GosuCup #13 silver medalist talks: "Opening with Freeze Mage was the best decision I made"
Register for the last two GosuCups:
07.02 - GosuCup SEA #15
14.02 - Gosucup SEA #16 Budget
Genji, Daph, Charge are all names of GosuCup champions and among the strongest South East Asian players. They've shown consistency in their region and have proven on many occasions why they'll be among the sixteen best in circuit's grand finals this month.
All three of them were slain by an aspiring competitor from Malaysia in the thirteenth weekend of GosuCup. Muhammad "Kaka-" Isa, a player with just a month-long active competitive practice, became the king-slayer of GosuCup SEA, scoreboarding a run worthy of admirations. He was only beaten by Dustin "WaningMoon" Mangulabnan - currently the highest ranked player in SEA - and not before Kaka- took two games off him and forced the Filipino to go into super sayan mode, which led to the eventual 3-2 comeback and WaningMoon's third GosuCup win.
So how does one reach the grand finals through the bodies of such proven players. In our interview, Kaka reveals his secret: It's Freeze Mage!
So, for the first time we're not interviewing a GosuCup winner, but I guess WaningMoon is just too good, haha... Nonetheless, you'll be going to the grand finals next month! How does it feel?
I actually didn't know about it until you told me about it. I was a bit down when I got 2nd after a 2-0 lead vs WaningMoon, but I guess this news made me feel much better at least!
You have about a month to prepare, though. Do you think that'll be enough?
Personally I think it will be more than enough. To tell you the truth, I only practiced for this GosuCup two days beforehand and I mostly tested my decks on ladder. So for me one month should be more than enough, I just need to make sure that I use the time wisely to get key practice matches, i.e. for matchups I am not confident with in.
You should get together with Dennisgosu and TrollTrollTroll, form a Malaysian practice group for the tournament?
I'm not sure who is Dennisgosu yet, but I have TrollTrollTroll on my friendlist. And Kananai is also another Malaysian player that I practice with mostly. All in all, I definitely would look into forming a Malaysian practice group for the tournament. I believe it would help us a lot to prepare and hopefully bring the Hearthstone glory for Malaysia!
Do you think you guys are going into it as the underdogs? I mean, the Philippines have WaningMoon and Vietnam has won four GosuCups with four different players. They seem to be the clear favorites.
I believe we definitely are the underdogs. I watched the rankings yesterday and I thought my placement could push Malaysia higher in the rankings, but turns out there are much more consistent Vietnamese and Filipino players. But I still am positive that we can take the whole thing if we have the right mindset and approach to win the tournament, underdogs or not. So in the end it is up to us to prepare adequately for it.
"Malaysia is definitely an underdog for the GosuCup finals."
I want to talk more about your GosuCup #13 run. You had to play threeGosuCup champions! Frankly, if you won the whole thing, you could be dubbed "Kingslayer" or something! How much did you know about Charge, Daph, Genji and WaningMoon before you played them?
I know absolutely nothing about them except WaningMoon. I know he was an ex-SC2 player and has been playing a lot of Hearthstone and getting high Legend ranks. It was quite a blast to play him in the finals. As for the other players, I only realized that they are also high ranking players after the whole tournament finished.
I guess not being awestruck helped you beat them?
I would guess so. I was just focused on my own game and decisions rather than worrying about the person I am playing against.
You went for pretty standard deck choices - Handlock, Hunter and Freeze Mage. Are these your usually go-to decks or did you pick them because they're that strong in the moment?
There were some other decks also but those were the once I played with the most in Gosucup #13. It's more of the latter, I picked them because I feel that they're strong vs the current meta at the moment. It's somewhat similar with how RDU approached his Dreamhack win last year by bringing his Freeze Mage.
I would've honestly expected control warrior or paladin, to be honest! How did you approach each series then? What did you open with and how did you adapt to each loss?
So, two weeks ago in the other non-budget GosuCup, I opened with Freeze Mage every game and managed to win every single match with that strategy. The, I suddenly changed my approach and opened with something else and lost the series thereafter. So I decided to stick to what works the last time and opened with Freeze Mage every game.
"Choosing Freeze Mage as my opening deck was one of the best decisions I made."
The reason is that Freeze Mage’s only real bad match-up is against Control Warrior, goes even versus some specific decks like Hunters due to the lack of [card]Flare[/card]s and has high win rate against the rest, especially those decks that lack heals such as Shaman (though some might run [card]Antique Healbot[/card]) and Mech Mage. So I somehow predicted that most people would not open with Control Warrior and will open with other decks like Mech Mage, Hunter, Paladin, etc.
It turned out to be one of the best decisions I made, as my Freeze Mage lost only twice if I am not mistaken - to a Rogue in the earlier rounds, and WaningMoon's deathrattle Druid in the finals.
About the losses… Usually I would win my first game on my Freeze Mage so if I would lose the second game I would just counter pick their class in general (i.e. if their second class is Warlock I would pick Hunter, or if it's Warrior I will just use Handlock). But in the game where I lost against the Rogue with my Freeze Mage I decided to go with Hunter because I believe that Hunter in general is still pretty strong against most other classes. So after I won versus his Rogue with my Hunter, he decided to use Rogue again for some reason and I just won him again. In the finals vs WaningMoon however, I believe I succumbed under pressure or something as my losses were mostly on me making bad plays or decisions. It still kind of hurts thinking about how I was 2-0 up and still lost the series. So close yet so far!
Was there any particular series or game besides the grand finals that gave you trouble or surprised you?
I think there was one where the opening match I faced against an [card]Echo of Medivh[/card]-based Mage, something like the one Savjz played recently. I had so little experience against that archetype in general so I was not too sure what I need to play around. But that deck was pretty slow so it gave me a lot of time for my Freeze Mage hand to build up for the final combo, so it turned out not too bad for me after all. Other than that no other game comes to mind.
Well, all is well when it ends well, I guess! Any parting words from you to wrap up this interview?
Sure. Firstly, shoutout to my mother who is still feeding me and never really complains too much about me playing games for a whole day every day, best mom ever! Next shoutout to my real life friends from Billianz Clan, you know who you are!
Hearthstone-wise, shoutouts to Kananai aka Coolzai for helping me practice most of the time. Even though I didn't practiced with him for this GosuCup, he has helped me a ton in testing my theories and assumptions about some stuff that I needed to know before, so I thank him for that. Special shoutouts to my Dota 2 mates jman, ?, Extgamer and Chibirino that has been enduring my whining in team comms in preparation for the Major Allstars qualifiers haha.
And one last callout to Bo, thanks for destroying your own dreams and the dreams of people around you BibleThump.
So how does GosuCup SEA and the Asia rankings look after Charge's victory? 28 out of 32 players are already known!
And here are the Asia rankings. Three-times champion WaningMoon and multiple quarter finalist Charge are close to overtaking big names like Amaz and Massan!
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