World Elite established itself back in October 2005 with players such as xTiGer and Anas, but also with present players of the World Elite team, Sky and Suh0.
The first talent team of World Elite got heralded in the beginning of 2006 with the intention to give the new generation of talented players the possibility to shine on the highest level. The first lineup of World Elite was consisting of TeD, Like and Infi.
By the time of November 2006, the Chinese Talent team added some new faces after the promotion of TeD to the international team WE.IGE after several great performances. ACE, QeKi and recalled IEF2006 China Champion xTiGer were announced to reinforce the team.
In March 2007, the team had the first transfer from WE.08. xTiger and ACE decided to part with the team, the exact reason still unknown. ACE signed with the Chinese organization TR eSports club, and former team Captain xTiger came to an agreement with team Colorful.
Until then, player of the WE.08 team, Qeki, earned himself a place in the World Elite Asia main team in July 2007. Infi and LiKe also became a part of the main team of World Elite in the period of around July 2007 when the Korean World Elite players left for SK. This was the end of the World Elite 2008 project with a successful delivery of 3 top players to the main team.
About a month ago World Elite officially divulged a new '09 talent team in continuation of a successful 2008 project. Under the wing of Coach Ducui, Chinese players Panxiang, xiaoC, Kenshin, HoverMoon and Milk will be the talents of the future and part of the new 2009 project. Except from Panxiang and maybe xiaoC, the lineup is fairly unknown. GosuGamers inquires World Elite Manager Clemens "HoTLiPs" Uhlig about the new Talent Team.
It is said that Ducui will be the man in charge for the new talent team, what are his tasks and his exact role for the team?
Being a pro-gamer before, Ducui will be the coach for our youngsters. He knows much more about the game than King or I do and he is still an excellent player. I believe he will be a great help for the WE.09 players with all his experience and knowledge he gained over the past years. He will also learn how to organize a team and taking responsibility to become a good leader in the future.
The old talents: TeD, Like and Infi How is your Chinese? How is the communication going with the players?
Well, to be honest with you, my Chinese isn’t as good as it could be, but still I made some process over the last 6 months and I’m looking forward to improve more during the next months. With the players I usually talk in English because I’m just used to do it this way and I guess it’s the same for them. But when I meet new people now I always try to talk Chinese with them, for example when going out to eat, shopping or just on the way to work with the taxi driver. Also I’d like to thank PJ and Sky who always encourage me to speak and study more Chinese.
Please tell me a little bit about the selection progress. Who were in the jury panel? Which criteria were you looking for in the players?
Well, Ducui, King and me used to talk about new talented players and followed their performances at tournaments as well as their practice replays. The opinions of our current players were also very important for us since we arranged some test-games to get a final impression of everyone. Besides showing a good performance and the necessary talent to improve further, one criterion was that they can come to Shanghai to live and practice together. Also a good mixture of all races was a goal for us.
Could you maybe introduce each player and tell why you choice him to play in the 09 talent team:
WE.09.Panxiang is the oldest player of them and would probably also fit in our current main-team since he already got some success in China and isn’t really a new face. However, we decided to do it that way since he especially misses one thing: tournament experience. I believe that he can make a great process over the next months and that he will show in tournaments, what he already shows in practice games.
WE.09.xiaoC is a solid orc-player in the footsteps of Fly, xiaoT and Like. He has got a great control in the game and I am looking forward to see him playing tournaments after a couple of months practice. He is also a great team-player who always tries to help out his team-mates and keeps the team-spirit high.
WE.09.Kenshin is the human-player of the team and he got with Sky and Infi two really good teachers on his side. He reminded us a lot to Infi about one year ago and he got a huge talent, but still there is a long way to go for him and it will take more than only talent to reach the top.
WE.09.HoverMoon is a good talent who practices with the best players out there for quite a while. His nightelf-mirror is already really strong while he has still a lot of work to do on the other match-ups. But you never say no to an "imba nightelf", eh?
WE.09.Milk showed an impressive performance during one of the CEG stops as well as nice practice performances. Just seeing that is quite a good reason for inviting him to our WE.09 team I guess. But there are still a lot competitions coming up in the near future where he has to prove himself and show that he improved even more.
