EPT
Clan ReV has a desire to contribute to building a future for StarCraft and to support those who work hard organizing events in our community. One such member of the StarCraft community is Snipe, the Head Admin of the Coach Pupil League, a tremendous resource for newer players.
Q.Greetings, Snipe! Many a player can be thankful for you being in the SC:R community. But what got you into StarCraft in the first place? And what kept you playing?
A: Hey Incomplete and everyone else! Before answering, I'd like to thank you for having me! I've been around Brood War for quite a while but not really well known until I started doing CPL. My first StarCraft experience goes all the way back to about 2002 when some of my friends in junior high (14 years old) introduced me to this cool game they were playing called StarCraft. One of my friends ended up burning me a copy of the game and sharing his CD key with me. However, we soon discovered we couldn't play online at the same time, and eventually I got my own CD key.
Back then none of us were big into 1v1's or knew about the pro scene. We were just happy to have a game we could all play and thought it was awesome that we could play together without being in the same room! Of course, dial-up sometimes got in the way for those without cable, but hey, the Internet was still fairly new, and people that used it were still considered nerds—it wasn’t the norm. Back then, we mostly played fastest, BGH, or various UMS games. Eventually a Korean guy joined our class and became friends with us. We soon found out he knew about StarCraft as well, and I'm sure this can go without saying...but he was better than all of us...combined. I have memories of losing to him 3v1 on more than one occasion. In my defense, my favorite strategy back then was to build cannons around my base and mass carriers (the beginning of becoming a Protoss player!)
From that point on, I was always an on-again-off-again type of player. I'd go months, or possibly even years, without touching the game, only to come back and play it again for a couple months or years at a time. Every time I came back I'd get involved with a friend that I introduced to the game long ago, and he would always teach me a little more about the game. I'd slowly improve each time. However, while I would take breaks, my friend stayed relatively consistent in playing and has since risen to be one of the best players in the foreign scene—shoutout to DragOn[NaS]!
What keeps me coming back is probably a big part to do with DragOn[NaS] and the fact he was always so interested in learning the game. I think good friends in the community help keep plenty of people around, but in general, it's a fun and extremely challenging game. In recent years, one of the big things that keeps me around the scene is running CPL and watching the players improve. It can get a little overwhelming running the league at times, but overall I love helping people work on their own game and seeing how players have gotten better by playing in CPL. I don't pretend to be one of the best, but I think I'm decent at the game and have pretty good game knowledge. I'm almost always willing to help people improve (mostly in a matchup involving Protoss, but I can help in the others at a lower level as well, just ask!). I also love how much life SC:R brought back to the community and all the different events that have been going on since.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/b8Xip7d.jpg)
Old official strategy guides and build order tree
Q:Aside from your friends of old, have you met many others from the community in real life?
A: Yes I have! I've met a few anyway...most of them at the same time. I ended up accompanying my friend DragOn when he was playing in the Zotac Cup held in LA back in December 2017. It was a cool experience for me because I had never been to something like that before. Just to see everything that goes on behind the scenes and how they set up to host an event like this was a lot of fun.
While I was at Zotac, I got to meet a number of different players and well known members of the community. I met players such as Jaeyun and Hawk, even Draco—super cool guy, by the way. A group of us wandered away from the hotel to grab some beers and bring them back to share (Draco and I did anyway, most of the players didn't want to have anything!). That's when Draco told us about his time living in Korea and training in the pro gaming houses. I think everyone that was there really appreciated and enjoyed hearing about that. Of course, Larva was there too! I got to chat with him a bit (through his translator) and get some tips from him and hear him talk about one of his struggles as a gamer: Bisu's probe micro. Of course I saw him beat Legend...with his foot...live. Long live the footstargamer?
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/00YZ2C8.jpg)
Zotac Cup Main Stage - Michael on the left, KawaiiRice on the right
I also got to meet the legendary Tastosis! I still remember Artosis standing behind me watching me die to an early hydra drop on Fighting Spirit. Zesagi is real [frowny face]! I shared an Uber with Day9 from the airport to our hotel as well, and we got to talking a bit about StarCraft and the event. I got to meet Schamtoo who was observing the event, and Fujikura who came down to support it. I can't talk about Zotac without mentioning Shoop. He was a teammate of mine back in CPL 1, but we were friends before that who learned and played the game together with DragOn and Seriosity before Remastered. Shoop took DragOn and myself out for a fitting night of Korean BBQ and crashed in our hotel room one night. Thanks Shoop!
Outside of Zotac, earlier this year I also briefly met up with a friend who lives in the same city as me. We didn't get a chance to hang out for too long, but razorsuKe and I are also pretty good friends who can regularly trade games with each other. We tried to organize a road trip together to the Montreal LAN, but the plans fell through. I would still love to go to another LAN sometime. I think we need one in Western Canada!.
You've met quite a lot of people then...and some big names too! How important would you say the social aspect of BW is?
A: I think the social aspect is an important part of BW. As people, we need some form of social interaction. The amount or way in which we get it of course varies from person to person, but having good friends and people to play with keeps a lot of us coming back. Without a means to communicate with one another, StarCraft wouldn't be what it is today. A lot of us have our own little group of friends or people we associate with, but we also have our bigger communities where anyone can hop on and talk to other people about the game or anything else. There are a lot of good resources, now more than ever, for people wanting to get involved in StarCraft and make new friendships. These resources and social outlets also really help keep people involved and up-to-date with all things BW.
