I started with a sit down with the captain of the winners of Semi Final B, SouL)('s Fujikura!
Q. So Fuji, SouL Gaming have made it to their first playoff finals this season.
A. I think finally making it to the finals is good, we got unlucky with round 1 being in the same group as WHITE and then not having as deep of reliable line up and losing to another team in the group due to no shows and lack of substations. There’s also the whole WHITE dropping too many matches in round two like round 3 and having the two best teams facing off in the semi finals.
Q. WHITECLAN have been a thorn in your side, you finally defeated them.
A. It’s good to finally beat WHITE we’ve lost to the in round 1 groups, and in play offs semi finals round 2. I feel like we lost to them another time, but can’t recall exactly. A commanding victory at that feels good, they’re no slouches by any means.
Q. You broke records being the first team to make it to the playoff finals undefeated.
A. I can’t really say much about being the only team to be undefeated into play off finals, I know I utilized a mostly Korean line up in round 3, but I always had Ty2 and Dandy available as subs and I know Ty2 appeared several times for Spire, that helped me keep the losses due to walk over down this round which plagued me a bit in previous rounds.
Q. What's the main aspect you attribute to your teams current success?
A. I think our teams success this round is due to having a deeper line up and having subs available for starters, also my players are in really good form at the moment.
Q. You'll be facing NetWars in the finals.
A. I think NW is beyond a doubt the strongest non-korean team to be honest if I didn’t have an array of Koreans and had to match them foreigner vs foreigner it would be a tough match. They have an amazing talent pool from Europe and I respect all their players and their team.
Q. Any players that worry you?
A. Bonyth is definitely the scariest player, he plays versus Koreans a lot and he’s easily top 3 outside Korea.
Q. Predictions for the finals?
A. I predict a 5-1 win for SouL Gaming!
Q. What can we expect from SouL in Round 4?
A. As for round 4 ZeLoT who recently qualified for ASL 7 will debut in the STPL and I have one more acquisition in the works and if SouL Gaming wins round 3 finals I’m already contemplating what I will do with the group swap available to me, depending on how the groups fall.
I then asked some general questions about SouL Gaming as a whole.
Q. As a manager, how do you decide who to recruit?
A. I like to find players that are active and dedicated and also someone I can communicate with. Luckily I have Scan to bridge the gap and also my newest player ZeLoT has great English, for the longest time I was short on Protoss so I was really hunting for a Protoss player my line ups were all Terran and a Zerg for a long time.
Q. Outside of STPL what are your goals for SouL Gaming, where do you see the team heading?
A. Outside of STPL you will see two, possibly three players in ASL 7 using the SouL tag, which will be exciting. I just got convinced to play in BWCL, by my players and we merged with oG) and took their spot in div B. We are also the two time champions of the Peruvian Team league known as the LLS (Liga Latina Starcup) outside brood war I’m exploring picking up a Peruvian CS:GO team, which means we will be a multi game organization at that point. I also need a website! Please HALP!