Tempo Storm: "Cloud9 really underestimated our draft."

Right after their match against Cloud9, Tempo Storm gave us another opportunity to ask for their thoughts of the event so far. They seemed relaxed, knowing that they had executed their game plan perfectly, while stating that they would be studying hard for tomorrow's matches. 

In Game 1 we saw an untraditional 3 Warrior draft. What was the logic behind that?

Arthelon: We don’t really consider Sonya to be a third Warrior. She is really just damage. So she is like a melee Assassin. Since they drafted Abathur on Dragon Shire, all we had to do is be really aggressive.

Dreadnaught: It was a deny pick. Kinda the dream pick. It was one of those things what we were working on, something we have played more recently.

What do you say to people who thought Cloud9 was on fire and you guys were on tilt today?

Dreadnaught: We were not amused!

(Everyone laughs.)

Zuna: For me personally, if you look at the last tournament, as long as we don’t versus them in a best of 15, we will always stay ahead.

It seemed like you won in the draft both games. Not even close.

Dreadnaught: I would definitely agree. We came in with a plan and it didn’t go like we thought, but it actually came out better. We gave a lot of thought to what we tried to do, and it paid off. If felt like we won in the draft. They didn’t make any major errors, we just made a bunch of bold moves that paid off.

What does the time between BlizzCon look like?

Zuna: A grind. A lot of games. H1Z1, Counter-Strike… Overwatch if that comes out.

Dreadnaught We are going to study a lot of different scenes. We need to understand what our opponents want to do. The largest advantage we have in North America is we know our opponents. We absolutely know everything they are going to do, who knows what and what they want to do. As long as we study other regions, it should go how we want it to go.

Why did you guys go for the triple warrior strats?

Arthelon: We saw Korean teams do it and we thought, it looks good.

Zuna. I would say more than anything, we know how to play those heroes, so it just makes sense to play the heroes and throw them in a synergistic team together.

How do you approach multiple warriors now?

Dreadnaught. We kinda hit that old concept with the triple tank and without little understanding at first. We forced it too hard at ESL and we failed in the execution. We used to not understand it so we just thought like: "Does it have the word tank in it?", Yeah so we have to pick and we win right? We have developed a better understanding of it since ESL, of what warriors are good at how that strategy works. We just saw Korea do it and wanted it to work for us. 

How did Cloud9 lose the draft so badly?

Kaeyoh: I think Cloud9 really underestimated our draft. They didn’t really expect the pool of heroes we were bringing out today. It left them with a lot of vulnerabilities and as soon as we took these picks, we could just exploit that. 

Dreadnaught: It made them just pick strong picks instead of synergistic picks.

Why Raynor over Valla?

Dreadnaught: We had like 8 seconds left in the draft and we were all debating Raynor or Valla. Kaeyoh was on the Valla side, but I was fighting for Raynor.

Kaeyoh: So we figured that as long as we have someone that does insane amount of front line damage, it is good. Valla has mobility and can stay safe, but that isn’t what we needed. Raynor though.

Zuna: There was a moment in that game where Kaeyoh legitimately took Leoric from 100 to 40 percent health before the fight started, without using a single spell. That mixed with their little wave clear made it work out.

Why are you guys so good? 

Dreadnaught: That is a hard question. I think there are a lot of things. The biggest thing is… we aren’t a team that only has to make plays. We punish you when you mess up and we capitalized when we win.

Kaeyoh: With us, a lot of the times there are games where we are far behind, and the only way to beat us is if you never make a mistake. We will make the comeback if you give us the chance.

Arthelon: A lot of it has to do with confidence. We never go into a game with fears or doubts. We just plan to win. Other teams, when they are facing us they are really doubting and they don’t know. 

Does living together help?

Dreadnaught: Yeah, but it doesn’t just make us best buddies, it really forces you to confront any problems you might have as a team. That ends up making you a lot stronger and those things don’t just sit. you have to see these people all the time. Those problems in the team dynamic get solved and we get a lot stronger.

How come your Butcher worked and their Butcher didn’t?

Zuna: We had Uther and Muradin. They didn’t.

Cloud9 repeatedly today said that they felt really confident. They didn’t have fear. Did that cause them to tilt?

Arthelon: If you are really confident beforehand and game 1 things don’t go your way, it’s a hard blow. Because you think you are just gonna win. When you don’t, it’s like wow that's really sad. Some teams panic, some teams don’t know what to do.

Kaeyoh: They were really banking on smashing us with Abathur, but as soon as we came out way ahead in the early game in the first game and showed how weak Abathur can be, that really tilted them. They must have felt like they were really safe and we shattered that.

Dreadnaught: At ESL they found these two strategies with those 6 games we won. Abathur and Sonya. Not only did we pick ban around those this time, but we actually threw it back at them. It hit them harder- there is a difference between winning and beating someone with their won stuff.

How do you play on celebrating now?

Dreadnaught: Studying for day two.

Tempo Storm

Wade "Dreadnaught" Penfold
Josh "So1dier" Miller
Kurt "Kaeyoh" Ocher
Taylor "Arthelon" Eder
Chris "Zuna" Buechter

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