Startseite/Artikel/Interview with Miou part 1/2

Interview with Miou part 1/2

Name: Daniel Holthuis
Age: 19 years
Occupation: Student (13th grade)
Nickname: Miou
Clan: SK Gaming International
Race: Human

Miou has become one of the most well-known and respected player in and outside of Germany. For one and a half years he is now not only dominating the German ESL Pro Series, but also one of the few German Warcraft III-players who can keep up with the international scene. In the interview with readmore.de he talkes about the events in the past weeks and the current situation in the German ESL Pro Series and SK Gaming.

Miou’s thoughts about ESL Pro Series

readmore.de: Do you think, that you can win the EPS again this season?

SK|Miou: First I have to reach the finals (grins). No, actually that should not become a problem. I started 6-0 and have beaten TaKe and Tak3r, who are two of the best german players. Due to my perfect start (12-0 maps) I could lose some matches this season without getting in trouble concerning the finals. These will be exciting as every season, which is why I would not want to bet on the results. As in any season my opponents will be tough to beat. I am pretty happy about having won the finals three times in a row, as nobody else could win the EPS.wc3 only twice in a row. This gives me a lot of motivation to do it a fourth time but as I already said it will not be easy to do that and it will be close games, especially as I won’t have that much time to prepare due to exams and other school activities before the finals. It will be a lot of work and I will need a little bit of luck. Of course I hope for a good support from the fans, and if it works out well I can win the finals a fourth time.

readmore.de: Who do you think will reach the finals?

SK|Miou: At the moment I think Spell, Fire, DaviN and me will reach the finals. But Tak3r and TaKe might have chances, too. Slight chances I see for BasH, Hanf and Thurisaz.

readmore.de: Did Fire’s good performance surprise you?

SK|Miou Fire trained a lot and that is why he just had to perform well. Besides that I have to say, that his opponents did not have their best day in their respective matches as the players often do not train that much at the start of the season. But fire worked his way up to the five best players in Germany in a very short period of time, which is really impressive. I personally don’t know what to think about him yet, and he will have to prove himself at the finals, where everybody will be well prepared.

readmore.de: Are there more players who have chances to reach the finals than in the seasons before?

SK|Miou: Some of the good player of the seasons before are not as strong as they once were, but on the other hand there are a lot of talents in Germany. It’s hard to say who will reach the Top4.

Miou about the World Cyber Games

readmore.de: Why haven’t you been to WCG National Finals?

SK|Miou: At first all my drivers were not able to drive me to the location, which meant that i had to go by train. This would not have been a problem, but it would have taken 7-8 hours and i would have been hardly able to arrive in time for the Checkin. I would have returned home on monday, which would have meant that i would miss another day of school. It is my final year in school, which means that i have to be disciplined and may not miss that much lessons anymore. So the main reason was school. I do not have holidays when the WCG-Grandfinals take place. In fact i have to write two class excercises in that week and i could not miss them. I additionally was ill on the weekend the National Finals took place and i also thought it was unfair to go there, win some prices and then disappoint the fans by not going to the WCG-Grandfinals.

readmore.de: What about the chances of the German players at the WCG?

SK|Miou: I don’t see many chances to be honest. With a good grid HasuObs and DaviN might overcome some rounds, but a result like Top3 is unrealistic. BasH will have more problems, as there are many better nightelves, but with a lot of training he might endure some rounds, too. At first they have to survive their groups and then they have to hope for a good grid. According to the certificate i finished fifth, respectively 5th-8th last year, and i was pretty satisfied with my performance. If one of those three guys would be able to do that, he has performed very well.

The Clanbase Eurocup XI Finals

readmore.de: Are you satisfied with your performance?

