@GosuNudge: Hello Jascha. Thank you for doing this interview. Could you introduce yourself to the Anook community a little bit?

@SupportNoVa: Hey there, I am Jascha 'NoVa' Markuse, I play Heroes of Newerth, a game of the so called MOBA genre.

@GosuNudge: I want to start of with a few questions I call hot questions. I will tell you two choices and you have to pick one of the two immediately without thinking about it.. Are you ready?

@SupportNoVa: Yeah

@GosuNudge: LoL or Dota 2

@SupportNoVa: Dota 2

@GosuNudge: Coffee or Energy drink

@SupportNoVa: Energy Drink

@GosuNudge: Hellbourne or Legion

@SupportNoVa: Hellbourne

@GosuNudge: Ganker or Hard carry

@SupportNoVa: Hard carry

@GosuNudge: EU scene or NA scene

@SupportNoVa: EU scene

@GosuNudge: Portal Key or Tablet

@SupportNoVa: Portal Key

@GosuNudge: How did you get interested in gaming and how did you get into HoN?

@SupportNoVa: Gaming became interesting for me once I started reading a lot of Sci-Fi and Fantasy literature I believe. Therefore I always enjoyed RPG games such as Baldur's Gate or Knights of the old Republic. I started of with DotA like most LoL or HoN players and got introduced to the game by my brother.

@GosuNudge: Also out of personal interest. What kind of literature inspired you that much? Can you name any of the writers or names of the books that inspired you?

@SupportNoVa: Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings of course. Legends of Dune, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Enwor saga, A Song of Ice and Fire before it was cool and roughly a couple hundred other books I can't recall atm.

@GosuNudge: How would you describe your gaming career so far?

@SupportNoVa: Spectacular, amazing, eye-opening, instructional, boring at times and tiresome, but compensating.

@GosuNudge: What is the most memorable achievement?

@SupportNoVa: Winning the semifinals of Dreamhack Winter 2011.

@GosuNudge: How do you feel about the current state of the competitive HoN scene?

@SupportNoVa: I probably have a pretty unique view on the scene as I've been part of Fnatic for almost two years and never had to form and reform my team every couple weeks. But to say something positive the scene is at its highest point right now and I believe it will only go one way: upwards.

New players, new teams, stability being promoted by S2's new tournament system - the next months will be great for the competitive HoN scene.

@GosuNudge: With which 5 words would you use to sell HoN to any none HoN players to convince them?

@SupportNoVa: Try HoN. I play it.

@GosuNudge: What is your cooling down -or- warming up game? Do you play any other games besides HoN? (not in a professional way)

@SupportNoVa: Unfortunately I don't have time to play other games anymore. When the match is important I warm up by talking a quick walk and listening to certain tracks, which change from one event to another.

@GosuNudge: What is the track you listen to a lot at this moment?

@SupportNoVa: Chaos Legion - choir of curse Boss BGM - type 1

youtube.com/watch/?v=h8NMrpfH-CU

This one I use for warm up atm shortly before drafting for example.

@GosuNudge: In the HoN community you are considered as one of the best supports in the world. This is quite of a title which gives a lot of fame and fans with it. How do you -cope- with the attention? Do you feel like a “celebrity”?

@SupportNoVa: At start, at the first Dreamhacks I didn't quite notice it. Then I learned more about eSports and I realized what kind of picture people started to get of me. There is not much to manage or cope with - it is nice but I don't feel like a celebrity. At the end of the day I am just another dedicated and enthusiastic gamer I hope.

@GosuNudge: When you left fnatic they wrote on their website “Nova is 100% the most iconic HoN player out there thanks to his unique style”. How would you describe your own playing style?

@SupportNoVa: To be honest they probably referred to another form of style, not necessarily a unique style ingame. But to give you an answer - I don't think my playing is very steady. Whenever I learn something I try to integrate it right away. There were times though when I didn't learn much and during the longest period I probably played very safe and centered around warding. At least that's what I've been told.

@GosuNudge: In what way did your playing style changed over the years that you’ve played?

@SupportNoVa: I played almost exclusively solo mid in DotA for years, then hard carry for a while and eventually support. My current style hopefully reflects that.

@GosuNudge: Looking back at your time at fnatic, which are the moments you would love to relive again? Which moments are you glad to be done with?

@SupportNoVa: Basically I would like to relive every single LAN event. I think, as a team, we specialized in those.

It might sound silly but there are only very few moments I regret having experienced. The two worst are probably parting ways with Trixi and Freshpro as we were one unit back then pretty much.

@GosuNudge: You started your own project called Q SQuad. What is the main goal of your project?

@SupportNoVa: There are two main goals. The first is creating my own team which is almost done. The second one is creating a community, a 'forge' for highskilled players within the Heroes of Newerth scene that look for a team.

As with all teamgames it is extremely hard to enter the professional scene for any 'random' or 'pub' as they are called. I want to make it easier for them.

@GosuNudge: How does S2 gaming, the makers of HoN support the competitive scene of HoN?

@SupportNoVa: Now more than ever. Besides having direct contact with competitors and asking them for their opinions about anything ranging from balance to tournament systems they actively promote the building of new teams with their tournament systems I feel. There is only a single 'invite only' tournament I know of, most are created to give teams a possibility to make themselves a name by going through Best of 1 rounds up to the later stages.

Amateur tournaments are hosted frequently, sponsored by S2 with gold coins. There are more plans for the future as well.

I honestly think with the employment of Phil 'The_Thrill' things are still far from perfect but heading into the right direction. Much more than before.

@GosuNudge: If you had to advice S2 gaming about HoN to give it a rebirth, what would you give as advice?

@SupportNoVa: Define rebirth please.

@GosuNudge: Mmm.. say they want to change some things in HoN to make it more attractive to people. What would you advice them?

@SupportNoVa: There are many things they could change in order to make it more attractive and many reasons why it appears difficult to do so. If it was one advice I would tell them to be less afraid to copy things from already existing models that run smoothly and convincingly.

@GosuNudge: What are your personal plans for the future? (As in education etc)

@SupportNoVa: It is very likely for me to finish my degree in German philology and Philosophy. Currently I am thinking about working in either business, on a theatre stage or in an eSports section.

@GosuNudge: Do you have a lot of time beside your gaming career to actually finish this?

@SupportNoVa: Not really, no - as you saw when we tried to schedule this interview.. there are a lot of other obligations and responsibilities and sometimes it takes its toll. But education is really important and not to be underestimated, something many people (also in eSports) will easily sign.

@GosuNudge: Last but not least. Any shout-outs you would like to do?

@SupportNoVa: I would like to shout-out to my spons- oh, wait.

Shout-out to people inspiring me. To my girlfriend for dealing with my schedule. To my new team for showing me already now that it is indeed possible to create something unique if you just work hard enough for it. To Danijel 'StreeT' for being the man he is - and to my brother. Maybe, one day, we will enter two different flights just to meet again at Joenkoping, Sweden.

@GosuNudge: Thank you very much for this interview Jascha, and we certainly hope to see a lot of you in the near future.

You can follow NoVa on:

anook.com/NoVa

twitter.com/QsQNoVa

facebook.com/fnaticnova

and watch his stream on twitch.tv/nova

@SupportNoVa interviewed by @GosuNudge