SK Gaming

With DreamHack Summer 2011 and it's Heroes of Newerth tournament, the IOL Final Four, just two days away, SK Gaming sat down with

Kim 'PapaDrayich' Larsson of

TS Gaming to talk about his expectations of the tournament, his team, recent patch changes and a bunch of other topics.

Hello PapaDrayich! Let's jump right in. With short periods of inactivity, TS Gaming has been on the scene for as long as one can remember. Apart from some success in the monthly ESL tournaments and the Digital Youth Awards appeareance, you never managed to quite cement your spot as a top tier team. Is that a disappointment for you guys or rather further motivation to keep going until you reach those top tournament placements?

"When we won the Swedish DYA event at Dreamhack last year we did win a tornament which we shouldn't have won. I mean, as a team we were completely new, and we had just no experience playing on toplevel. Beating Druidz there made us go both to China and Singapore, which was great. But it also made people both underrate and overrate us. That we are not winning is not a big deal, but the aim is always to win. I play this game for fun but I wanna be in the toptier scene. However our main thing is that we are 5 friends, and its really nice playing with people you like. My thought is that we will keep it that way, and if the wins come they are welcome."

Most recently, however, you came through the quarter finals of both the HoN Super Series and ESL Major Series VIII tournaments. Does that give you the confidence that you can perform even better?

"The confidence is there, I know we have a high toplevel. I also know we have issues finding it sometimes."

You have returned to competitive HoN recently after a lenghty period of inactivity. How do you think does your experience influence your team? Do you think you being perhaps a bit "rusty" is potentially something that's holding TS Gaming back, despite your valuable leadership skills, or do the pluses outweight the minuses? Or do you feel like you're your old self again?

"I've never been the best player, not in DotA and I doubt I will be in HoN. It never effected my teammates though, they wanna play with me. I use that as an answer to your question about pluses outweighting minuses. But I'm practicing hard to reach some level of micro, and perhaps I could go all the way over 70apm during DreamHack. Time will tell!"

You have participated in several LAN events in the past. Do you think that LAN experience will make you more prepared for what you'll have to go through at DreamHack Summer 2011. And maybe give you an edge over less experienced teams?

"Definitely."

Now, there's been a lot of talk about whether the format of the tournament is a fair one. Yourself and Reason Gaming, as winners of the Swedish only IOL LAN Finals, have been given spots in the semi-finals while a myriad of top teams will have to go through a tough and exhausting BYOC Qualifier, including teams like fnatic, Online Kingdom, KD Gaming, Team unZ and others. How do you feel about the tournament format?

"We participated in the qualifier and won it. I can see how people might think about it as unfair though."

Which two teams do you expect to advance through the BYOC Qualifier and which one of them would you rather meet in the semi-finals? What are your chances of defeating them?

"Online Kingdom and Fnatic. This time, I don't know about our chances. If we dare to play our game and have fun there is nothing wrong with us aiming for winning against either of the teams."

In the recent Honcast.com video interview Marc "Maliken" DeForest announced a "competitive circuit unlike anything eSport has seen before with a massive prize pool". What do you think it is? What do you think the competitive scene needs the most in order to develop?

"Serious teams, serious tournaments. "

The recent 2.0.35. patch brought some fairly significant changes, particularly to the map. The "Secret Shop" was removed and replaced with "The Observatory" and the Kongor area has been overhauled. What impact, if any, do you think those changes will have on how the game is played?

"There is so much analysis about the map and heroes. But in the end it's gonna be heroes that famous teams pick up that matter the most, strategies that famous people use that are seen as the stronger ones. The maps, the heroes, it doesnt matter so much actually. Sure sometimes "imbalanced heroes" are shown, but in the end every hero is unable to move while stunned. So i don't analyze the changes so much, I just hope it makes people whine less about the balance. :-)"

Alright, thanks for your time. The last question, as always, is reserved for you. Any last comments or shoutouts you'd like to make?

"Ts-Gaming, Q-pad and my wife. Without their support I would never end up at DreamHack :-)"

Stay tuned to SK-Gaming.com as we bring you extensive up-to-date coverage of DreamHack Summer 2011. this weekend!