Day one of November's GSL Code A preliminaries has concluded and Infinity Seven player Ki Soo "CrazymovING" Han has managed to emerge victorious in his group, defeating players such as SlayerSMin, IMTrue and ST_KingKong to earn his debut spot in the GSL.
Below we have an interview with CrazymoviNG, where we talk a little bit about his background, former team MVP, and some thoughts on his Code A matches today.
Hi Ki Soo, I think there are a lot of people in the foreign scene that have not heard much about you before. Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hi, I'm currently 20 years old in Korean age (19 US), and i was born and still currently reside in Seoul.
Right now my occupation is a gamer and I'm a registered player in the Korean SC2 association, if you search me on Naver search engine you can identify me listed under progamer.
Can you tell us about your gaming background?
In BroodWar I have placed 2nd place in a Courage Tournament, I also did tryouts with SK Telecom, MBC and KT, however my job then got in the way and I wasn't able to play very well at those times.
You were on on the team MVP and living at the pro house for some time. Can you tell us more about it? How did you join the team, and how long were you there? Why did you leave?
I knew someone from SC1, and when MVP was forming he referred me to the team, so I was one of the founding members.
I went to the pro house around May this year. There were players such as Genius, GuineaPig, DRG, Monster, viOlet etc, a lot of very good players. I got to learn a lot from them, and they were very friendly, easy to get along with and not rough, so I did have a great time. I left in June due to family problems.
You went on a break for a while, when did you start playing again?
After I left MVP, I skipped the Code A and WCG qualifiers that followed shortly after. I started practicing again when I heard about my opportunity at iS (Infinity Seven).
How was it coming back to the game? What are your good and bad matchups?
ZvT is my favorite. I dislike ZvZ because for some reason my build just falls apart and there are tears in my eyes. As for ZvP, since I did take a break, the style of Protoss altered a bit in my view and I have been unable to keep up with the trend so it's a little difficult to me.
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And yet you qualified for Code A today, how do you feel?
I don't feel anything special in particular, because it feels like it took me too long to get through this qualifiers.
So you feel that you had the skill to make it through the qualifiers before, but you just got unlucky?
Not really that, just that I feel like I've gotten here so late compared to how long I've been gaming.
You broke through the qualifiers playing only ZvZs, how do you feel about that?
CrazymoviNG: It's a matchup I really hate and am bad at, ZvZ can be decided by build orders really early on, so I've always hated it. I think half of ZvZ is luck.
But you defeated four good Zerg players to make it here, notably SlayerSMin, IMTrue and ST_KingKong. Hasn't that helped your confidence?
I didn't win today's games through management, I won almost all of them through prepared all-in builds. So I haven't gained much confidence at all, because I just really hate the match-up…
So what race match-ups would you prefer in Code-A?
I would like to leave an impression on viewers, so I think Terran would be the best.
Code A and S format changes will be announced soon. Are there any changes you'd like to see?
However it changes it's still a tournament, so I don't really want anything in particular.
They say the bottleneck to entry for Code-S will be widened. If, for instance, it changed to sixteen of forty Code-A players make it to the Up-Down matches, would you be confident in your chances of making it to Code-S?
Hmmm... I'm not confident T_T. It's the first time I'll play on camera or in the booth, so this time I'd just like to win one round and not fall back into the preliminaries.
Are there any players you'd like to avoid or face in Code A?
There isn't anyone I'd like to face. As for players I'd like to avoid, since I used to be on MVP, I'd like to avoid my old teammates.
This will be your first time in a major tournament. How is your mindset going in?
I really want to stay in Code A. The most important thing is to practice more.
But I really dislike practice so I played only about five games or so a day in preparation for the qualifiers. Since I qualified playing that much, I think I could do okay if I increased my practice to twenty games.
Aside from staying in Code A, what are some future goals you have, long-term and short-term wise?
I want to start showing myself in the international scene rather than just staying inside of the Korean scene. My primary goal is to go to MLG and show good results as well as in other tournaments and leagues.
Do you plan to stream?
Yes, but my computer is trash right now. -o-;;
As Infinity Seven is an NA team, can you tell us about your experience playing on the NA server and with foreign players so far?
To be really honest, playing on the NA server can be very stressful.
Because SC2 in general, you can fill up to 200 food very quickly and every encounter counts. But due to the lag/delays on NA with playing from Korea, you can't do some of the unique micros that you can execute without the lag or delays.