Having got to meet all the people I did, and share my experience only goes to expand on the social aspect of the game by taking it into the real world. I've had plenty of friends ask me all about Zotac, and I have shared pictures with them from the event (I wish I had taken more while I was there!) . The fact that I was able to meet all these people and share my experience with the community just goes to show that even if we have a smaller community, it’s a good one. Everything from events like these to our casual social friendships are important because they strengthen and bring together our BW community.
Q: One great resource in that regard is the CPL (Coach/Pupil League) where you're the head admin. What spurred you guys to start it up?
A: There is definitely a bit of a backstory on how CPL came to be. I wrote up a history of CPL on the official thread for Season 3 back in 2018 if you want to read more about it, but I will try to condense and sum up the main points here.
In short, it wasn't our idea (the current admin and myself) to start this up in the first place. In fact, Season 1 was originally started by a pretty well known man in the community named L_master. Although he had started what we've been calling CPL 1, the concept of a coach-student based league has been floating around the community for a number of years with a few different variations or takes on how to do it. In fact, it was L_master who played in one of these other leagues that gave him the desire to start this one. From that, CPL 1 was born.
So you may be asking, “How did I get involved? Why am I now the admin?” I was a no name noob at the time just getting back into StarCraft again when my friend DragOn told me about this fun league we could participate in together. I was instantly on board and made a Team Liquid account to sign up! From there we had a preseason tourney, which was fun to play in, but L_master started getting real busy IRL, and the league seemed destined to fail. I loved the idea of the league, and not wanting to see it die, I contacted a man named Jealous (who seemed keen on helping L_master run things) to help me recruit more players. My hope was that this would buy time for L_master to come back and run the league. It soon became apparent however that L_master wasn't going to be back. That's when I realized...I had just inherited the league.
From that point on, Jealous and I ran the league together. I had all these ideas of how I thought it should be run, and from there we had a pretty good Season 1. It was a lot of work for the two of us, but we got through it and learned a lot on the way. Season 1 was played entirely on ICCUP, and had completely wrapped up the same month as SCR was released.
From there, CPL lay dormant for a while until a good friend and teammate of mine from Season 1, PiSan, brought up in our team Discord one day: "I want to bring CPL back." Another Season 1 teammate and friend of ours, Awerti, and myself instantly stepped up and were on board with him. From that, CPL was back for another 2 seasons with PiSan, Awerti, and myself as admins. After season 3 completed, PiSan got pretty busy, so I went ahead and ran Season 4 with Awerti, and wrapped things up earlier this year.
Moving forward, I can't say for sure what Season 5 will hold or who all will be involved (stay tuned for some potential format changes!), but there are a lot of great ideas out there for the league. There are plenty of things we'd like to do to make it even better, but there's only so much we can do as admin, and as players in the community with limited time and resources. After all, for most of us this is a hobby. That said, for something that is run by and participated in by people in their free time, it's a pretty good league for the community. I look forward to seeing you all in CPL Season 5!
Q: Seems like a good team of admins doing good work! Do you guys go into certain roles when handling the league? If so, who takes care of what?
A: Thanks! Yeah, we do split up the workload into different roles, but it has varied from season to season. Season 1, for example, I took care of all the TL updating, including things like updating standings, collecting team/player results, taking in the line-ups every week, choosing maps/map order trying to keep balance, and formatting the posts on top of the overall organization of the league. Whereas Jealous handled the casting, including contacting and bringing in guests, updating the Liquipedia page for Season 1, and compiling the stats.
Season 2 and 3 were relatively consistent with one another. PiSan handled the overall general organization of the league by picking maps and coming up with the rules/main post, organizing preseason/creating teams on the spreadsheet, and organizing all of the players in the Discord (along with me), organizing replays for casting, and taking the lead role. I handled most of the line-ups/results, some graphics, a bit of casting, and some other little things here and there, while Awerti—the stats master himself—took care of all things Liquipedia. Of course, there was some overlap between the three of us so we could all take care of most things. Moving forward to Season 4, I more or less took on all of the things PiSan had done in Season 2 and 3 as well as continuing on with what I did before while Awerti kept up with everything Liquipedia and stats as well as creating the new CPL MMR system we used to determine matchups.
A league like this can't exist without everyone else though. There have been a lot of people that have volunteered their time to the league, or contributed in one way or another, from all of our casters, to the people who have helped out with the Liquipedia, to all the coaches and players, or the people who just enjoy watching/following the league. I'd like to give you all a big shoutout and thank you!
However, I would be amiss if I didn't mention some of the people that really stepped up and helped out with the league in one way or another. First up would be Not Lemon/Neblime who took on the role as being our head casting coordinator—he planned and organized casters/casts and got things uploaded to YouTube (shoutout to Rock who helped in Season 4, and Connor5620 who handled the YouTube in Season 2/3 as well). Next up is SuperCyan who designed and seriously upgraded a lot of the graphics that we use in the league today—as well as iRk-Strömkarlen who also helped with some graphics for Season 4. Finally, a thank you to Gorgonoth who does a little bit of it all. He's helped out across a few seasons with a few things: hosting events, casting, and helping out with some behind the scenes admin stuff (such as updating player roles for the new season) in the CPL Discord.
It's a lot of work to run the league for a season with the team we have, but we love to do it and give back to the BW community. When Season 5 hits we'll see a lot of similar faces in some similar roles, but I'm also hoping to bring in some more/new people to help divide up the workload and expand CPL even more. We do have some other ideas we'd like to see/things we'd like to do with the league, but with a limited time and staff, there is only so much we can do. The more people we can get involved, the more we'll be able to do!
