Coming from a well diverse gaming background, Beastyqt earned his nickname by simply being a beast! There’s no denying that when it comes to StarCraft 2. The well-known European Terran player is a formidable opponent in many online tournaments is now living in California after being one of the players joining the Razer Academy Team House.

Good afternoon Beastyqt, how are feeling lately?



Beastyqt: Hello! Feeling pretty good, everything is going the way it should be.

You recently moved out to join MrBitter’s Razer Academy in California, how has that been going and what’s your favourite part about the house?

Beastyqt: It’s been really great so far, Bitter actually asked me 2 days ago if I had any complains or if something should be changed but everything is perfect so far. I love California too! My favourite part about the house is that everyone in it is really cool, there is just good atmosphere in the house for either practicing or having fun after practice is done.

What’s a typical day like in the team house for you?

Beastyqt: I usually always go to sleep last and wake up first for some reason, once I do I have breakfast, check internet to see if there is anything new, do light workout and then practicing from 12pm and ends when players did enough games for the day, somewhere around 4-5pm we cook and after back to practice. Once it’s done we can pretty much do what we like/want. I’m really happy that everyone in house likes playing sports so we usually play football every day or go to basketball court.

You will be attending the MLG Spring Championship in Anaheim in a few weeks how is your preparation going so far?

Beastyqt: It’s been going pretty good, this will be first LAN that I’m actually confident going to without having weak matchup and just overall confident in my skill atm. My preparation for MLG is just massing ladder games on NA/KR server and if I have troubles with certain strategies in TvP or TvZ I ask Violet or Vines to help me in custom games, TvT was always pretty good matchup for me since I ever started playing sc2.

You’re not really known for your offline performance, does this have any extra pressure going into that ruthless open bracket?

Beastyqt: Not really, the LAN's I've been so far I had really hard groups and I always missed 1 game from advancing which were always close ones and my TvP back then was really awful so it was pretty much auto loss. I think MLG open bracket will be better for me, it will feel more like laddering just bo3 - looking forward to it!

The open bracket at MLG is known for always being stacked with high level opponents trying to make their mark in the Pro Circuit. Does this worry you at all?

Beastyqt: I feel I’m much better in situations when my opponent doesn’t know that he will play me and I don’t know who my opponent will be, since I ladder a lot I know many builds and know many builds from other 2 races so nothing can surprise me and I can always surprise my opponents.

I dislike formats where you have week or two to prepare for your opponents because of many counter-strategies made just to counter that one player. As far as the player skill goes I’m not worried. I play and practice with a lot of good players and that will help me at MLG for sure!

From a player’s perspective going into their first MLG do you feel it’s unfair for 16 players to be seeded into pool play and would you rather have the entire tournament as the open bracket format?



Beastyqt: It gives them advantage for sure, but that shouldn’t be my concern, I'll be focusing on my games in open bracket since there are many games to be played. I think tournament wouldn’t be interesting if all the games would from one big bracket.

It’s standard to see you slugging it out in the weekly online tournaments against some of the best players in Europe. Is online tournaments your preferred arena of competition or would you like to visit more LAN events in the future.



Beastyqt: I think it’s safe to say that every player plays a lot better from home where he is used to, but I'd like to be able to perform on LAN's as I am online and yes I will be attending more LAN's in the future and hopefully this time with better results.

It’s safe to say you’re not shy about hiding your opinions on balance. Terran Vs Protoss has been the focus of many debates all over the community but what are your thoughts on the challenges Terran has to face vs. Zerg, and Protoss?

Beastyqt: I actually feel that TvZ is a lot harder than TvP, I've talked with some players and a lot of them feel the same way. Blizzard overdid queen buff in more ways than one. TvZ’s problem at the moment is queens being too strong, Zerg is able to get 3 base at 6-7min mark without Terran being able to do anything and creep spread gets out of control by 10min mark which makes Terran pushes a lot harder to execute because you don’t want to be fighting on creep.

As far as TvP goes, late game was always an issue but I still think Terran has better chance in TVP than TVZ now, but as far as TvP problem goes it’s that zealot/archon is way too cost effective and warp gate reinforcements in 200/200 fights.

