Interview with ElkY!

One of my friends on TeamLiquid.net found ElkY on a hungary site called replays.hu and now he made a interview with him. I asked if I could post it here, and he said it was okay. Here it is:


A few weeks ago I�ve been requested by the Hungarian Replays.hu portal (www.replays.hu) to translate a recent interview for them, which was currently circulating the net �round that time. Being as I usually am however, I eventually declined the idea, and instead went on looking for some interesting material myself. Guess who I found.
Yes, I know there have been a lot of interviews with this guy. Yes, I know I�m facing names like mensrea when trying my luck in these waters. But really, I believe it is always worth an effort. ElkY is not only an excellent BW player, famous in Korea, as well as outside of it, not only has he spent a great amount of time overseas already, and became an integral part of the Korean BW community, but he also is an excellent speaker, and a great partner for a talk at that.
This interview is interested in the more insightful aspects of some of the popular questions within the community - Bertrand talks about some nuances of the Korean BW scene, as well as giving us his opinions about such common-interest topics as the APM rating, or War3. Hopefully, you will find it useful, as well as entertaining.

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Mynock: I'll try to take this conversation onto a less common road this time, asking a bit different questions than your usual BW interview. Though I recon you had this sort of experience before, Playboy perhaps?
ElkY: Haha, yeah. Well it was for the French version, and they were a bit amazed a French guy could earn his life by playing computer games in South Korea. It was kinda short, but in general terms how was my life, and how I made it there.
Mynock: So it was a "French success story" then?
ElkY: Sorta, yes .
Mynock: I see . Your Korean fans get a lot of interviews of you btw?
ElkY: Kinda less these days as I'm being there for a long time, and they already asked me almost everything I guess.
Mynock: Haha, right . What about your fan club in general? How many members? Any headquarters, etc?
ElkY: Like 7 000 people on the net now I think. They're being really nice to me - always offering gifts at my games, and there to cheer up for me.
Mynock: I guess so I've met with some of Victor's fans, they were really cute. What about those gifts? What sorts of?
ElkY: All kinds of stuff; sometimes letters and food, or drinks, or hand-made gifts saying like "ElkY Fighting" (in Korean).
Mynock: And then shouting the same phrase before the game, uhum� I know Naz used to play BGH with some of his fans - do you spoil your followers like this sometimes?
ElkY: Unfortunately I don't play much with them, only when I meet them at fan-meetings.
Mynock: Ok. I also heard a rumour that the daily schedule of the AMD team is somewhat... non-existent? Can you confirm/decline any of this?
ElkY: Unlike other pro teams, we believe in our own will to achieve our Dream. So we don't have any forced schedules like staying at the office 8 hours a day to practice. We have all the freedom we want, but of course we are practicing hard to make it anyway. We think that practicing against our own will isn't gonna help us any. If we don't feel like practicing enough to make it, then it's our own fault. We also learn more that way, from our own mistakes. We had this discussion with our manager some time ago, and all the players of our team, and we thought it was the right choice to make.
Mynock: Then it was more of a common decision on-the-way rather than a base foundation for the team?
ElkY: Well the team has kind of history. First our manager was only with Grrrr..., and between them it was completely that way - he practiced whenever he wanted to. Then I joined them too and it was the same thing. However after V-Gundam and me got hired by iVenture, we got some kind of schedule to please our sponsor. We had to go to the office 2 times a week for 8 hours. And it kinda sucked cuz it was day-time and annoying for us. But when we got back all together with Jinnam and Jinsu under the AMD flag, we decided to come back to the beginning, and let us play as we want to.
Mynock: And how does your day look like now? Let's say you have KPGA team league tomorrow at 19:00, what do you do a day before?
ElkY: I try to go to Korean language center school every day from 10:00 to 12:00. I say I try because to be honest I only manage to do it like 2 or 3 times a week. Then, since I usually go to bed very late, I'm taking a nap like afternoon from 14:00 to 15:00. I'll play a few games, go work out to the gym with Giyom. That we do almost every day.
Mynock: Ah. How many games on a daily average?