Q:For anyone reading, are there any specific tasks you are seeking people to do? Any prior experience required, or can new people step up too and learn as they go?
A: As far as experience goes, nothing too intense is needed. Everyone that's involved in the league is volunteering their own time to help out, New people are welcome! The only thing I'd say for sure is that if you want to get involved/help out, we'd like you to be reliable. If you're going to commit to helping with something, we'd like you to be able to keep up with it as best as possible for at least the duration of the season.
As for specific tasks, there are a number of ways to get involved. I would like to expand the overall team a bit in a couple of areas, one of them being casting coordinator. Right now we have Neblime taking care of a lot of that, but ideally I would like to add 2-3 more people to help him out, even 1 more person would be good. The casting coordinator is basically in charge of all things casting/getting the schedule up/running - releasing/providing the casters with the replays, announcing upcoming casts, uploading vods to the CPL YouTube, and a few other tasks which are outlined in their channel. Other than that, people who can do data entry, run some events/provide moderation as well as some people to promote the league/reach out to other communities/be more involved in public relations would all be helpful. There has also been talk in the past about getting some more social media presence and/or a website, but I think we would need at least a few committed people to get either of those off the ground. That said, if there's other areas anyone could help out in, we'd love to hear from you. If you do want to get involved in CPL in some way, you can contact any one of our admins, and we can try to find a fit for you.
Q: I hope more people will come your way! Are there any memories or experiences you cherish more than others, regarding your time with CPL?
A: Thank you! There have definitely been some ups and downs, good and bad memories, and a few...interesting characters that have been around the league throughout the various seasons. Most of that though just adds variety and uniqueness to the league, in my opinion, even if there were headaches at the time. I think for me personally, my greatest CPL experience/memory has to go back to Season 1—from the standpoint of a player, not necessarily as the organizer. We had a small group/team that formed good friendships and worked closely together with our coaches (Head coach DragOn[NaS]) to eventually win the league and playoffs. While it was exciting that we were able to overcome adversity (we were judged as one of the two weakest teams to start the season) and win the league, the friendships and fun we had together as a group/supporting each other in our games is something I really cherished. Even today, most of our Season 1 team stays in contact with one another. PiSan, Awerti, and myself stayed together as admins for the CPL. This season of BWCL (BWCL 49) there are four of us (Dark.Matter, PiSan, Shoop, and myself) participating on the same team together. Moving forward, every season I've played in has brought more people together, and created more friendships. And I like to think/hope that CPL has provided that same sort of experience to other players as well in bringing our community together.
Q: Yeah, I was quite excited to see [NaS] forming a B-team. [NaS] has always impressed me with having a pretty small roster, and still consistently performing well relying on rather few players. How would you describe [NaS] clan? Tight group of friends, or rather very strict criteria to join in terms of activity/skill/personality etc.?
A: This is actually the 2nd iteration of NaS-B, we created it back in late 2017 to play in PATL, (some of the same players but some different ones as well) and it was disbanded shortly after. To answer your question however, I would say the clan is probably a little of both. For example, NaS-B team is essentially made up of our CPL 1 team, including one of the coaches, along with a few other people in CPL we've played with or have coached in the league/a couple of team friends. Some players from NaS-A even moved down to play NaS-B. So I would say we have a pretty good group of friends/people we like to play with.
The overall leader of NaS (DragOn[NaS]) also tells me he sees/wants NaS to be seen as having a small strong roster so not everyone can get in. I don't know of any specific requirements...but I believe for NaS-A, if you can't get above 2k MMR, you wouldn't even be considered. You'd also need to be able to fit in with the group. NaS-B is obviously not going to be as strict or high level in that regard, but we still have what I would say is a pretty solid line-up/good group of friends for a B-Team. If anyone were interested in NaS-B, we would want a certain level of reliability. You wouldn't have to be the most active player, but show up for your matches! To be able to play in the line-up, we would also expect at least a pretty decently mid-higher level player (think minimum CPL Tier 1) that can fit in with everyone. Even if your skill level isn't quite there yet, you can still be one of our "groupies"—essentially a clan friend that hangs out in our Discord...I've been a NaS-A groupie basically since it was created!
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/BExEkBc.jpg)
ZOTAC Cup practice computers. To the right you can see the feet of [NaS]'s leader, DragOn[NaS]. We are not worthy of more!
Q: Sounds hawt! What's your ambition for NaS-B? Any specific short and/or long-term goals?
A: NaS-B is still relatively new, in fact we created the clan less than a week before the deadline for this season of BWCL (Season 49), and so we're still getting our feet wet and settled in as a clan. I haven't really thought about anything long-term, but for sure our goal right now is to move up a Division in BWCL. The way it works is they start you in the lowest division (Div-D), and then the top 2 teams have the chance to move up by playing the bottom 2 teams of the division above. We'd like to be able to just straight up win this season and play in the higher divisions. I think we definitely have a shot and are confident as a team with the line-up of players we have that we can make it into the next Division. Just recently we did a for-fun clan war (the weekend before the league started) against a team in Division C and managed to win it. Let’s go NaS!
What of your own individual goals? Where is Snipe in the BW landscape two years from now? Or in life in general, for that matter?
A:Well first of all, I'd like to continue to be involved in CPL in some form, even if I'm not part of the admin team. I just enjoy helping people work on and improve their own game. I also find helping other players helps me improve my own game by going over areas they can improve/the theory behind certain situations or decisions helps strengthen and reaffirm my own knowledge. So on that front, I'd like to also continue to improve and work on my own game. I would love to eventually qualify for one of the "NASSL" type tournies, and I'd like to make it further along in BSL than I did this season. BSL7 choboleague is my first time playing in a BSL, and I made it into the Ro8 before being eliminated. I would love to get a Top 4 or better sometime.