However on the bright side there are a lot of tournaments and leagues on the NA server and I really like that.
Why did you decide to join iS?
Well iS approached me and I don't have a world class value or anything, they put faith in my skills and offered a contract, and it seemed that iS treats their players much better than many other teams, so I joined. Now I love iS.
Any last comments or shoutouts?
I love Rain (Fnatic).
My friend will be taking the Korean College Entrance exams soon, I hope he does well and gets into a good university.
I'd like to thank our new sponsors DeviantArt.com, they have a lot of great game art on their website, please check it out. And also SteelSeries for providing us with gear, I love the Sensei mouse. Thank you.
I don't feel anything special in particular, because it feels like it took me too long to get through this qualifiers.
So you feel that you had the skill to make it through the qualifiers before, but you just got unlucky?
Not really that, just that I feel like I've gotten here so late compared to how long I've been gaming.
You broke through the qualifiers playing only ZvZs, how do you feel about that?
CrazymoviNG: It's a matchup I really hate and am bad at, ZvZ can be decided by build orders really early on, so I've always hated it. I think half of ZvZ is luck.
But you defeated four good Zerg players to make it here, notably SlayerSMin, IMTrue and ST_KingKong. Hasn't that helped your confidence?
I didn't win today's games through management, I won almost all of them through prepared all-in builds. So I haven't gained much confidence at all, because I just really hate the match-up…
So what race match-ups would you prefer in Code-A?
I would like to leave an impression on viewers, so I think Terran would be the best.
Code A and S format changes will be announced soon. Are there any changes you'd like to see?
However it changes it's still a tournament, so I don't really want anything in particular.
They say the bottleneck to entry for Code-S will be widened. If, for instance, it changed to sixteen of forty Code-A players make it to the Up-Down matches, would you be confident in your chances of making it to Code-S?
Hmmm... I'm not confident T_T. It's the first time I'll play on camera or in the booth, so this time I'd just like to win one round and not fall back into the preliminaries.
Are there any players you'd like to avoid or face in Code A?
There isn't anyone I'd like to face. As for players I'd like to avoid, since I used to be on MVP, I'd like to avoid my old teammates.
This will be your first time in a major tournament. How is your mindset going in?
I really want to stay in Code A. The most important thing is to practice more.
But I really dislike practice so I played only about five games or so a day in preparation for the qualifiers. Since I qualified playing that much, I think I could do okay if I increased my practice to twenty games.
Aside from staying in Code A, what are some future goals you have, long-term and short-term wise?
I want to start showing myself in the international scene rather than just staying inside of the Korean scene. My primary goal is to go to MLG and show good results as well as in other tournaments and leagues.
Do you plan to stream?
Yes, but my computer is trash right now. -o-;;
As Infinity Seven is an NA team, can you tell us about your experience playing on the NA server and with foreign players so far?
To be really honest, playing on the NA server can be very stressful.
Because SC2 in general, you can fill up to 200 food very quickly and every encounter counts. But due to the lag/delays on NA with playing from Korea, you can't do some of the unique micros that you can execute without the lag or delays.
However on the bright side there are a lot of tournaments and leagues on the NA server and I really like that.
Why did you decide to join iS?
Well iS approached me and I don't have a world class value or anything, they put faith in my skills and offered a contract, and it seemed that iS treats their players much better than many other teams, so I joined. Now I love iS.
Any last comments or shoutouts?
I love Rain (Fnatic).
My friend will be taking the Korean College Entrance exams soon, I hope he does well and gets into a good university.
I'd like to thank our new sponsors DeviantArt.com, they have a lot of great game art on their website, please check it out. And also SteelSeries for providing us with gear, I love the Sensei mouse. Thank you.
That's it for the interview! We hope you enjoyed the article. We have prepared a replay pack with some of CrazymoviNG's games, please feel free to check them out here.
Hope Ki Soo will have a good showing at Code A and present some great games to the community. iSCrazymoviNG fighting~!
We would like to express our thanks to HaNaRi and Waxangel for translating for this interview, and ShAKiEL for his support with CrazymoviNG.
Links:
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Website: http://infinityseven.net
Twitter: http://twitter.com/infiSeven
Facebook? http://facebook.com/infinityseven
Twitter: http://twitter.com/infiSeven
Facebook? http://facebook.com/infinityseven