ElkY: Not enough . If I have nothing to practice for especially, then maybe 5 games a day, but when I have important things (Starleague, etc...) it can go up to 20 or 30. Cuz then I don�t go to school or don�t work out.
Mynock: 5 games a day? Wow, you should sleep less -_-a.
ElkY: Sometimes even 0. But these days I'm being kinda busy with games.
Mynock: Ok, tell me 'bout your spare time - what do you do when you feel like relaxing? Favourite music? Any TV shows? Polishing glasses?
ElkY: I don't watch TV so much actually. I'd rather go watch a movie with friends or my girlfriend. I like a bit of all kinds of music - these days some Korean music and Evanescence (I'm kinda fan of Queen too ^^).
Mynock: Interesting... Evanescence is pretty controversial in itself so to speak; many like it, many hate it.
ElkY: Well I think it's much about that yeah, if you don't like it, it�s fine for me. I'm not gonna argue about that kind of stuff, everyone has different tastes. ~~
Mynock: And your girlfriend - a cute singer girl again? (link pls?)
ElkY: She's a student. She's really cute, but sorry - no link yet .
Mynock: AMD team gets out a lot together? Who are you especially friends with in the team? Any special connections outside of it?
ElkY: I'm really close with Grrrr..., We're living together, so basically spending almost all the day together. I used to be roommates with Gundam too, so I meet him more often. And even tho Gundam is the weirdest Korean I got to know, living with him for almost a year was a great experience, and not only for my game. I don't really want to go into details, but he�s not weird in a bad way at all. Also we have really good relationship with Jinnam and Jinsu, although we don't meet up so much outside work.
Mynock: So where do you guys live now? Some nice place?
ElkY: Yeah, for Korea I guess it's a nice place ~. Outside the Team I have some friends, mostly English speakers for guys.
Mynock: What area of interest are they? BW as well?
ElkY: Mostly Night Clubs -.-
Mynock: Haha ^^
ElkY: I'm kinda close with a few gamers outside of the team too. Like ChRh, who used to be my master before I even came to Korea. He was teaching me even before I got 3rd at that KBK. Also Oddysay, even tho he's retired for stupid reasons (T_T). And then Peter (Legionnaire), Oversky and NaDa (ever since that trip to France we had together).
Mynock: Humm, explain that about Oddy a bit?
ElkY: Well, KTF has a really tight schedule. Like they have to tell their manager when they leave office, and give him a reason. Oddysay was really bored of having that and he wanted to be with his girlfriend for a few days. So he lied to his manager saying his grandmother was dieing. But later on his manager found out about it, and kicked him out of the team, also saying bad stuff about him to everybody, so even tho he's a great player nobody would really want to take him after that.
ElkY: He decided to pause his career for a while, and is now working in some hotel.
Mynock: Real shame t_t. But not even the AMD team would accept him?
ElkY: He already made his decision to take a break. If he comes back there are good chances that he will be in our team. However our contract only is for 5 players and we would feel bad to not give him what he deserves T_T. Even though we're more looking for a 2nd Protoss player to help us practice
Mynock: Yes, obviously� :/ What about Na_Pro? Since when is he on the team? Btw, isn�t he toss?
ElkY: Na_Pro is Terran. He has known Gundam for few years, and always practicing hard. He joined our team as a practice partner a few months ago but nothing was really official until we needed him for a team league show due to Giyom's and Jinnam's unavailability. (Is that an English word?)
Mynock: It is to my knowledge. . Oook, let�s turn more over to The Game Itself now... I bet many would want to hear this from a progamer: does APM matter?
ElkY: Honestly, I don't think it matters so much, but it also depends of the matchup and conditions. Players have different styles, some are doing so many useless clicks (and that no matter what you guys say). Just look at Xellos with his 350 who can still get so outplayed by Nazgul or Grrrr.... Of course Xellos is still one of the best, with very few losses. Don't wanna say he sucks. But it�s just that game decision, overall strategy and ability to react to your opponent's move matters a lot more than APM. But of course you'll need a high APM at many times of the game.