Outside of StarCraft, I have a few personal goals. First of all I'd like to continue playing soccer (or football for most of the world). During most seasons, I play 1-2 times a week and have for a number of years. For me, soccer is a good way to get out of the house, get some exercise, socialize and have some fun while doing it! The year before last I took a big step in improving my overall health and taking care of myself. Its something I had been wanting to do for myself for years now. That said this past year I feel like I more or less stagnated - so I'd like to get back on track with that and continue working on myself some more. This may not be anything too exciting, but I moved in the past year, so now that I've been getting more settled at the new place, I want to clean and go through a lot of the old stuff I have (I already got rid of a lot when moving!) to make my space less cluttered and more for me.
What I'm really trying to say is I'd like to improve my living area further improving my quality of life. Finally, I recently had two new baby girls join my life: two little kittens whom I instantly fell in love with. I've had them for about one to two months now, but they are still just three to four months old at this time. They're definitely going to require a fair bit of my time and attention as they mature into adults over the next couple of years. I feel like this may not have quite answered the question how it was asked or maybe not quite what you were looking for in an answer—but hey, that's where I'm at in life right now.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/b8tJ8x6.jpg)
So furry and soft.
Q: It's the reply I didn't know I wanted - now we know that Snipe enjoys pussies and balls! As we draw near the end of the interview, what's your take on the future of StarCraft? Is there one? And what does it require to build its future?
A: Haha, what can I say? I suppose I'm a man that enjoys a good variety. I do believe there can be a future for StarCraft. I mean it's been around for 20 years, and still being played competitively. Here's to another 20! Cheers!
I do think it's a game that's not for everyone and does have this stigma about it (for good reason) about being this extremely hard game to get good at. That's where I think these low level leagues like CPL or other such communities geared toward lower level players play a big role. They offer that competitive taste to lower level players, but the problem is getting the word out to these types of players or people starting out at StarCraft but not knowing how/where to begin. You don't have to be the very best at the game to have a close/competitive/fun game of StarCraft. There's a huge skill gap in the game from new players all the way to the very best pros, but if you can find a group of people around your skill level, you can still compete and have fun.
However, competitive 1v1 (and maybe more 2v2 to come soon?) aren't the only ways to enjoy the game. There are a plethora of different types of UMS (Use Map Settings) custom games people have created (Sniper Bald Locks being my personal favorite) that anyone can enjoy. Then of course there are the people that like doing things like Fastest Map, Big Game Hunters, and Comp Stomps. So while the general community puts more emphasis on competitive play, I still think there can be something for everyone even if low money 1v1 isn't your thing.
To build the future of StarCraft even more, I think the community needs to continue to step up and run these different events/LANs to draw more attention to the scene. But what would really help is if Blizzard were able to add more to the scene. Don't get me wrong, I think they did a wonderful job breathing life back into the game with the launch of Remastered, but to continue to get it to grow more can definitely be done. Finding a way to get more money into the community (KSL is great!), more exposure in public settings, along with more consistent updates and improvements (not balance) to the game would all go a long way into building the community.
One of the biggest things in growing the community would be being able to bring in new players, the younger generation. I think as a generalization, the largest part of the community is probably late 20's and early 30's. For the game to survive, it needs an influx of new players to get interested and stay involved. Finding a way to bring in a younger generation and keep them interested in the game would help there. Exposure is big in getting these newer or less skilled players connected into some of these lower level communities like CPL. If they can get involved in these communities early and have a clear direction/path to their own improvement/competitive games for their skill level, it could help keep them around—but only if they can find and know about the existence of these communities. Maybe something could be done there as well?
Of course, having a large player base of younger players could also create other problems. At the end of the day, I believe a joint effort from Blizzard and the passionate StarCraft community we have together could work to build a strong future for the game, but will both sides do their part to help make that happen? I sure hope so, but only time will tell.
To another 20 years! Thank you so much for your time. And now that you have everyone's attention, is there anything you'd like to say to everyone?
A: No problem! Hmm, what else can I say? I feel like I've already expressed a lot in this interview. I suppose to wrap things up, I'd like to start by thanking you for having me for your interview. I didn't really know what to expect at first, but it was a pleasure doing this with you. I'd also like to really thank everyone who read the interview or who support me, CPL, or anything BW in general. Without the community, all the different events, and all of you, StarCraft wouldn't be what it is today.
I also want to reach out to the Snipers Bald Locks community. I've spent a lot of time with them as well and think it's a great competitive UMS game with a lot more unique game mechanics and skill than first glance. I've always enjoyed the game but there are some people there that stand out as well who didn't make it into this interview. Unfortunately, I can't list all of you, everyone I'd like to thank, but QueeN, Pete (3oD[oG]), and CodyBanks—you three were the biggest part of my Snipers experience and beyond, Thank you <3!
Before I say goodbye to everyone, I'd just like to say and remind you all, that StarCraft at the end of the day is a game. Yes, it can be very competitive, but it’s still a game—a game that's meant to be played with friends and for you to have fun. You can always work on improving yourself and your game, but don't stress it too much or forget to relax and have fun with it. It is a hobby after all.
Thank you.
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/jlfXZnu.jpg)
Snipe himself looking towards a bright future for himself, and for the StarCraft community at large.
Epilogue: Clan Revolution would like to give lazersnipe a big thank you for taking the time for this interview and for providing the images. We'd also like to thank anyone reading and following the interviews—this might likely be the last in the series.