What advice would you give to Terran players who are currently struggling with the match ups?



Beastyqt: Just wait for patch, it will come eventually haha.

In both TvZ and TvP you must attack all the time and keep trading armies, making Protoss weaker in late game and not letting Zerg tech without a problem to Broodlords, you must make trades even if they aren’t cost effective sometimes. Other way is playing greedy and going double expo and hitting a timing that will kill your opponent, whatever suits the player better.

There are many complaints among the community about StarCraft 2 and what it’s lacking. If you were given the chance, what would you implement to make this game better?



Beastyqt: There are too many things to be honest, but these are few that I have atm.

Being able to select tournament map pool while playing ladder so that players don’t need to play maps like Korhal Compound LE, which is not used anywhere.

Watching replays with couple of friends and being able to discuss it while watching. Battle net chat system should be improved. Also thing I would LOVE the most is when you open match history that it shows which race you played VS, name of player and rank without opening the match in match history itself and being able to enter replay from match history

One of your main reasons for going into the Razer Academy Team House was having access to the Korean server. Do you think it has benefited you in any way?



Beastyqt: Sure it did! Being able to play on KR server made me a lot safer as a player. Koreans all in a lot and they aren’t afraid to do it, not to mention their timings are 20-30sec faster than foreigners when doing all in’s and their multitasking is really good overall.

Another thing that I learned from KR server is that all in’s are just type of strategy and should be used almost as often as macro play styles. You can’t be predictable. Funny thing about Korean server is that I have around 60% win rate on it and at first I thought I’m really bad because on EU I’m used to a lot higher win rate, but then you go back to play opponents you used to play before and you beat them very easy without realising how much you improved. Bad side of Korean server is that it can be demotivating sometimes but losing is part of the game!

Watching your stream it’s obvious to see you’re playing against some top tier opponents on the Korean ladder, do you think there is any difference between the Top EU/NA players and the Korean players?



Beastyqt: Koreans are just better, they play more and that’s it. There are some players from NA/EU that can win Koreans I won’t deny that but overall Koreans are still better and will always be simply because foreigners don’t invest same amount of time in practicing as Koreans do. One thing that stands out in game is that Korean micro is much better than foreigners.

Most people will say that just having access to the Korean server is good but the real benefit is going to Korea and immersing yourself in that environment do you agree with that and is there any plans for you to go over to Korea and practice?



Beastyqt: I don’t agree with that. Players should feel good to play good, it’s not just send a player to Korea and give him PC.

Players have feelings and being alone in room with 10 Koreans or just being in country where people who don’t speak English can be really hard, I guess it depends on person but if you look at Violet he's not in KR house and he's winning a lot which just proves it depends on the player, if player is disciplined he does not need a team house in order to do well. I would maybe go to Korea but it depends with who I would stay and how the environment in the house would be.

The StarCraft 2 scene in Korea is changing, with the new flood of Brood War pro gamers joining the scene. They’ve made it clear they wish to play abroad. Do you feel this will impact the competitive scene as harshly as it did in Brood War?



Beastyqt: I don’t think it will have impact because they are BW players. I think it will have impact because they are disciplined pro gamers and they are Koreans! They know practice schedules and they know what they need to do in order to improve, it’s just matter of time.

I watched Flash and Jaedong play and their macro in insane, even though at the moment their decision making is diamond/masters, they just need more games played in order to get experience they need to dominate. Effort looked really good too! But like I said it’s just matter of time.

Thank you for your time Beastyqt! Do you have anything else you would like to add?



Beastyqt: Thank you for interview! I want to thank Mr.Bitter for inviting me into Razer house, my team Empire and our sponsors Razer, Adidas, Intel and Seagate and big thanks to all the people supporting me I appreciate it!

A big thank you to Beastyqt for taking time out of his practice to answer some questions. He was a pleasure to interview and I wish him the best going into this upcoming MLG. If you wish to see more of Beastyqt you can watch his Stream over at twitch tv. Also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.