Mynock: Any players specifically interested in improving their APM that you know of?
ElkY: Oversky is like one of the fastest players. And I've beaten him countless times with less than 200. He's around 300/320 I just give this example because I don't play with ChoJJa and I can't say I have beaten NaDa that many times .
Mynock: Haha, there are few who can, indeed.
ElkY: Also APM might give you a good idea about how focused you were in a game. It's cool stuff but you really can't tell how good a player is going only by this one measure (of course it has to be at least >150 for pro-level).
Mynock: Well, guessing that 300 APM thru 25 minutes must mean you weren't sleeping, huh. Ok now. Tell me something about how you guys practice for an important match taking into consideration the game itself (opponent, map, etc)? Let's say it's gonna be... vs. Nal_rA, on Bifrost. How do you approach it? Looking for cheese strats? Practicing weird builds, and only this map for the whole week?
ElkY: Well, yeah, if I have nothing else, and unless my teammates or friends need help on a specific map, I m not gonna play anything else. First I�ll do the inventory of the build orders that seem to good on the map. Usually never more than 4 different ones. I�ll look at all the TvP that have been played on Bifrost before - no matter the players. Then I�ll look at the games Nal_rA played on it, coz even tho all players can adapt a lot, there is still a lil bit of style - some movies they like and stuff like that, so I�ll try to sort it out. I'll talk with Gundam and Giyom about their thoughts on the map. Play like 5/6 games with each build order vs. different players, then I'll pick the one I'll use.
Mynock: Who do you usually play with for each race? Any standard "checkpoints"?
ElkY: These days my favourite protoss partners are Giyom, Shinya, Rekrul, Nazgul, Peter, Breeze. Sometimes Reach but he's so busy. Terrans would be Gundam, ChRh, Na_Pro, Xellos, KOs, Sync. And Zergs; Jinnam, Jinsu, Oversky, Junwi, Enough. Yellow and NaDa sometimes, but you can't really count of them for many games in a row.
Mynock: Looks like this way your TvP style will always be a bit unique no matter what - you're practicing mostly with non-Koreans, that ought to make a difference in TvP.
ElkY: I think foreigners are really top-level in PvT matchup (as being P at least), so it's really useful to practice with them, yeah.
Mynock: How do you reach guys like Junwi for example? Call him and say "hey I need some practice"? Or any other channels for that sort of things? Maybe even B.Net?.
ElkY: I have all these guys on my friend list so usually I just go on B.Net, see if they're there. If I really need it, I can also call them, but most of the time if they're not online they have something else to do.
Mynock: So you and other pros from Korea actually play on B.Net a lot?
ElkY: Yeah we do. Other teams plays a bit less since they practice a lot in their office on IPX, but still�
Mynock: Ok. Let�s see *your* view now about the current happenings in the Korean BW scene. You think ChoJJa will be switching to Terran for real now?
ElkY: I don't know anything for sure. I know people are talking about it here too, but actually I don't think he will change. It's just too hard to get used to another race when you have that level of play.
Mynock: Oh, I thought maybe pros on this level tend to train in all of the races even if just for the sake of knowing 'em better? For example, how often do you practice your play with other races?
ElkY: Kinda rarely these days cuz I'm busy with lots of stuff. But I usually make bets with gundam, Grrrr... or Nazgul, both of us playing other races, it's much fun.
Mynock: Hehe, you guys should release the reps of that more often .
ElkY: Haha we would be too embarrassed -.-
Mynock: Btw, how's Grrrr� doing nowadays? He seems to be having better moments, and then fall back again? Do you think he's not so concerned with the game anymore after so much time?
ElkY: Well, he's not as much as he was when he lived in Canada or first came here. But he's still a really great player and can beat anybody at anytime.
Mynock: WCG: certainly interesting conditions evolving there for you, now that BoxeR (your arch-nemesis) is out of the race, and instead there�s H.O.T.Forever (your arch-*****) for you to slap around, isn�t that so? And speaking of WCG , what are your predictions, maybe somebody we should definitely look out for?