For a brighter future!
We would also like to thank TL.net for helping us with the formatting.
Questions by: ReV Clan
Editors: EsportsJohn
Graphics: BullDog[ReV]
Q.Greetings, Snipe! Many a player can be thankful for you being in the SC:R community. But what got you into StarCraft in the first place? And what kept you playing?
A: Hey Incomplete and everyone else! Before answering, I'd like to thank you for having me! I've been around Brood War for quite a while but not really well known until I started doing CPL. My first StarCraft experience goes all the way back to about 2002 when some of my friends in junior high (14 years old) introduced me to this cool game they were playing called StarCraft. One of my friends ended up burning me a copy of the game and sharing his CD key with me. However, we soon discovered we couldn't play online at the same time, and eventually I got my own CD key.
Back then none of us were big into 1v1's or knew about the pro scene. We were just happy to have a game we could all play and thought it was awesome that we could play together without being in the same room! Of course, dial-up sometimes got in the way for those without cable, but hey, the Internet was still fairly new, and people that used it were still considered nerds—it wasn’t the norm. Back then, we mostly played fastest, BGH, or various UMS games. Eventually a Korean guy joined our class and became friends with us. We soon found out he knew about StarCraft as well, and I'm sure this can go without saying...but he was better than all of us...combined. I have memories of losing to him 3v1 on more than one occasion. In my defense, my favorite strategy back then was to build cannons around my base and mass carriers (the beginning of becoming a Protoss player!)
From that point on, I was always an on-again-off-again type of player. I'd go months, or possibly even years, without touching the game, only to come back and play it again for a couple months or years at a time. Every time I came back I'd get involved with a friend that I introduced to the game long ago, and he would always teach me a little more about the game. I'd slowly improve each time. However, while I would take breaks, my friend stayed relatively consistent in playing and has since risen to be one of the best players in the foreign scene—shoutout to DragOn[NaS]!
What keeps me coming back is probably a big part to do with DragOn[NaS] and the fact he was always so interested in learning the game. I think good friends in the community help keep plenty of people around, but in general, it's a fun and extremely challenging game. In recent years, one of the big things that keeps me around the scene is running CPL and watching the players improve. It can get a little overwhelming running the league at times, but overall I love helping people work on their own game and seeing how players have gotten better by playing in CPL. I don't pretend to be one of the best, but I think I'm decent at the game and have pretty good game knowledge. I'm almost always willing to help people improve (mostly in a matchup involving Protoss, but I can help in the others at a lower level as well, just ask!). I also love how much life SC:R brought back to the community and all the different events that have been going on since.
Old official strategy guides and build order tree
Q:Aside from your friends of old, have you met many others from the community in real life?
A: Yes I have! I've met a few anyway...most of them at the same time. I ended up accompanying my friend DragOn when he was playing in the Zotac Cup held in LA back in December 2017. It was a cool experience for me because I had never been to something like that before. Just to see everything that goes on behind the scenes and how they set up to host an event like this was a lot of fun.
While I was at Zotac, I got to meet a number of different players and well known members of the community. I met players such as Jaeyun and Hawk, even Draco—super cool guy, by the way. A group of us wandered away from the hotel to grab some beers and bring them back to share (Draco and I did anyway, most of the players didn't want to have anything!). That's when Draco told us about his time living in Korea and training in the pro gaming houses. I think everyone that was there really appreciated and enjoyed hearing about that. Of course, Larva was there too! I got to chat with him a bit (through his translator) and get some tips from him and hear him talk about one of his struggles as a gamer: Bisu's probe micro. Of course I saw him beat Legend...with his foot...live. Long live the footstargamer?
Zotac Cup Main Stage - Michael on the left, KawaiiRice on the right
I also got to meet the legendary Tastosis! I still remember Artosis standing behind me watching me die to an early hydra drop on Fighting Spirit. Zesagi is real [frowny face]! I shared an Uber with Day9 from the airport to our hotel as well, and we got to talking a bit about StarCraft and the event. I got to meet Schamtoo who was observing the event, and Fujikura who came down to support it. I can't talk about Zotac without mentioning Shoop. He was a teammate of mine back in CPL 1, but we were friends before that who learned and played the game together with DragOn and Seriosity before Remastered. Shoop took DragOn and myself out for a fitting night of Korean BBQ and crashed in our hotel room one night. Thanks Shoop!
Outside of Zotac, earlier this year I also briefly met up with a friend who lives in the same city as me. We didn't get a chance to hang out for too long, but razorsuKe and I are also pretty good friends who can regularly trade games with each other. We tried to organize a road trip together to the Montreal LAN, but the plans fell through. I would still love to go to another LAN sometime. I think we need one in Western Canada!.
You've met quite a lot of people then...and some big names too! How important would you say the social aspect of BW is?
A: I think the social aspect is an important part of BW. As people, we need some form of social interaction. The amount or way in which we get it of course varies from person to person, but having good friends and people to play with keeps a lot of us coming back. Without a means to communicate with one another, StarCraft wouldn't be what it is today. A lot of us have our own little group of friends or people we associate with, but we also have our bigger communities where anyone can hop on and talk to other people about the game or anything else. There are a lot of good resources, now more than ever, for people wanting to get involved in StarCraft and make new friendships. These resources and social outlets also really help keep people involved and up-to-date with all things BW.
Having got to meet all the people I did, and share my experience only goes to expand on the social aspect of the game by taking it into the real world. I've had plenty of friends ask me all about Zotac, and I have shared pictures with them from the event (I wish I had taken more while I was there!) . The fact that I was able to meet all these people and share my experience with the community just goes to show that even if we have a smaller community, it’s a good one. Everything from events like these to our casual social friendships are important because they strengthen and bring together our BW community.
