd base and spit up 12 infested terrans. Or bring 10 infestors and have them spit out 50 infested terrans and kill the whole CC. =P Also, you can really embarass people with lke an army of 20 infestors popping out 80 infested terrans after fungal growthing an entire army 10 times. ^^

TL: Haha sounds fun to mess around with. Have there been any patch changes in the past that you've really liked or hated?
Sheth: Tanks auto-fire is stupid. Don't know why they made factories 50 minerals cheaper, or why they made SCVs 15 hp less, but I'm not that well versed in PvT balance. But they chose weird things to buff and nerf. Like, the roach food nerf was obviously the worst patch ever.

TL: As a completely unbiased fellow Zerg player, I agree. What about your favorite and least favorite matchups?
Sheth: I love ZvP and ZvT, and ZvZ is ok... but it's usually just baneling micro that decides it. I prefer games where it's all based on macro and with ZvZ, no matter how you put it, it just isn't.

TL: You were Zerg in SC:BW as well, right?
Sheth: Yes, I'm not one of those crazy race switchers. Gotta love ultralisks even if they're not so ultra in SC2.

TL: So is that your favorite unit? And why'd you choose Zerg in the first place?
Sheth: The ultralisk is definitely my favorite unit. They were the best. I could kill 20 marines with 1 ultralisk. It would take me sooo many hydras or zerglings to win ZvT and I hated lurker micro, so I would always just rush ultras. I beat Strelok in one fairly large tournament with 2 base ultralisks, without mutas or lurkers. It's actually probably the only time I beat Strelok in a tournament, but it was pretty awesome for me to win with a build order no one else was using at the time. And I picked Zerg because if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. :D

TL: Does that mean you were having trouble against Zerg when you first started?
Sheth: Yeah, when I was first playing T or P, a Z would always do some cool drop. And I was sooo bad against drop Zergs because at a low level, if a Zerg dropped 4 lurkers at your mineral line when you weren't ready, it was sooo deadly. Even at a high level, on some maps a quick lurker rush is almost unstoppable, like on Medusa. But I was never good at drops. I just liked having the option.

TL: So how is the race different now than it was in SC:BW? Do you like the changes?
Sheth: They made starcraft 2 zerg much more heavily based on positional attacks, timings and macro instead of micro. I was never the best at that micro, so I really like the changes... but on the flip side you really should need micro to be at the top and I feel that without amazing micro (SC1 scourge and defiler micro), you can still be pretty good with good builds and timings. Especially on some maps... kulas cough cough

TL: Speaking of maps, thoughts?
Sheth: With more player created maps I'm excited to see what people come up with. Gold as a natural? Gold as a main? A hostile unit before you can get to your natural? A hostile zergling that you have to micro against before you can mine your main? All the different things players can make with this editor should be super exciting, and as long as they don't make Gorky Island 2.0 I'll be happy.

TL: What about the current map pool?
Sheth: Ah well I think Desert Oasis is less of a zerg map then people think. I think any map with a ramp far away from your natural makes it nearly impossible to safely defend against P attacks for instance. Or even on Kulas when they just break the rocks, or Blistering Sands for that matter... Although for some reason I like that map a lot.

TL: So you've written a ZvP guide that's been pretty popular. Any word on a ZvT guide?
Sheth: Yes I've written up a lot of it already. I'm waiting to talk to Machine about it, actually. I've realized that without beta its very dificult for me to explain ZvT. I don't rememeber the exact early build orders despite testing them out on YABOT, and I don't want to post something that I'm not really behind myself... so yeah, I'm kind of waiting.

TL: And are you ever worried that the guides will become obsolute, what with the game changing so fast?
Sheth: Nope, not really. A lot of the basics I mentioned in the guide applied for SC1, and I'm sure that as long as this doesn't turn into a HoN or LoL game, it will apply to SC2 as well. Sure, the early openings might be different, but I don't think they'll make any huge changes at this point so close to release.

