Foggy and Orcworker interviewed by gg.ru

Our friend Izzard from goodgame.ru interviewed our two European representatives at WCA 2016 and has the courtesy to provide an English translation for us to use. If you did not see it yet, time to enjoy!

Foggy : the Champion

- First of all, please, introduce yourself and tell us what else you do besides playing WarCraft.

My name is Andrij Koren, my nickname is Foggy, I live in the Ukraine, in the city named Lvov. I stream WarCraft 3 and also play tournaments. I'm also interested in healthy nutrition, sports, reading modern books (on motivation, aim-building, proper attitude, finance).

- Let's talk about the game for a little bit. For have long have you been in WC3 by now? And have you ever thought that you?d once have a chance to play at one of the most prestigious tournaments, with the best players?

I got my first computer at the age of 6. At that time I got Heroes of Might and Magic 2, then later bought Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and literally prayed for my computer to be able to launch that game. Later I played Age of Empires 2 and Warcraft 2000 (it was a mod for WarCraft 2).

A couple years later my brother brought me a WarCraft 3 CD and told that it was a very new strategy game, which had been released recently. So he advised me to play it. My friend and I launched the game, played for a while for some sort of a Paladin guy and then by buddy said something like : The game's meh, let's play Heroes?.

One month later I got bored with all the games I had and I was searching through my CDs in order to find some new game, and run into the WC3 CD. This time I played vs AI and I liked the game very much. I was kind fascinated by the visual things, like when you have this +10 every time a wisp or worker gets the resources.

Then some time later my brother's classmate figured out that I also play WC3 and challenged me. He said: "Let's go to a computer club, and play a 1vs1 there". So we started going to different tournaments which were held at computer clubs.

I got a dream of participating in a big tournament and winning some good money after I watched World Cyber Games (WCG). It was the tournament where all the best players gathered.

- What was your goal for WCA European Qualifier? What result did you expect?

I aimed for the 1st place only. I've never won a tournament with a good prize, so I told myself that the time is now.

- What other European players do you find good? Who is your most dangerous opponent in Europe?

HawK, WarchiefRich and Sonik are the most experienced players here. The most dangerous player in Europe is Foggy.

- How did you prepare for the qualifier? And thanks to what have you been able to win?

I started with finding practice partners. They were Yumiko, WFZ, Life and Sini. I played like about 100 games with all of them. If they couldn't practise, I played ladder games.

I had the following schedule:

From 10a.m. I played 15-20 games (custom/ladder), then had rest, then from 7p.m. to 9p.m. I analyzed 10 games of mine and 10 games of other players.

While having rest I watched Moon's stream and learned a lot from him. And I was able to get the appropriate style of playing and practice approach thanks to my coach Pooh (he's a WC3 streamer at GoodGame.ru).

- What match in the qualifier was the hardest one? How do you estimate your performance? Were the results a little bit unexpected, or did you expect such winners?

The hardest games were against top-1 of the Chinese server, HawK. And the results are quite the expected.

- What is your goal for the grand-final of WCA?

I have about 3 tournaments to prepare, I can practise with the best Asian players. The matter is how well I will be prepared for the tournament, but I'm going there aiming for the win.

- A couple of words for the fans just to finish the interview.

I'd like to thank the people who watch my streams, I couldn't have achieved anything without you, so thank you for your support!

Orcworker : the Runner-Up

- First of all, please, introduce yourself and tell us what else you do besides playing WarCraft.

Hello! My name is Maksim, aka Worker, I'm from Belarus. So, my nickname is Worker and, consequently, I have a job, a work to do. And I'm also fond of going to pizzerias and to the cinema. And I like fishing a lot as well.

- Let's talk about the game for a little bit. For have long have you been in WC3 by now? And have you ever thought that you'd once have a chance to play at one of the most prestigious tournaments, with the best players?

I started playing WC3 almost right after The Frozen Throne was released, but I played just for fun mostly. Then I got the Internet access at home, and the game became much more interesting, especially after I witnessed Grubby's play and what he was doing with the Orc race. In the previous years I could only dream about participating in major tournaments, but nowadays it's all real.

- What was your goal for WCA European Qualifier? What result did you expect?

I planned to get at least top-3, and thanks to relatively easy bracket I managed to do that without any serious problem. I was one win away from winning the qualifier, but in the last games I just started making mistakes and ran out of luck (for example, there was a game on Twisted Meadows, and I was trying to finish a creep with my BM, and the creep survived with 1hp!!!!!; or on Terenas, where my BM killed a berserker in my enemy's base ( the cyclone finished two second two early).

- What other European players do you find good? Who is your most dangerous opponent in Europe?

The most dangerous opponents for me were HwaK and the elves. HwaK : because of the match-up, the elves : because of the maps.

- How did you prepare for the qualifier? And thanks to what have you been able to win?

As the majority of the players, I played on NetEase. I also watched replays of my opponents and searched for the ways of beating them on certain maps.

- What match in the qualifier was the hardest one? How do you estimate your performance? Were the results a little bit unexpected, or did you expect -such winners?

The results are quite expected : the ones who practiced the most were able to get to the top. Well, maybe HawK or WarchiefRich could have found a way in top-3. Well, I'm not very sure about Warchief, as I haven't seen his games in a while.

- What is your goal for the grand-final tournament?

We'll face killing machines in China, but yAwS showed that this is just an illusion and if you're lucky with your bracket then it's quite possible to get to the top. And, moreover, NetEase allows you to watch you possible opponents' games : so there'll be less surprirses.

- A couple of word for the fans just to finish the interview.

The fans are very impactful to my play. When after winning a game you see SOKWORKER or OCRWORKERBOYZ in the chat : you just wanna win again and again! And even the most obvious pieces of advice from chat help you to raise your level of play. P.s.: Bm is balance!!!

PS from Ugri : if I get the chance to go to Yinchuan myself, I am going to take tons of picture of Orcworker. There is only that one photo available at the moment! Also many players protect their account from being viewed by others, or to force viewers to go on their stream : so not everything is visible, and there should be surprises!