Legionnaire surprised a lot of people when Pat at PGTour revealed that the Korean Gold was actually Legionnaire. Legionnaire himself said that it is a lot more fun to play as a smurf, because you do not have any expectations on you and you can devote yourself to pure gaming. This and much more in an interview with everyone's favourite Aussie - Legionnaire!
Congratulations to the win in ISL Legionnaire, or should I say Gold? Why did you decide to smurf?
- It's more fun, you get bothered a lot less so it's better for pure gaming, almost everyone (pros/top players) do it so that potential opponents don't build portfolios on you :) You don't really want a smurf who you don't know, to play a match against you when they know who you are, when in a weeks time you are actually playing them in a tournament etc etc. Besides then I don't have any expectations on me and I can muck around and do fun stuff =)
Did you tell anyone of you being Gold other than Pat?
- A couple of the PGTour admins knew, Nazgul of course, Rekrul, Assem, I think that's about it.
In the finals you faced Androide and SaYoNaRa. What do you think of those players? Did you have any previous encounters with the two?
- Androide I had met in the beta, it was early on but I was in the lead and I disconnected and he enforced the win and ended up winning the beta. Strangely enough out of my 40 or so games in PGTour ISL, I disconnected twice, both versus Androide in important games. Sayonara I met 2 weeks ago in one of the rounds of the ISL ended up 2:1 winner I think?
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SaYoNaRa has much better macro than me, I had to cheese/do tricky things to win I can't just play heads up versus him.
”As for what I think, SaYoNaRa has much better macro than me, I had to cheese/do tricky things to win I can't just play heads up versus him. As for Androide, well he is really bad manner especially when he thinks you are a Korean, he really annoys me how he behaves. (true I lost my temper vs him and was bm back!)You won with 2-1 against both of the players in the final and it was obviously very close. Did you have any idea when you signed up that you were the one to stand tall and win it all?
- No not really, I thought JulyZerg was going to win it all (yes he was playing, no I wont say who, though im pretty certain that PGTour is going to release an AKA list) but he was away one of the weeks and had a fill-in for him (who ended up losing) so he lost early on.
You won 300 bucks, what are you intending to do with the money?
- Well the koreans (once again!) all kidnapped my cat Ninja Sekki to ransom her off thus I have to buy them all food and stuff for her safe release. The rest of it (if there is any!) will go into my piggy bank and I'll probably buy a few clothes or something nice, a hooker perhaps? Don't know yet
What did you think of the ISL event as a whole?
- It was a really good idea, obvious problems with no shows and forfeits with so many players failing to turn up, and some rule changes (because its the first season so they dont have a lot of the reoccuring players that they are meant to, which isn't their fault at all) The admins ran it really well.
“Apart from the noshows it was a fantastic effort by all.
”The ISL format overall was a pretty high concept to try and do straight off, and I think they ended up with as good as they could have managed from their view. A couple of tiny things I didn't like such as the maps, I don't like being allowed to play the same map, I think once it's played it should be discarded (in one of the rounds the Bo5 I played 3 nostalgias!) But yeah, apart from the noshows it was a fantastic effort by all.What did you think of the idea that they were to invite non-koreans to fill those spots up?
- I didn't like it actually (mainly because I had done all the hard work to be the only foreigner to actually qualify through the ISL stages) but I understand why Pat wanted it, since all they have to show is a lot of smurfs and the public can't really get behind it as much. So the fill-ins would have created a lot more interest.
In the end it was a bit of a backlash (I dont think I got involved since I was biased and it affected me) but Pat found an easy enough solution which worked out well enough.
Yeah, it turned out to be pretty good. Were you surprised that there were three non-koreans (as we know) in ISL, and two of them actually made it to Top 3?
- Pretyy good actually, although the forfeits played a big role in who advanced where. It was still a nice surprise for so many foreigners to make it to the end especially with some big gun Koreans in the tournament. I really expected some others to make it through to the finals. So it ended up good for all of the spectators I guess and that's one of the most important things! :)
What's coming up for you in the near future in Korea?
- Been flat out lately, I have the MML match on the 20th (wednesday) vs Yooi on Raid Assualt. If I win that he drops out (0-2) and myself and Mumyung advnace no matter what, else if I lose I will be facing off against Mumyung early next month.
Going to be doing a strange build, completely against my style but it's really good for that map as long as you dont mess up early on. So at the moment it's just a lot of hard work trying to make myself do what I know I'm meant to be doing even though I suck at it. :/
Well, good luck with that and in the future of ISL, if you are intending to take part next season as well?
- Well I have some other smurfs at the moment (really crap records like my TLT record! haha) but I haven't been trying too much, just to relax and to have fun. Been too concentrated on other things. But I think I get an autobirth into the next ISL top 16 tourney so theres no pressure on to get into the top 96 or whatever it is.
I must say though, it would be infinately harder this season than last. But I guess it would all come down to which maps the final tourneys use. Some are very abusive, like Neo Forbidden Zone <3
Do any of your Hexatron DreamTeam friends play PGT?
- Yes almost all of them.
Front: shinya, ssamjang dream.t)shiva, jinsu, dongjinBack: Gundam, Legionnaire, Rekrul, Joel, Lovedom
What does your manager Daniel think fo your PGTour playing? Do he see it as good training, or do he want you guys to face eachother?
- Doesn't really matter, he takes our word on what we consider as good practice for us so he doesn't mind at all.
And what do you think of GGL? You faced your friend Rekrul in the first match and was defeated. Thoughts/comments?
- No real thoughts or comments, I shoulda make it through to the next round so I'm not worried at all, I just hope the next match dates don't conflict too much with anything :)
Well good luck! Any last shoutouts?
- Thanks, umm shoutouts, Pat and co. over at PGTour, thanks for hosting such an incredible service for the community and throwing enourmous amounts of cash at it to keep it running! (I still think he should become a sell out and stick banners up to make the burdon easier on himself!) Ummm, hope the next tourney runs well and I wish them all the best of luck. GJ to SaYoNaRa for coming 2nd, and Ninja Sekki for keeping my lap warm and stuffing up my micro sometimes when she jumps up onto my lap!
Links
GosuGamers.net - Newspost about ISL finals
PGTour.net - Home of PGTour.net and hosters of ISL
