Brad Chmielewski of Shatter the Vain interviewed me at the conclusion of VGL about how the weekend went and the role our analysts team plays in GankStars. Let me know what you think!

Below I’ve also summarized the questions and answers for anyone who can’t view the video.

1. What does an analyst do?

Collect, summarize, and analyze relevant data. Don’t tell players how to do their job, act as extra computing power to help them test their own ideas and strategies. The job of the analyst is to help players understand the game on a deeper level and achieve their full potential.

2. How much time do you spend watching video vs playing?

Recently most of my time is going to watching video and building processes for our analysts team. I also spent considerable time vetting our two new analysts Wavernot and Vyzeox. It was important for me to make sure they had a strong foundation of mathematics. The math, in my opinion, is the easiest thing to get right as a competitive team.

3. What’s your goal for the analysts team?

Our goal is to be the perfectly well-rounded team. This means being the best players we can be after we have our foundation down in terms of process and mathematics. The better a player you are as an analyst, the more you can understand the needs of the best players.

4. What makes someone a good eSports analyst?

There’s three things:

1. Having good ideas and hypotheses that will change a player’s strategies. The ultimate goal of an analyst is to change a player’s strategies. It’s not enough to tell them they are already doing things right. Of course, this is easier said than done.

2. Being able to prove (exhaustively) your ideas with numbers. Great ideas are nothing without execution. Often I have an idea and do all the numbers out only to show my idea was wrong. This is part of the job. An analyst must use his mind and creative thinking to find the truth, not to simply confirm his ideas.

3. Being able to communicate and present your ideas simply. It may take you three days to complete an analysis, and that analysis should only take a player 5 minutes to read. An incredible idea and exhaustive analysis is worthless if players can’t digest it quickly and easily.

5. How do you feel after taking 3rd at VGL?

It’s bittersweet to lose to teams like TSM and HH Velocity. I still believe GSS is the best team in the world and this defeat will only make us strong in the long run.