[Interview] Fenner - WCS America: Oceania/SEA

Thanks for allowing me to interview you Fenner! Can you say a little bit about yourself to start things off?
My pleasure Mr Baldwin. Hello, people of the internets. My name is Daniel Fenner and I like to play StarCraft 2. I'm a Zerg player representing team Frenetic Array. I'm British, living in Australia and my goal in life is to be the best SC2 player to ever grace the planet.

That's a bold statement if I ever heard one! Have you always been this competitive?
I guess I've always been competitive, but when I was younger never really pushed myself to try and be at the top. As for things I've played competitively before, I played (in my earliest days) AVP2, CS and then Poker before coming to StarCraft... But I never dedicated myself to any of those like I did with SC2. They were more of a casual competitive outlet, yknow? Where as with SC2 I've just decided to go all out.

It's quite a cool story actually. I was really into photography a couple of years ago, so I was practicing it a lot and was on the edge of starting up my own photography business. But around that time I was absolutely loving SC2. I was watching the GSL with a good friend and I let out a comment something along the lines of "I wish I could be competing there!" and my friend just said "Do it!." Since I was at a point where I didn't yet have responsibilities etc. I felt like this was my only chance to give the dream a shot. It's funny how 2 little words can change the course of your life, haha.

I have a few similar moments myself which have shapped where I am today so I know what you mean. What makes StarCraft II the game worthy of dedicating your life to?
I'm not sure. I don't think the game or sport of choice is important, just as long as it has enough competition to where winning a major tournament would have a lot of meaning. SC2 is just the competitive thing I was into at the time so it was only natural.

Do you ever wonder how your life would look right now if your friend didn't say those two words?
To be honest I don't really think about it. It's hard for me to think what I would be doing instead, there is way too much I want to do :D I think I would be enjoying a lot more cash money though if I wasn't on the path of #dedication.

Then again thinking about it now, probably would go down the photography route or video fx, graphic design, 3d modelling/animation - I enjoy all of those a lot.

Thanks for giving us a little glimpse of your life outside of StarCraft II! Speaking of which; given you want to be the best player to ever grace the planet, these upcoming WCS qualifiers must be pretty important to you? What would it mean for you to be able to qualify for WCS America?
Yeah, these qualifiers have such a huge meaning to me. If I was able to qualify I would be absolutey ecstatic. The ultimate goal of waking up and practicing everyday is to take down a major tournament, to feel the sensation of all that hard work paying off.

How has your preparation been going for you?
I've been practicing what I would call quite a decent amount, looots of ladder. My play still feels extremely weak and with the strong competition in this qualify I need to really push myself this next upcoming week. My ZvT suddenly became incredibly weak due to people playing a lot more aggressive nowadays with Hellion Banshee etc. instead of just the old school 3cc into bio marine train which was a lot easier to deal with. My ZvP is strange, there is so much that can happen in a ZvP that it mostly comes down to the player you're against, I think vs any macro player I'm fine but someone who likes his cheese may be much more difficult. My ZvZ is in a weird spot too, not exactly weak but my go to build is weaker in the current metagame - but I'm already changing that and feeling much stronger.

Over the next week I hope I can find some prac partners willing to play 8 hour sessions with me so I can just practice specific matchups. I think that would be a great way to practice!

Sounds like the #dedication required to make an impact in these qualifiers! You mention the strong competition. Are you confident with your chances of qualifying?
My confidence will be based on how well my practice goes this week, so if like you say that my practice goes well then I will most definitely be confident to qualify. So I damn well better make sure my practice goes well!

Is there anybody you really want to battle, perhaps a rival?
Hmmm. The people I really want to play would be mOOnGLaDe/MaFia since they always knocked me out in tournaments before, but it's doubtful they will even be competing. Other than that I guess Rossi. For whatever reason whenever I play Rossi in a tournament we always end up having some really ridiculous games, probably because he NEVER gives up even if he goes down to like 1 SCV. Playing against him is extremely frustrating but after the game I realize how much fun it is from the spectator POV ;D

There rarely is a dull series when it's a TvZ involving Rossi! These WCS qualifiers you will also be competing against some of the remainder of South East Asia's best which you don't usually play within the Australian Cyber League circuit. What are your thoughts on the idea of opening up ACL to all of South East Asia?
Sounds like a great idea. More players = more challenge = more prestige from winning!

There are some strong players in the rest of SEA, most notably Blysk and Enderr. Man, I really do not want to play EnDerr... His play in SC2 is batshit insane, completely unpredictable. If he is going to come to an ACL offline event, I hope his personality doesn't reflect his ingame playstyle

Thank you for your time and I wish you the best with your practice this week! Let's hope these qualifiers are a step closer to the realisation of your goal. Do you have any closing comments?
Thanks mate~
Shoutout to ACL for making this happen and all the great events they run throughout the year.
Shoutout to SC2SEA for being the best community site ever, always enjoy reading ye olde chatbox.
Shout out to Frenetic Array, umart online and Razer! Peace y'all. y'all.