ElkY: Well, to be frank, BoxeR boycotting raises my chances of winning by a lot, but on the other hand I would have love to beat him finally in a big tournament, and it won't be an achievement to beat HOT in final, even tho I'm not there yet. I think Silent_Control is a great overall solid player who could surprise many people from the Korean team. As for other nations, my favorite protoss slave Rekrul, and also Nazgul are the ones with best chances to defeat the progamers.
Mynock: Haha, yes, HOT vs. ElkY in the finals, and the zerg guy going random on Valhalla maybe?
ElkY: I'd rather play Grrrr... in finals . None of my games vs. H.O.T on TV so far have been fun to watch I think.
Mynock: Rekrul being your slave ever since that particular Liquibition I guess? �Least you�re having some faith in him now.
ElkY: Haha yeah, but he's mostly my slave in comparison to BoxeR's slaves = practice partners, who have to obey their master on when and how long to play .
Mynock: Are you inclining here that BoxeR is abusing his position as their team leader (is he actually?) and using those poor souls to gain skillz mostly himself alone? BoxeR being BM again? -.-
ElkY: Haha, no. It was first a private joke when I visited the IS team office last year, at the time they were the strongest by far (Boxer, Yellow, NaDa). And beside these 3 players that had nice place to live and kinda free schedules, others got woken up at 9 am everyday by the managers, and were basically there to help the 3 masters to practice for their incoming games. I think the atmosphere is much better now in Orion and KTF team.
Mynock: They were paid for their efforts however?
ElkY: Not really, just a place to live and food. But I don�t think BoxeR or others abused them so much ~. And well, they had the opportunity to play with BoxeR, 1000s of Koreans would kill for that.
Mynock: Not only Koreans, hummm� What do you personally think about the so-much-mentioned rising star Androide? Ppl say he improved like mad and he's been seen beating the likes of NaDa and other Korean pros lately.
ElkY: Everybody can get lucky and beat a *******-around NaDa one game out of 10. I might sound bad mannered, but I think if his destiny was to be good, he would have done better than 2-5 in groups last WCG (or something like that). Even tho I haven�t seen his recent reps, coz I almost never watch replays of foreigners, unless I got told there is a funny or really good one around.
Mynock: You have a point about WCG there - even tho let me remind you that he was hard pressed there, having to put up against such names as Lim Yo-Hwan and Jose Peru-Guy.
ElkY: Well, being able to handle pressure is one of the most important qualities for whoever to compete at the best level.
Mynock: What do you think of TLT? Is it actually a way for you to practice well, or more like a chase for those 750 bucks?
ElkY: $750 isn�t that bad of a money, and it's fun to play foreigners because beside the ones I like to play with that are good, I can win using so many different strategies. And that�s good for my confidence. Too bad there is a protoss conspiracy picking the final maps So guess Rek or Naz will win, haha ~.
Mynock: Hehe, wanted your opinion on that as well; what's your favourite map if any? Favourite matchup to go along the map?
ElkY: Emmmmmm� I think Bifrost used to be a great map, beside that, as long as it's balanced I don't mind so much. TvZ is the most fun to play for me, because a lot of actions and things to do.
Mynock: And well, you seem to be generally recognized as a better TvZ player than anything else... Even tho your OGN TvP record seems to be the best atm.
ElkY: Hehe. I played Sonjjang 2 times, and he doesn�t know how to play pvt, I also played 4 times on Bifrost where I had really special strategies, so that doesn�t really reflect my abilities in playing standard TvP, which is not as good as NaDa's one for sure, but it's still pleasing of course, yeah.
Mynock: What do you think about the current OGN maps? And btw, is it difficult to always have to switch to new maps each season?
ElkY: I didn't try Paradoxxx so much, but Protoss seems too strong on it. Guillotine isn�t so nice for TvP but seems being balanced for other matchups. Nostalgia and Gaema Gowon are fine I think.
Mynock: Do you guys plan to have another WDT sometime maybe?
ElkY: Well, considering the ending of the first one wasn't really nice due to many different details which I won't go in - I don't think so for the moment.