Q: One great resource in that regard is the CPL (Coach/Pupil League) where you're the head admin. What spurred you guys to start it up?
A: There is definitely a bit of a backstory on how CPL came to be. I wrote up a history of CPL on the official thread for Season 3 back in 2018 if you want to read more about it, but I will try to condense and sum up the main points here.
In short, it wasn't our idea (the current admin and myself) to start this up in the first place. In fact, Season 1 was originally started by a pretty well known man in the community named L_master. Although he had started what we've been calling CPL 1, the concept of a coach-student based league has been floating around the community for a number of years with a few different variations or takes on how to do it. In fact, it was L_master who played in one of these other leagues that gave him the desire to start this one. From that, CPL 1 was born.
So you may be asking, “How did I get involved? Why am I now the admin?” I was a no name noob at the time just getting back into StarCraft again when my friend DragOn told me about this fun league we could participate in together. I was instantly on board and made a Team Liquid account to sign up! From there we had a preseason tourney, which was fun to play in, but L_master started getting real busy IRL, and the league seemed destined to fail. I loved the idea of the league, and not wanting to see it die, I contacted a man named Jealous (who seemed keen on helping L_master run things) to help me recruit more players. My hope was that this would buy time for L_master to come back and run the league. It soon became apparent however that L_master wasn't going to be back. That's when I realized...I had just inherited the league.
From that point on, Jealous and I ran the league together. I had all these ideas of how I thought it should be run, and from there we had a pretty good Season 1. It was a lot of work for the two of us, but we got through it and learned a lot on the way. Season 1 was played entirely on ICCUP, and had completely wrapped up the same month as SCR was released.
From there, CPL lay dormant for a while until a good friend and teammate of mine from Season 1, PiSan, brought up in our team Discord one day: "I want to bring CPL back." Another Season 1 teammate and friend of ours, Awerti, and myself instantly stepped up and were on board with him. From that, CPL was back for another 2 seasons with PiSan, Awerti, and myself as admins. After season 3 completed, PiSan got pretty busy, so I went ahead and ran Season 4 with Awerti, and wrapped things up earlier this year.
Moving forward, I can't say for sure what Season 5 will hold or who all will be involved (stay tuned for some potential format changes!), but there are a lot of great ideas out there for the league. There are plenty of things we'd like to do to make it even better, but there's only so much we can do as admin, and as players in the community with limited time and resources. After all, for most of us this is a hobby. That said, for something that is run by and participated in by people in their free time, it's a pretty good league for the community. I look forward to seeing you all in CPL Season 5!
Q: Seems like a good team of admins doing good work! Do you guys go into certain roles when handling the league? If so, who takes care of what?
A: Thanks! Yeah, we do split up the workload into different roles, but it has varied from season to season. Season 1, for example, I took care of all the TL updating, including things like updating standings, collecting team/player results, taking in the line-ups every week, choosing maps/map order trying to keep balance, and formatting the posts on top of the overall organization of the league. Whereas Jealous handled the casting, including contacting and bringing in guests, updating the Liquipedia page for Season 1, and compiling the stats.
Season 2 and 3 were relatively consistent with one another. PiSan handled the overall general organization of the league by picking maps and coming up with the rules/main post, organizing preseason/creating teams on the spreadsheet, and organizing all of the players in the Discord (along with me), organizing replays for casting, and taking the lead role. I handled most of the line-ups/results, some graphics, a bit of casting, and some other little things here and there, while Awerti—the stats master himself—took care of all things Liquipedia. Of course, there was some overlap between the three of us so we could all take care of most things. Moving forward to Season 4, I more or less took on all of the things PiSan had done in Season 2 and 3 as well as continuing on with what I did before while Awerti kept up with everything Liquipedia and stats as well as creating the new CPL MMR system we used to determine matchups.
A league like this can't exist without everyone else though. There have been a lot of people that have volunteered their time to the league, or contributed in one way or another, from all of our casters, to the people who have helped out with the Liquipedia, to all the coaches and players, or the people who just enjoy watching/following the league. I'd like to give you all a big shoutout and thank you!
However, I would be amiss if I didn't mention some of the people that really stepped up and helped out with the league in one way or another. First up would be Not Lemon/Neblime who took on the role as being our head casting coordinator—he planned and organized casters/casts and got things uploaded to YouTube (shoutout to Rock who helped in Season 4, and Connor5620 who handled the YouTube in Season 2/3 as well). Next up is SuperCyan who designed and seriously upgraded a lot of the graphics that we use in the league today—as well as iRk-Strömkarlen who also helped with some graphics for Season 4. Finally, a thank you to Gorgonoth who does a little bit of it all. He's helped out across a few seasons with a few things: hosting events, casting, and helping out with some behind the scenes admin stuff (such as updating player roles for the new season) in the CPL Discord.
It's a lot of work to run the league for a season with the team we have, but we love to do it and give back to the BW community. When Season 5 hits we'll see a lot of similar faces in some similar roles, but I'm also hoping to bring in some more/new people to help divide up the workload and expand CPL even more. We do have some other ideas we'd like to see/things we'd like to do with the league, but with a limited time and staff, there is only so much we can do. The more people we can get involved, the more we'll be able to do!
Q:For anyone reading, are there any specific tasks you are seeking people to do? Any prior experience required, or can new people step up too and learn as they go?