SK|Miou: Actually you should not be satisfied with a 5th/6th place, but i am this time. In the first round i had to play my clanmate and the winner of the tournament which was some kind of bad luck. HoT played very well and, although i had some opportunities in the early-game, i had no chance to win against his nightelves (Panda + Bears argh). Then i faced Paladyn, whom i beat. After that i had bad luck once again, because i had to face 4K^Grubby. I did not even hope to win this one, so i played some innovative strategies. I was almost able to tower him on Turtle Rock (grins) and on Echo Isles we both used fun strats. At this time both of us were demotivated due to the bad conditions. The sun glared, it was loud and hot, and the computers had problems with disconnects and crashes. Nontheless it was a good event, although i was rather there to have fun.

readmore.de: So you went out to party in the evening?

SK|Miou: I went to Amsterdam with two friends of mine from another city. Starting with the journey there until the return it was pretty nice. We had rented a car, slept in a good hotel and had a lot of fun. After i was kicked out of the tournament we have spent the whole day in Amsterdam. The car was pretty useful in the periphery, especially at night and we sometimes picked up HoT and Insomnia. An international event with only three hours of journey is something special. Anything else that happened is private.

readmore.de: How do you rate Grubbys relatively bad performance?

SK|Miou: Grubby was the one who suffered the most from the bad conditions. You could really see that he did not have fun to play anymore. On the other hand he was not playing as bad as you might think and even Grubby might finish a tournament without winning it once in a while.

readmore.de: What about HoT’s victory? Did his performance surprise you?

SK|Miou: I of course knew, that HoT is a very skilled player, but the first time i thought that he was capable of winning the tournament was after our matches. There i saw that he was in good shape and that he trained a lot. He alwas plays good offline, online i beat him pretty often. I just can congratulate him to this great performance.

readmore.de: Do you think ToD’s final words after the final match („GG Elf……. Thanks Blizzard“) are justified?

SK|Miou: I did not see their matches anymore, but i can tell you that there is some imbalance in the matchup between nightelves and humans. There is no real counter for the bears – at least none which the elf cannot counter quickly. The bonus of experience for a single-hero Demonhunter is pretty blatant, which is why you can win a game only because of an Demonhunter with level 6. The matchup is not hopeless for humanplayers but a buff your really be well and necessary. On the other hand it is pretty bad mannered to write something like that directly after the final games, because it’s not HoT’s fault that his race is that strong. I also would not say, that ToD would have won the match if the matchup was more balanced. Such an after-match-comment just shows your anger and frustration. A problem with the balance should not be discussed in a flamewar.

Patch 1.20 from the view of a humanplayer

readmore.de: Did the patch in your opinion change the balancing?

SK|Miou: Unfortunately not. I hoped for changes at some human units to make them more flexible and buff them that way. But you still play the same strategies as before and the humans were not buffed at all. They even made the towers weaker, which makes you build even more towers to be able to defend some attacks. But the number of possible strategies seems to become less anyways. Almost every humanplayer tries to weaken or defeat their opponent on Tier2. Nontheless I like the changes of the patch, even if they were not sufficient enough.

readmore.de: You just talked about the towers. So you think that a huge number of towers is necessary in certain matchups? Or do you just play safe in some games?

SK|Miou: It depends on the starting positions. On certain maps and especially in certain matchups I think that towers are pretty strong – on other maps they are necessary to not to be raped. I usually play with many towers, because my opponents often do not know how to counter them. But if the opponent knows what to do, this strategy does not work. The best example for towers to be necessary is the matchup human versus undead. If the game goes to late game and you have an expansion without towers you nearly can’t do anything against destroyer-harass. I often tower early in the game because I hate those strategies with hit ’n run attacks. Human is the slowest race and completely inflexible. Additionally I play with towers for many patches now and I can use this strategy in the best possible way. But in the current patch it gets more and more difficult, which makes me vary my standard strategies and play more without towers. As I already said I hoped that the patch would change more, and not to weaken a strategie, which is played because of hopelessness.

to the next part of the interview

  1. diejule #1
    just don't like the translation, fine content though...
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