Mynock: To shed some light on this frequent topic: just how popular are other games in Korea besides BW atm, and how is BW doing currently from your point of observation?
ElkY: BW is doing bigger than ever. War3 got some good popularity among the gamer community, which means 15-30 years old, but it's still nothing compared to BW. The most popular War3 player here doesn�t even have 10 000 fans on his internet website. About 20 StarCraft progamers have more than that. And I remember that at least for the first 3 finals of War3 league, which are all held in the Megawebstation, there were less people than for a Starleague top16 round.
Mynock: Haha, not to mention the 20k+ ppl gathering at the OGN/MBC finals...
ElkY: Money wise, War3 isn�t doing so bad in Korea. Coz distributors and some other sponsors would like it to get bigger. The most funny thing however, is that they are even holding events where they invite Starcraft progamers to do a Starcraft exhibition trying to make War3 popular among everybody.
Mynock: Wow ^^. You were also playing it some time ago... Are you still? Any other games you play competitively alongside BW?
ElkY: I used to play War3, yeah. I got 2nd, top16, and then 4th in the Ongamenet leagues. But then I didn�t have time to play TFT much, and didn�t manage to qualify. Although the game isn�t so good, people are still getting better, and I couldn�t really keep up by playing so little. Besides, honestly, after the first days, it�s far from being as fun as BW. I don't think War3 will ever get close to what BW is right now in Korea. I mean it�s popularity. There are only about 3 Warcraft 3 progamers sponsored with a salary at the moment, and I doubt there would be much more in the future. Well, I heard the new distributor of TFT wanted to hire foreigners too, and maybe a Korean team, coz they really want to promote it.
Mynock: Obviously, Blizz wouldn't want to miss out on such a market.
ElkY: They should have made a better game. It's too late now.
Mynock: So not even TFT helps the situation then?
ElkY: The main reason that makes War3 bad for progaming is that, even if the game is too simple by a progamer�s point of view (not many build orders, not many units, not many possibilities, etc�) it's really too complicated to observe for somebody who doesn�t know the game, like 40 year old people. With items, heroes, 1000s of spells, creeps... They don�t understand so much about what�s going on. TFT made the game much better to play, but even harder to watch.
Mynock: Hell, even I don't understand a thing once the anims and fxs start flying around the screen, with the brewmasters spitting and the whirlwinds rolling... A real headache :/.
ElkY: And then there�s the stupid luck factor. Which is always so important. In a War3 competition nobody in the top20 is really much better than others. Like if you put YellOw and BoxeR with 18 other players, there are high chances of them both being top3. There isn't such a thing in Warcraft 3, which kinda explains the bad results of Koreans in international tournaments. That, and the luck. Where there are 3 Koreans for 32 players, and everybody is almost at the same level, there aren't much chances for a Korean player to win.
Mynock: So this results in random outcomes mostly?
ElkY: Not totally random, but at such a high level I think if the skill-level difference isn�t that high, it�s much random.
Mynock: What was it about Clikarena? Korean�s didn�t really get to perform there all too well?
ElkY: Clikarena and ESWC, I think so, yeah. They still got 4th and 5th - which isn�t that bad. Thats funny how people forget that both ESWC winners didn�t even get into top16 at Clikarena (I think the winner wasn�t there tho, don�t remember) when from the top8 of Clikarena, only 2 people got top16 at WCG I think.
Mynock: Maybe that's also part of the game�s popularity all outside Korea? Ppl hope that they might win anytime?
ElkY: Main reason why I stopped Warcraft 3 is that when I practiced really hard for a StarCraft game, and lost because BoxeR outsmarted me, I ****** up a move or forgot to get siege (this one hopefully doesn�t happen so much), and let�s say I lost $10k because of that, I just have myself to blame and that�s it. In War3, if I lose $10k just because my opponent got lucky and didn�t play better than me, then it's really irritating.