TL: So you don't think the standard play will change much over time?
Sheth: I dont think anyone really knows the standard play... but I think that within the next 2 months people will have a fairly standard 5 minutes of play down for each match up. For instance in all zvps people will go 14 hatch 13 pool on 4 player maps and 15 pool 14 hatch on 2 player maps... Just picking to random build orders, but you see what I mean. However there will always be micro heavy builds like 2gate or 1gate at 9 or reaper rush... But hopefully people will learn how to counter those.

TL: So sort of like how 12hatching was pretty standard in SC1. At least in ZvT.
Sheth: Yeah, exactly. The most "solid" build order that provides the best opportunity to prevent cheese.

TL: So do you still follow progaming?
Sheth: I haven't watched any SC1 since I started playing SC2. SC2 just seems much smoother. It's easier for me to control my units. And I can do it without 10 hours a day spent training in a chamber. =P

TL: Hah. Who was your favorite pro, then? And what was it that got you into Starcraft?
Sheth: My favorite was probably sAviOr. He just did so many amazing things on some maps that I thought Zerg would never be able to win on.

TL: What are your thoughts on the match fixing scandal?
Sheth: Depressing. Especially since, for a time, I truly thought with his micro and mindset he could beat anyone... He clearly would have rather just made money. As for how I got into Starcraft, after work every day I would spend time at my friends house playing Starcraft on the N64. We got "good" laugh from it and eventually just switched into SC:BW on the interweb. And then after getting pissed off at the hackers on fastest and hunters, I decided to try some 1v1 games. And boom, loved it. However I was still an east player... so until GiTM and my friend David (Game) came along and brought me to euro and then iCCup I was just a punk east trash talker.

TL: And now you're one of the best.
Sheth: Haha well hopefully I'll be one of the best at SC2! Only time will tell, I think. Hey did you know I will be a coach for GosuCoaching.com whenever beta comes back up?

TL: Oh really? That's awesome. Do you have any practicing tips for potential students, then?
Sheth: Yes. For SC1, there's this quote that I love: "The difference between a pro and an amatuer zerg player was that while an amateur makes mutalisks at 35/59 and a pro makes mutalisks at 35/59, while micro'ing the mutalisks the pro will have used all the extra larva to make drones and zerglings while the amatuer won't have quite as many." So I think the point is that even if you have a timing build order for an attack, during that attack you still have to focus alot of your attention on your macro.

TL: That's a very useful thing to keep in mind. Always plan and play for the future, even if you're busy with an attack or harass. By the way, it seems that you visit TL a lot (Note: Sheth is amazingly fast at replying to PMs), but you don't post too frequently. What are your thoughts on TL?
Sheth: I've been on TL since 2006 or so. I think its an exremely special community that I havn't found anywhere else. IdrA's bet match vs Smuft just cracked me up. However posting is something I used to hate cuz there were a lot of people who would just randomly bash whatever you said. I didn't want to fight anyone on TL. Even when I made my zvp guide I got a few dicks posting stuff like why did you post this trash? But now I'm old enough that I can just be like "oh wow another dick I've seen enough of you and not start a flame war." Also, people telling me they'd 2-0 me was always a way to get me mad, especially if I had no idea who they were.

TL: Haha. If that's the case, I challenge you to a BO3! I can 2-0 you any time! But we should probably be wrapping up. Any last words?
Sheth: Hah. I hope the beta is up by the time this interview is posted! Also, hopefully people will check out root gaming's website, as well as gosucoaching's in the near future! I think both will have great tools for both beginners and advanced players. Also, I hope Team Liquid will agree to a CW with us! Also, thanks a lot to CatZ, QXC, KiWiKaKi, and Artosis for all the practice games. I will have a facebook and twitter, but not yet! Also, CatZ is an amazing artist, and he's going to put a lot of interesting pictures up for me. Like caricatures, I think.

TL: Well we'll have to be sure to check that out. Thanks for the interview, and good luck in the future!