World Elite '09 Talent Team Introduction
WE.09.PanxiangWE.09.HoverMoonWE.09.xiaoCWE.09.KenshinWE.09.MilkPan XiangZhang Hai BoZeng Wen RuiWang YongHu Xin
What is the secret “World Elite Talent Growing Formula”. It can’t just be a lot of practice that turns 2 young talents (Infi and Like) into the world class players they are today.
Actually they are three, since TeD was also part of the WE.08 team. He was the first one to be acknowledged of these three and even got the Rookie-of-the-Season award in WC3L two seasons ago. I guess the formula is quite simple, the most important thing is that the players live together and practice together. With really experienced players like Sky and Suho on their side, it was just a matter of time until they would turn into excellent players. But I think also King did a great job finding and choosing these players as well as the whole World Elite team and our sponsors by providing them with the best conditions to be able to improve as much as possible.
“I’m quite sure that we will see one or two of these guys battling with the top-players in the world in some tournaments this year. ”
- HoTLiPs Players like Infi and Like are from much value for the current First team of World Elite. You think the current talent team can be as much successful as the talent team of 2008.
I really hope so and I believe that they are on the right way. Of course I can't guarantee that all of them will be successful and that all of them will make it into the top and therefore being able to compete for WE in international matches. Nevertheless I’m quite sure that we will see one or two of these guys battling with the top-players in the world in some tournaments this year.
In the official statement it was reported that the current members were selected from a total list of 20 players. Who were on the list that didn't make it to the final 5?
Since we are still looking for another one or two player to join the 09 team, I don’t want to give too many details about that. This list is also a little secret because it took quite a lot time and work for us to figure out those players.
QueKi from the 2008 talent team never really made it to the First team, will he stay for the 2009 or what will happen to him?
Qeki will indeed be part of the WE.09. He is a nice guy and pretty important for our team-spirit. He really got talent and his practice performances are not that bad, but on the other hand the level of WC3 is quite high now and especially in China there are a lot of good players which makes it even harder to take part in tournaments, not even talking about winning one. The way to the top is hard, but maybe 2008 will be his year following the success of TeD, Infi and Like.
WE's Trainings Facility in Shanghai Was there a special reason the team only selected Chinese players while Korea also has many talented players?
There are quite a lot reasons behind it but the most important is that we are a Chinese based organisation and therefore willing to support the Esport in China at the first place. Also the facts that the players have to live together as well as the communication matter were important.
Do experienced players like Sky and suhO help with their experience to train or give advice to the younger players? How much is the first team involved with the development of the talent squad?
Yeah, sure they practice with them and I think our young players really learn a lot from them. It is necessary that they practice together and help each other because we are one team and there is no player who doesn’t want to practice with another one. The friendship in our team is also quite important since the players live together and also spend their free-time together doing sports such as basketball, football and table-tennis. Therefore the main-team is mainly involved in the development of our talent team and upside down.
World Elite Internet Bar In December 2007, World Elite moved from their trainings base in Xi’an to a location in Shanghai. Will the Talent team also resident there?
The talent team also lives in Shanghai, but since we don’t own a mansion here in Shanghai, there is definitely a space limit. The players of the 09 team will practice in our new WE net-bar which we recently opened and which is also a great place for our fans to meet the players and follow some games or even challenge them. And on a lucky day you might even meet Sky, Infi or Suho there.
The talent team players are added to the wc3l profile. Does this mean there is a chance we see the talents play in the wc3l?
Yes, it is quite possible that we will see a new face from time to time. We are just waiting for the right moment and then we will let the guys gain experience in WC3L because for us experience counts more than a “safe-point”. While letting them play, we know that they won’t win from the beginning on but that is part of the game.
Anything else to say about the new team? Any last words?
I wish our new players the best of luck and the energy to realize their goal and become the best in the world. I would also like to take to opportunity to wish a great New-Year to all our Chinese fans and I hope that the support for WE will be as good as it was over the last years. Finally I would like to thank our sponsors Intel, Razer, Nividia, Gigabyte, Kappa as well as Replays.Net for their great support.
Uhlig provided us with an exclusive replay pack from the training of the talent team.
World Elite 2009 Talent Team Replay Package
» Download the replay pack of the team matches of the Talent Team Here. ( Mirror 1 )
