[INTERVIEW] KLH GoldeN after IEM Singapore

The Kuala Lumpur Hunters had just returned from Singapore after the Intel Extreme Masters Singpore tournament. Unfortunately, they lost to the Hong Kong Attitude 0 - 2 after two games in the semi-finals Friday. To watch the matches, click here: Game 1, Game 2. We were able to get hold of KLH GoldeN for an interview as soon as they returned. Let us see what the hunters have to say about the matches there

You played against HKA in the Semi Finals of IEM Singapore and unfortunately lost the series 0-2. Can you please give us your thoughts on some of the reasons that caused the loss of that game? 

For the first game, we actually did some early mistakes and because of the Double Marksman Strategy, we was found in a hard situation to come back from. For the second game, we were running a 4-1 strategy similar to HKA but unfortunately we lost the 4 v 4 fights due to some combat and communications problems. 

There was a notable shift on your roster and with JaeYoong once again but not on the Marksman position, instead playing at Mid and instead, you who used to be in the Mid lane went up top- Any reasons on why such decision? 

Well, although JaeYoong is in Mid Lane but he is still playing as a Marksman. I decided to move to top because its easier for me to make calls and lead during engages since I am the leader and shot caller of the team. 

As far as International tournaments go, teams from SG/MY (Singapore Sentinels & Kuala Lumpur Hunters) hasn't been performing well. What can you attribute it to? 

There are many reasons why SGS & KLH do not perform well as far as International tournaments goes. The main reason would be the competitive scene itself and the lack of scrims. Other regions such as NA/EU/KOR/CN have good competitive structure which is a lot bigger than SG/MY. Players pool affects the competitive scene directly and these regions have huge player pools and so they have more competitive teams compared to us. 

Besides, most pro teams have their gaming house and coach. SG/MY's gaming culture is not as well equipped as them, thus it is tough to form a fully committed team here, before SGS reformed, there was some part time players which is the same to KLH this year. Most of the time, KLH is only available to train 3 days a week as full team and that caused the lack of scrims as a team 

Now that IEM is complete, I believe the future tournaments ahead would be the TLC Playoff Finals. What next in preparations that we can expect from the Hunters? Are you confident in the upcoming matches? 

There is huge change in the latest patch, I can't say what preparations to expect but expect our performance in TLC Grand Final will be better than IEM Singapore and of course we are confident! 

Other than SGS and KLH in the TLC's Playoff, there are 2 other amateur teams iSG Exile & KTHXBAI in the playoffs. Being a veteran in the scene, do the team receive pressure to perform well since it is a pro vs amateur game? 

Doesn't matters with Pro or Amateur teams, we only received pressures from strong teams. 

As far as I know, TLC would be played in Season 4 Patch. Any comments on the Season 4 Meta & how it'll affect competitive league? 

No comment to Season 4's Patch as I have only played 1 game so far 

According to Ozora Veki in his personal FB timeline, he mentioned that you are retiring soon? Any comments on that issue or would you like to clear the misunderstanding here? 

I will most probably leave KLH after TLC. The main reason of such decision is that I needed a break from the competitive scene and really to consider what to do in the future. 

Before we end, is there anything else that you want to tell your supporters/Malaysia LoL players?

I'm sorry to the fans as we did not achieve anything big for this year. However, thanks for everyone's kind support, we really appreciate it! For Malaysia LoL Players, since the existence of KLH here, there is always a chance to be a Professional Gamer if its your dream. The easiest way to get attention is to perform well in the Competitive Scene. There is a higher chance to do so now as TLC Malaysia started not long ago. Always remember that it is not easy and fun to go pro, every best professional gamers have their hard time but they could enjoy the sweet fruits after all the hard time.

That is about what we will hear from GoldeN of the Kuala Lumpur Hunters.  Let us wish KLH all the best in their upcoming matches: The Legends Circuit Playoff coming 21st to 22nd December 2013. Thank you for reading.

