Few pro gamers have as much experience as Ethan ‘Iaguz’ Zugai. The Australian Terran was a dominating presence in the South East Asia StarCraft II scene as he won more than $5000 in local tournaments since the game’s release.
Iaguz reflected briefly on the Australian StarCraft fan base: “Australia does have quite a few StarCraft fans, but it doesn’t have quite as many fans for Australian StarCraft. You can get a pretty good turnout at a BarCraft for a GSL finals. In 2012, we ran WCS Oceana and that got a huge turnout. However, most of them don’t really know Australian StarCraft because it’s not as popular as it used to be.”
In January 2014, Iaguz joined ROOT Gaming and relocated to the team’s gaming house in Northern California. Touching briefly on his decision to join ROOT Gaming, Iaguz explained, “They had a team house and they were going to let me stay in it. No one else was asking. No one else was offering this, so I figured this was a pretty good deal.”
Once Iaguz arrived at the ROOT Gaming house, he adapted to his surroundings with confidence and authority. “Sometimes, CatZ or someone else in the house will be like ‘Ahhh! There’s a spider!’ There are no spiders in this country. What you have are arachnids. They aren’t spiders,” said Iaguz.
“I wake up and play a bunch of StarCraft. If I feel like playing more, then I do. If not, I don’t. I’m not sure if I’m playing more StarCraft now than when I was in Australia but I’m definitely improving,” Iaguz says of his training regimen.
In the Oceana/South East Asia WCS America qualifier for Season 2, Iaguz dominated his bracket and secured a place in WCS Challenger. Notably, all of Iaguz’ opponents during the qualifier played Zerg.
“Most of the best players in South East Asia are Zerg,” he pointed out. “In any deep tournament run, sometimes you don’t have to play versus Zerg. However, you will not be able to win a tournament in SEA with sub-par game versus Zerg. It has always been my best matchup too, which is nice.”
In the qualifier, Iaguz defeated Yoo ‘KingKong’ Chung Hee twice. KingKong delivered Iaguz’ only loss in that stage, taking the second qualifying spot in the process.
Iaguz offered “I’ve played him loads of times in tournaments. We have defeated each other plenty of times. I felt a bit lucky. King Kong has two modes. You never know which one is going to come out during a tournament.
“King Kong used to be on Startale. He has many Korean pro-gamer buddies. When he works with them, prepares with them for a tournament, he can be unstoppable. He wasn’t unstoppable this time, thankfully. He can be terrifying when he is.”
After qualifying for WCS Challenger, Iaguz mentioned the opponent he dreads the most.
“I hope I don’t get Jaedong. What the hell is Jaedong doing in Challenger? Get out of there. If I do get him, I will switch to Protoss and practice Cannon rush. It will give me better odds than Terran,” he disclosed.
Fortunately, for Iaguz, he avoided the matchup versus Lee ‘Jaedong’ Jae Dong. Instead, he will face off versus Incredible Miracle’s Lim ‘NesTea’ Jae Duk in WCS America Challenger.
“I’ll play StarCraft until my hands fall off, then we’ll see what else happens,” he stated, explaining his passion for StarCraft II.
His family has reacted positively thus far to his StarCraft endeavors. “They are really excited. They don’t fully understand StarCraft, but they understand that I’m good at it. They like that. I have a big family and they are all really supportive,” said Iaguz.
On his secrets to hair and beard care, Iaguz offered: “You don’t shave it, that’s the secret. Most people get it wrong when they cut or shave. It’s simple: don’t shave.”
Iaguz takes his immense pro-gaming experience to WCS America Challenger looking to secure that precious spot in Premier League for Season 2. NesTea, his opponent in Challenger, is the only obstacle in Iaguz’ path.
David Wise is a writer for the Collegiate StarLeague and ROOT Gaming. He is also the captain of Team QTLing.
No comments:
Post a Comment