ET: 20th Annivesary LAN - Player Interviews

h20 e-sports | Purmerend, NL | May 26th - 28th 2023

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Interview with exile - soNny

Background

1. When did you start playing ET, and how did you get into it?

First time I heard about the game from my brother, he played it one day in the internet cafe before we got our own PC. Few months go by, and when parents got us our first PC, I asked my older brother to install that game for me (I was around 9-10 years old back then). That was around 2004-2005, played it ever since. It took me a while to discover ETPro though, I got into competitive part of ET just after its golden era, around 2009-2010. I've been just learning what trickjumping is and one of my friends, @olas, invited me to play a mIRC scrim with him (I remember @WuT being one of our common friends who played with us back then!). I recall I never played a competitive game before that and I was wondering why the spawntimes are so long and why I always have only 30 bullets in my MP40. Fun times.

2. What's your most memorable moment so far in your ET history, and why?

By far, my first official game: GamesTV Schiller e-sports vs. Exact Gaming I recall one play I made during that match, I got a 5-man kill while holding the CP that involved previously planted landmines, artillery and a cheeky MP40 kill.

3. What do you feel is the most important skill in terms of contributing to winning in ET?

I'd say, play towards your strengths, whatever they are. There is no silver bullet.

4. How does it feel to be the captain of OG and to compete in the LAN event?

Nice although it gets difficult to try to lead a bunch of spineless chickens.

The Team at LAN

5. What is your confirmed lineup and the roles of the players?

Myself, clip farmer and primary baiter Sinche, signature 1-man panzer and part-time IGL Krepox, as our glass-cannon Mouss, as budget mAus and average MG42 enjoyer Takerjay, as team mascot and influencer Kapot, we didn't figure out yet

6. How did the team come together?

Once the LAN was announced, I was sure that I want to participate and needed to guarantee that I'll be part of a decent team, best way to achieve that at that time was to form one myself. I basically made the team out of outliers.

7. What's your goal at LAN? Is there a finishing position you are targeting?

TOP3 is within our reach but it's not going to be easy. We know we are the underdog going into the tournament, we want to prove some people wrong.

8. What would you say was your best performance as a team to date?

Crushing Elysium so bad in scrims that they had to delete the VODs.

9. Who on your team is most likely to miss their flight and turn up late to LAN?

Bystry.

10. How do you prepare for games?

We usually have a daily stand-up meeting with Sinche to discuss our tactics for the day. After that, we throw them all in the bin and improvise. We then finalise our scrim block with 2 hour debrief about team not following the calls. I've read about this methodology in the book with the "SCRUM" written on the cover.

11. What has been your team's biggest challenge leading up to the LAN event, and how have you been working to overcome it?

The biggest challenge was to actually make sure all 6 of us can come. Other than that, we need to close the gap to other Division 1 teams, hopefully we will figure out the "how" part just in time.

Predictions

12. Of the teams signed up for the LAN event, what is your prediction for the final rankings?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AnDzwm_KCLs

13. Who are you most looking forward to meeting at LAN and why?

Besides my teammates, I am low key hoping for semik and juissi to make an appearance.

14. Which player do you think is the most likely to drink so much that they will not be able to play the next day?

Any player from ciah. Hopefully, they won't involve Sinche in their shenanigans.

15. Are there any particular matchups you are looking forward to?

Looking forward to all of them equally.

The Opposition

16. Out of the opposition players, who is the most difficult to play against, in your opinion?

Personally, I always dislike to play against Cupra the most. His timings with rifle are the most annoying and he knows most of the lineups either by heart or he does them well with gut feeling.

17. Which team do you think is most likely to pleasantly surprise people (dark horse pick)?

Us or ciah, anybody else performing good won't be a surprise since all other Division 1 teams are capable of winning this event.

18. Which opposition player do you feel is most underrated?

Not really sure on this one, I would probably go with eron & rsp. Eron plays his role consistenty well and rsp, he keeps suprising me with rifle lineups that I didn't know even exist.

The Future

19. What does the future hold for you and the team following LAN?

Definitely less gaming, becoming a father in few months and buying a house

20. If you could make one change to the game, what would it be?

ETPro leaning mechanic and minor spawn points on every map.

21. Are there any maps outside the current eight maps at LAN you would like to see in future tournaments?

I would like to see legacy versions of the maps with minor spawn points feature, of course assuming that other issues on these maps are fixed. Other than that, I think sos_secret_weapon would be interesting but it also requires some minor fixes, especially around flag area with the uneven doorsteps.