-JVC

[INTERVIEW] Paradox Gaming Disbands

On 26 November 2013, Paradox Gaming officially announces its release of the current roster from League of Legends competitive scene as the season for TLC 2013 comes to an end. As mention in previous posts, it is regrettable that another team has to leave the scene. We had the chance to get in contact with Paradox Gaming's Mid Laner Ozora Veki for an interview in regards to this matter and it is as below:-

Interview with PaX Ozora Veki (2013) 

I understand that you are considered a veteran in the scene who'd been in numerous teams before you set foot into Paradox Gaming, do you mind telling us of your journey throughout the competitive scene in MY League of Legends? 

It started from year 2012, while watching GPL and some foreign tournaments, I had the urge to become a Pro-Player myself. I started off with a team called Yamable and my first tournament was the King of the Hill (KOTH) Centre Region. The team itself has no power to compete at all and eventually I lost both qualifications. Although I failed the qualifications, some team that already took the slot invited me to their team (NYM.Orange Esports), and we took 4th place as a result. It all moved forward from there.

The teams that I had joined in the past includes

Season 2= Yamable , NYM.Orange Esports. 

Season 3= UoX.MY , Nothing to Lose, Paradox Gaming, Broski , PaX

I got to know that Paradox Gaming decided to call it ends and disbanded recently. Is it possible to share on what actually happened? 

There was a lot of commitment issues, some of the players want to focus on their life and etc.

What do you feel of the decision now that you've all actually came this far. 7 weeks playing together is indeed quite a long period of time. Do you have any regrets joining the team? 

I was excited when I first rejoin PaX. In the beginning, the team had tight training schedules to qualify into TLC. However, training is not as usual after that. The only thing I feel sad is that I cannot play in the TLC Playoffs coming this 21st - 22nd; which is one of the largest e-sport event in Malaysia.

Any ups and down that you can share that you have in the team? 

Winning strong team in scrims are definitely the ups 

Paradox Gaming had been doing quite well early in the TLC Season (Dropping games against only KTHXBAI and Kuala Lumpur Hunters. However, mid-season there's a drop in your games to other teams. Any possible reason of that happening? 

It's probably due to the lack of training after the Week 2. While the other teams started becoming stronger and stronger, we did not train as hard. In fact, after losing to KTHXBAI for the 2nd time (Week 6), we knew that we will not be able to get into the TLC Playoffs, thus we just played for fun after that match. 

Now that it have come into this stage, what are your future plans in the League of Legends scene? Are you going to continue being active in the Malaysian LoL Scene? 

I will continue playing and hopefully get into Kuala Lumpur Hunters one day. I have TeddyTibbers as my life guide.

Anything else you want to tell the readers or the supporters of Paradox Gaming before you take your leave? 

Sorry for not securing Top 2 =(

Courteousy of TLC.Garena Malaysia

Finally, thanks for the time that Ozora Veki had spent in conducting the interview. We thank all the readers and fine supporters of the e-sports community in Malaysia. To Ozora Veki, we wish you all the best in your upcoming days in the League of Legends Malaysian scene!


-JVC

PreSeason 4 preview

With the announcement of Garena on the patch 3.14 rolling out on the 27 November 2013, PreSeason 4 for League of Legends in Malaysia has finally arrived. With big changes coming up, what are some of the changes that is worth-noting? You can view the patch notes here

Gold, Warding and Vision Game 

Trinkets and the limitation of a maximum of 3 green ward and 1 pink ward per player as well as pink wards not being invisible had affected the vision game vastly. Support players are no longer burdened by the responsibility to ward and will have a larger role to play in the game. With the presence of new gold generation items, supports will gain more gold and will be more viable late game. 

However, Elementz - the current coach of Coast Gaming mentioned and pointed out his frustration on the availability of Trinkets in the game on his vlog due to reason such as causing the laning phase stale and on the issue of "the end of ward wars". You can watch and understand more here (Part 1, Part 2)

Support Champions Overhaul 

The changes on the amount of gold available for the support caused a lot of traditional support champions (Sona, Lulu, Nami) being reworked, overhaul and nerfed. Now, support champions scales up their utility based on their AP ratio. However, by doing this, it may cause non-traditional support AP-based mage (Annie, Nidalee, Orianna) to be used vastly due to their ability to scale exponentially in the late game 

Xpecial - the current support player of Team Solo Mid gave his insight on such changes and the emergence of non-traditional support. View it here. At the same time, when doing its patch rundown, SaintVicious - coach of Curse Gaming mentioned on how traditional supports just wouldn't cut it anymore as AP-scaling mages (Annie, Fiddlestick, Zyra) might be a better alternative. Click here to watch (10:00 onwards)

Jungle/ Jungler Item Changes 

The jungle changes on gold and experience affected the champion picks and it's play style very much. The decreased experience early game and also the powered-down smite early game causes early jungling to be extremely tough. Jatt - Shoutcaster and Analyst of Riot Games mentioned on the jungle changes causing the junglers to gank less early game. This also caused some junglers (in NA) preferring to lane with its top-laner until a certain level before going into the jungle.