A: As far as experience goes, nothing too intense is needed. Everyone that's involved in the league is volunteering their own time to help out, New people are welcome! The only thing I'd say for sure is that if you want to get involved/help out, we'd like you to be reliable. If you're going to commit to helping with something, we'd like you to be able to keep up with it as best as possible for at least the duration of the season.
As for specific tasks, there are a number of ways to get involved. I would like to expand the overall team a bit in a couple of areas, one of them being casting coordinator. Right now we have Neblime taking care of a lot of that, but ideally I would like to add 2-3 more people to help him out, even 1 more person would be good. The casting coordinator is basically in charge of all things casting/getting the schedule up/running - releasing/providing the casters with the replays, announcing upcoming casts, uploading vods to the CPL YouTube, and a few other tasks which are outlined in their channel. Other than that, people who can do data entry, run some events/provide moderation as well as some people to promote the league/reach out to other communities/be more involved in public relations would all be helpful. There has also been talk in the past about getting some more social media presence and/or a website, but I think we would need at least a few committed people to get either of those off the ground. That said, if there's other areas anyone could help out in, we'd love to hear from you. If you do want to get involved in CPL in some way, you can contact any one of our admins, and we can try to find a fit for you.
Q: I hope more people will come your way! Are there any memories or experiences you cherish more than others, regarding your time with CPL?
A: Thank you! There have definitely been some ups and downs, good and bad memories, and a few...interesting characters that have been around the league throughout the various seasons. Most of that though just adds variety and uniqueness to the league, in my opinion, even if there were headaches at the time. I think for me personally, my greatest CPL experience/memory has to go back to Season 1—from the standpoint of a player, not necessarily as the organizer. We had a small group/team that formed good friendships and worked closely together with our coaches (Head coach DragOn[NaS]) to eventually win the league and playoffs. While it was exciting that we were able to overcome adversity (we were judged as one of the two weakest teams to start the season) and win the league, the friendships and fun we had together as a group/supporting each other in our games is something I really cherished. Even today, most of our Season 1 team stays in contact with one another. PiSan, Awerti, and myself stayed together as admins for the CPL. This season of BWCL (BWCL 49) there are four of us (Dark.Matter, PiSan, Shoop, and myself) participating on the same team together. Moving forward, every season I've played in has brought more people together, and created more friendships. And I like to think/hope that CPL has provided that same sort of experience to other players as well in bringing our community together.
Q: Yeah, I was quite excited to see [NaS] forming a B-team. [NaS] has always impressed me with having a pretty small roster, and still consistently performing well relying on rather few players. How would you describe [NaS] clan? Tight group of friends, or rather very strict criteria to join in terms of activity/skill/personality etc.?
A: This is actually the 2nd iteration of NaS-B, we created it back in late 2017 to play in PATL, (some of the same players but some different ones as well) and it was disbanded shortly after. To answer your question however, I would say the clan is probably a little of both. For example, NaS-B team is essentially made up of our CPL 1 team, including one of the coaches, along with a few other people in CPL we've played with or have coached in the league/a couple of team friends. Some players from NaS-A even moved down to play NaS-B. So I would say we have a pretty good group of friends/people we like to play with.
The overall leader of NaS (DragOn[NaS]) also tells me he sees/wants NaS to be seen as having a small strong roster so not everyone can get in. I don't know of any specific requirements...but I believe for NaS-A, if you can't get above 2k MMR, you wouldn't even be considered. You'd also need to be able to fit in with the group. NaS-B is obviously not going to be as strict or high level in that regard, but we still have what I would say is a pretty solid line-up/good group of friends for a B-Team. If anyone were interested in NaS-B, we would want a certain level of reliability. You wouldn't have to be the most active player, but show up for your matches! To be able to play in the line-up, we would also expect at least a pretty decently mid-higher level player (think minimum CPL Tier 1) that can fit in with everyone. Even if your skill level isn't quite there yet, you can still be one of our "groupies"—essentially a clan friend that hangs out in our Discord...I've been a NaS-A groupie basically since it was created!
ZOTAC Cup practice computers. To the right you can see the feet of [NaS]'s leader, DragOn[NaS]. We are not worthy of more!
Q: Sounds hawt! What's your ambition for NaS-B? Any specific short and/or long-term goals?
A: NaS-B is still relatively new, in fact we created the clan less than a week before the deadline for this season of BWCL (Season 49), and so we're still getting our feet wet and settled in as a clan. I haven't really thought about anything long-term, but for sure our goal right now is to move up a Division in BWCL. The way it works is they start you in the lowest division (Div-D), and then the top 2 teams have the chance to move up by playing the bottom 2 teams of the division above. We'd like to be able to just straight up win this season and play in the higher divisions. I think we definitely have a shot and are confident as a team with the line-up of players we have that we can make it into the next Division. Just recently we did a for-fun clan war (the weekend before the league started) against a team in Division C and managed to win it. Let’s go NaS!
What of your own individual goals? Where is Snipe in the BW landscape two years from now? Or in life in general, for that matter?
A:Well first of all, I'd like to continue to be involved in CPL in some form, even if I'm not part of the admin team. I just enjoy helping people work on and improve their own game. I also find helping other players helps me improve my own game by going over areas they can improve/the theory behind certain situations or decisions helps strengthen and reaffirm my own knowledge. So on that front, I'd like to also continue to improve and work on my own game. I would love to eventually qualify for one of the "NASSL" type tournies, and I'd like to make it further along in BSL than I did this season. BSL7 choboleague is my first time playing in a BSL, and I made it into the Ro8 before being eliminated. I would love to get a Top 4 or better sometime.