ElkY: I like to master my own destiny. If I want to win money by getting lucky I'll go to a casino. If I want to have fun, I'll go watch a movie, go to night clubs or play Lineage 2. And if I want to make money in a competitive game that is still fun to play, and where the luck is (depending on maps and other stuff) about 5-10% of the final outcome, I'll play StarCraft.
Mynock: Haha, looks like War3 really hits you where it hurts .
ElkY: That first Ongamenet league... I was winning 90% of my practice games vs. the best players of the world (West, East, Asia). I was undefeated until the final with 12+ winning streak (counting trials). And then I lost 0-3 in the finals because I ****** up one game, he got so incredibly lucky in other ones, and there were 2 games I was winning that had to be replayed because of computer problems.
Mynock: Those were the games vs. Medusa, right? They seemed a bit weird indeed - even for your average unarmed eye. But anyway - BW is your destiny .
ElkY: Well, things happen you know, but I felt better getting raped 0-3 by BoxeR in OGN semi's, cuz inside me after the games I knew he played better that day, and he deserved the finals more than me. But against Medusa I just thought: ****, this game isn't so fair...
ElkY: If you knew the items he got, the positions sometimes, or even the way he backstabbed me when I was creeping... Well, it's over anyways -_-. If only I could turn back time...
Mynock: Or stop worrying about things like that and go win the OGN Starleague! Btw, I recall you were playing some other games as well, like some Microsoft �Age Of� game?
ElkY: I would have practice BW more --. And Age of Mythology, yes. I got into the OGN top16 where I realized I needed more than a week of practice to be top level. Considering there was no other TV league for a while, and I hardly got any friends to play it with, I got back to BW after my horrible loss on TV -.-. I played that Korean game too (The Fate): weird mix between Diablo and StarCraft - which sucks really bad to be frank. But they invited many progamers to play it for advertising, and the prize money was also really nice. I played that only tournament they had on MBC, and I got 1st, haha ^^. Beating Showtime, Combi, Salmosa, Junior[Akuta].
Mynock: I heard there was an award in Korea, for the gamer who plays in most different games, and succeeds in �em. Think you might get that one eventually, if you keep up like this?
ElkY: I got some kind of distinction last year for getting 4th in the Starleague and 2nd in the first War3 league at the same time. And I was the only player in War3 and SC leagues simultaneously for 1 year.
Mynock: Right ^^. Ok, a bit more about that Clikarena... I remember you traveled there with a whole bunch of other BW players, how so? Was that also part of the advertising, and using the popularity of BW to lure ppl's attention to the event?
ElkY: Well, actually it was only NaDa and YellOw with me: it was some kind of deal they made in KTF to get Yellow and NaDa, so they also had to invite the CS team.
Mynock: How was it for you back in France?
ElkY: It was fun as always, lack of sleep and time as usual. Great lack of War3 practice too, unfortunately
Mynock: Haha, mayn participants mentioned that . Well, looks like that's pretty much all I was interested in� xcept� one last thing at the end.
ElkY: Yeah?
Mynock: Is this true? http://www.starcraftgamers.com/bilder/pic_of_the_week/2.jpg T_T.
ElkY: Huk. T________T. I wouldn�t comment on that without my lawyer. T_T
Mynock: So it is! It's bad for you . Ruins macro/micro!
Mynock: Any special ppl to mention?
ElkY: Too many people to thank T_T� Grrrr... because he just is himself. Nazgul for all these TV wins he helped me getting (countless... Reach, Sonjjang, Rainbow, etc�) And because he's one of the nicest guys I got to meet, even tho he's from The Netherlands, but nobody's perfect, uh. Smuft, with whom I share the most intense moments of my life (take it as you want), and with whom I hope I still will soon ~. My manager, my teammates, my protoss slave... Also Gundam, the weirdest Korean, whom I already mentioned before� Everybody who supported me ever since I started. But the list would be too long.
Mynock: Ah, so nice :,). Nothing more left, but to thank you a lot for your time!
ElkY: No problem, you're welcome. BW gave me so much, the least I could do is trying to get a share of my life with the community. Especially a supporting one like that.
Mynock: Hope to see you rocking soon, and gl hf while doing that!