In addition to that, the changes to jungling items which gives more gold once completed also gives its pros and cons. Instead of junglers looking to gank and pressure lanes early, junglers are burdened to complete their 'gold generation item' before actually taking risks to gank as not getting the item early simply means that they will fall behind. TheOddOne from Team Solo Mid gave a brief review on the jungle item changes here. 

To summarize on the changes on the jungling item,

• Wriggles are only good if the laning phase ends late due to the need to kill JUNGLE minions 

• Spirit of Ancient Golems are similar - swapping 150HP with the extra gold generation

• Spirit of Spectral Wraiths couldn't be use on most champions except Amumu

• Spirit of Elder Lizard is fine if the team is able to get kills/snowball. Useless when being stomped. Better alternative includes BoTRK and Triforce

Overall Preview
Season 4 seems to be an exciting experience for League of Legends as how the changes are being made. However, there are a lot of issues that needs to be dealt with during the PreSeason because the game is actually in a 'mess' due to people not being able to adapt. With the buff on gold on the support, would traditional support continue to take its place in the game, or it is actually the uprising of AP-Mages at the bot lane.

What are your point of view on the PreSeason 4?

What does it mean to be a competitive gamer in Malaysia?

Picture courteousy of Garena SG/MY 

When people mention players like Doublelift of CLG, Madlife of CJ Frost and xPeke of Fnatic, active players of the current League of Legends scene screams and cheers in respect and awe because as an individual, they are well looked-up to. 

The fan base of players in their competitive scene is so huge that many casual gamers wished that they are in their shoes, enjoying the fame of being well recognized everywhere.

However, what does it mean to be a competitive player in Malaysia?

1. They spend years of their time in a gamble. It might seem absurd but competitive players give and sacrifice a lot of their time just to practice and train up their skills. While most competitive players do it part time, some of them actually take time off their studies just to train. Unfortunately, these sacrifice may even mean nothing in the end if they get anything less than 1st place in a tournament. Face it, we do not live the life of Pro-gamers in Korea or NA, while players from other countries gets salaries and promotion by their company, we don't.

2. They have great vision of e-sports, but is often looked down upon. Competitive players have their vision of bringing e-sports into the Malaysian scene. However, in as much as they try to work towards it, people (Parents, friends & partners) may not find it appealing.When they are asked on their studies/academic achievements, could it be possible for them to say "Nah, I play games for a living". I guess it's alright in some other place, but definitely not Malaysia.

3. They do not treat the game as simple 'a game'. People may feel that competitive players are simply players that wants to use gaming as an excuse to get themselves off the world. Often do I hear that people play game to 'excuse' themselves from having to face 'reality'. That being said, it is definitely not the case because as soon as a person decides to be competitive in a game, they are not playing the game anymore. It's their career, their work, their job.

We've often heard of players like JaeYoong and GoldeNz from the Kuala Lumpur Hunters, who is by far one of the few well known competitive League of Legends players in the scene. Following down the ladder, we have players who are in amateur tourney such as Ozora Veki from Paradox Gaming who had always been in the competitive scene of the Malaysian League of Legends community.

Unfortunately, if we were to compare them with players across the globe, they simply mean nothing because of several reasons stated above. Perhaps these are the reasons why teams start to disband tourney after tourney despite them being decent in the game (4moD - Remember?). It's simply because it's really stressful playing in tournaments, yet when they seek for support, it is nearly non-existent

Thus the author pleads to you - readers. Give your support to these competitive players, they really need the support. Do not let teams amateur teams such as KTHXBAI, Paradox Gaming, and Nothing to Lose die off because if they do, that's the end of the Malaysian e-sports scene

- JVC