[Interview] 2012 OSL Qualifiers

You are the first player to qualify for this season of OSL

I feel honoured and elated to be the first player to qualify for a tournament held by OGN. I feel like I must do well in the playoffs now.

You haven’t had much showing in individual leagues recently

I feel both nervous and worried to be back in an individual league after such a long time. I want to have no regrets. I haven’t achieved much in the last year so I’m glad to have this chance to start anew.

What was the difficulty like compared to the Code A qualifiers?

It was at least 3 times harder. There were many Code S players as well as Code A players. Frankly, I didn’t expect to qualify.

Was there a match you found particularly difficult?

Every match was a challenge. It was even harder because I didn’t eat or drink anything except water.

It’s a dual tournament in the playoffs. You’ll only meet the KeSPA players once you are in the actual league.

I understand the qualifiers being divided but I don’t think having a dual tournament is necessary. I think it will be more interesting for the many viewers to see all the players together. It’s more fun for the players to have everyone play together too. I hope to face MKP in the league. It’ll be fun for the viewers as well as us players.

How confident are you about advancing to ro16?

It depends on who qualify. Personally, I like PvZ so I hope a lot of Zergs advance.

Have you gotten much better recently?

I feel like my skill has remained relatively stable during both the ups and downs of my career. Rather, my bad performance was because I got nervous in broadcasted matches and lost as a result. However, I feel like I should play much better because of all the experience I’ve gained.

What is your goal for this tournament?

I want to be able to participate in the group nominations after going through the dual tournament.

Anything to add?

Today was a really long day. I want to thank my coach and friends for cheering me on. In particular, I want to thank Parting for suggesting builds and giving me lots of advice in general. Lastly, I want to say thank you to my parents who always support and cheer me on.

How do you feel?

My last broadcasted match was in June last year and I qualified for GSL for the last time in April of the same year. I pretty much lived in PC Bangs in the last year or so (laugh). I am feeling fantastic. I was under a lot of pressure to qualify and especially so since I have a lot of experience being eliminated in the upper rounds of qualifiers. Today, I listened to music and read webtoons in the breaks to ease my mind for the matches.

It was hard to catch your play lately

I moved out of the team house and went home to practise by myself for 3-4 months. I recently rejoined the team house and I realised how far behind I was compared to my teammates. That’s why I couldn’t even participate in this GSTL. For a month or two, it was so hard that I even thought about retirement.

How confident were you about today’s qualifier?

I perceived Leenock to be the biggest threat and Sculp excelled in GSTL too so the bracket was about as hard as I expected it to be. I just thought to myself “it’s my own fault if I get eliminated” and tried to shake some of the pressure off.

What did you think when you first heard that OGN was holding a Starcraft 2 league?

I thought that the people who would make it into that tournament were fortunate. I talked to my team mates until 3 am this morning about the league. I said “I don’t mind not qualifying myself but I think I’m going to be really jealous seeing GSL players win in the league”. Afterwards, I became more determined to work even harder.

You must have a special goal for this season

I couldn’t help but emphasise with the players who lost and had to go home today. Everyone wants to receive attention and their ambition is as grand as the next player’s. I can understand how players feel when they can’t reach their goals. I know what a privilege it is to be in the place that I am at the moment so I will make sure that I play at a respectable level.

How difficult was today’s qualifier compared to the Code A qualifiers?

I would say it’s similar to Code S ro8,16. I went into the matches with that mindset and it actually wasn’t easy at all. Still, everyone seemed to be just as nervous. I think a new league made everyone more nervous than usual. However, I’ve been eliminated so many times that I wasn’t nervous at all.

Anything to add?

Every time a player has an interview, they thank their teammates and the coaching staff. This time, I had no motivation and was full of concern about my future. Then, Boxer said to me: “other Zergs have been practising without complaining since the days of Zerg’s hardship and you just get to start at a time when Zergs are doing better.” He invited me to his house for meals and gave me a lot of advice. I want to thank Jessica who gave me another chance. Also, Cella goes through a lot for us. Lastly, I want thank my mother, my younger sibling and my girlfriend.

GhostKing: GSL (Code A) qualifiers are more difficult than OSL qualifiers

Q: Your thoughts making it into the ODT
A: I was once a BW progamer, but I never got out of the preliminaries, breaking out of the preliminaries in SC2 makes me very happy.

Q: How did you feel about today's matches
A: There are still Code S games in 2 days, alot of protoss' in my group, but I had to expose my strategies against P today, feels regretful.

Q: What was the hardest match today?
A: I ran into a non-pro master's league zerg, I didn't have any information on him, I was a bit stressed, but it wasn't too difficult. It was however the one I stressed over the most, all the other matches I had a fighting chance.

Q: Which is harder, Code A or OSL qualifiers?
A: Personally I think the GSL Code A Qualifiers are harder, this league doesn't give you a "I have to advance" sense of urgency. Perhaps because I did bad things in the past (fake matches in SC2) it didn't give me the same sens of drive to advance.

Q: Did the rest period help you adjust?
A: It helped alot, rekindled alot of interest in games.

Q: How did you feel hearing that the OSL was going to be SC2 ?
A: Compared to the OSL, I like GSL better, but as a progamer joining more major leagues is a good thing.

Q: Who do you want to meet in the ODT?
A: If Liquid_Zenio can qualify then that's the best, but it seems like he can't (laugh). BW players are all very good, I would like to avoid them, luckily I won't meet them till the official OSL matches. If feels like I will lose against BW players, before I was ranked 1 on the ladder, but now suddenly strong players are everywhere, winning itself is hard. The reasons must be the Kespa players.
Also I suddenly remembered, I won against [tlpd#players#16#P]BeSt in the bacchus OSL, I just wanted to boast a bit (laugh).

Q: So you don't want to meet old teammates?
A: I wasn't at the team for long, so my relations were pretty mundane, compared with those, I miss the dog from the team house more. (laugh)