Outside of StarCraft, I have a few personal goals. First of all I'd like to continue playing soccer (or football for most of the world). During most seasons, I play 1-2 times a week and have for a number of years. For me, soccer is a good way to get out of the house, get some exercise, socialize and have some fun while doing it! The year before last I took a big step in improving my overall health and taking care of myself. Its something I had been wanting to do for myself for years now. That said this past year I feel like I more or less stagnated - so I'd like to get back on track with that and continue working on myself some more. This may not be anything too exciting, but I moved in the past year, so now that I've been getting more settled at the new place, I want to clean and go through a lot of the old stuff I have (I already got rid of a lot when moving!) to make my space less cluttered and more for me.
What I'm really trying to say is I'd like to improve my living area further improving my quality of life. Finally, I recently had two new baby girls join my life: two little kittens whom I instantly fell in love with. I've had them for about one to two months now, but they are still just three to four months old at this time. They're definitely going to require a fair bit of my time and attention as they mature into adults over the next couple of years. I feel like this may not have quite answered the question how it was asked or maybe not quite what you were looking for in an answer—but hey, that's where I'm at in life right now.
So furry and soft.
Q: It's the reply I didn't know I wanted - now we know that Snipe enjoys pussies and balls! As we draw near the end of the interview, what's your take on the future of StarCraft? Is there one? And what does it require to build its future?
A: Haha, what can I say? I suppose I'm a man that enjoys a good variety. I do believe there can be a future for StarCraft. I mean it's been around for 20 years, and still being played competitively. Here's to another 20! Cheers!
I do think it's a game that's not for everyone and does have this stigma about it (for good reason) about being this extremely hard game to get good at. That's where I think these low level leagues like CPL or other such communities geared toward lower level players play a big role. They offer that competitive taste to lower level players, but the problem is getting the word out to these types of players or people starting out at StarCraft but not knowing how/where to begin. You don't have to be the very best at the game to have a close/competitive/fun game of StarCraft. There's a huge skill gap in the game from new players all the way to the very best pros, but if you can find a group of people around your skill level, you can still compete and have fun.
However, competitive 1v1 (and maybe more 2v2 to come soon?) aren't the only ways to enjoy the game. There are a plethora of different types of UMS (Use Map Settings) custom games people have created (Sniper Bald Locks being my personal favorite) that anyone can enjoy. Then of course there are the people that like doing things like Fastest Map, Big Game Hunters, and Comp Stomps. So while the general community puts more emphasis on competitive play, I still think there can be something for everyone even if low money 1v1 isn't your thing.
To build the future of StarCraft even more, I think the community needs to continue to step up and run these different events/LANs to draw more attention to the scene. But what would really help is if Blizzard were able to add more to the scene. Don't get me wrong, I think they did a wonderful job breathing life back into the game with the launch of Remastered, but to continue to get it to grow more can definitely be done. Finding a way to get more money into the community (KSL is great!), more exposure in public settings, along with more consistent updates and improvements (not balance) to the game would all go a long way into building the community.
One of the biggest things in growing the community would be being able to bring in new players, the younger generation. I think as a generalization, the largest part of the community is probably late 20's and early 30's. For the game to survive, it needs an influx of new players to get interested and stay involved. Finding a way to bring in a younger generation and keep them interested in the game would help there. Exposure is big in getting these newer or less skilled players connected into some of these lower level communities like CPL. If they can get involved in these communities early and have a clear direction/path to their own improvement/competitive games for their skill level, it could help keep them around—but only if they can find and know about the existence of these communities. Maybe something could be done there as well?
Of course, having a large player base of younger players could also create other problems. At the end of the day, I believe a joint effort from Blizzard and the passionate StarCraft community we have together could work to build a strong future for the game, but will both sides do their part to help make that happen? I sure hope so, but only time will tell.
To another 20 years! Thank you so much for your time. And now that you have everyone's attention, is there anything you'd like to say to everyone?
A: No problem! Hmm, what else can I say? I feel like I've already expressed a lot in this interview. I suppose to wrap things up, I'd like to start by thanking you for having me for your interview. I didn't really know what to expect at first, but it was a pleasure doing this with you. I'd also like to really thank everyone who read the interview or who support me, CPL, or anything BW in general. Without the community, all the different events, and all of you, StarCraft wouldn't be what it is today.
I also want to reach out to the Snipers Bald Locks community. I've spent a lot of time with them as well and think it's a great competitive UMS game with a lot more unique game mechanics and skill than first glance. I've always enjoyed the game but there are some people there that stand out as well who didn't make it into this interview. Unfortunately, I can't list all of you, everyone I'd like to thank, but QueeN, Pete (3oD[oG]), and CodyBanks—you three were the biggest part of my Snipers experience and beyond, Thank you <3!
Before I say goodbye to everyone, I'd just like to say and remind you all, that StarCraft at the end of the day is a game. Yes, it can be very competitive, but it’s still a game—a game that's meant to be played with friends and for you to have fun. You can always work on improving yourself and your game, but don't stress it too much or forget to relax and have fun with it. It is a hobby after all.
Thank you.
Snipe himself looking towards a bright future for himself, and for the StarCraft community at large.
Epilogue: Clan Revolution would like to give lazersnipe a big thank you for taking the time for this interview and for providing the images. We'd also like to thank anyone reading and following the interviews—this might likely be the last in the series.
For a brighter future!
We would also like to thank TL.net for helping us with the formatting.
Questions by: ReV Clan
Editors: EsportsJohn
Graphics: BullDog[ReV]
