Header image via escene.de.

Over the past weekend, Patrick “Bunny” Brix was able to cruise out of his WCS round of 32 group in first place after taking down opponents Petraeus and Jim to advance to the round of 16 to be held in Toronto, Canada in June. We had a chance to sit down with Bunny and ask him about his games, practice routine, and what expectations he has for the rest of the year.

GameCrate: What was your mindset going in to the weekend, how was your preparation?

Bunny: I've been traveling leading up to this event, I was at Gfinity in London and then at DreamHack in France before coming here, so I haven't had that much time to practice before coming here. I did have three days at home between DreamHack and this WCS event so I grinded a ton of games, like 30 or 40 games every day with teammates, playing against Zerg, and Petraeus is a player I know very well because he plays more games than anyone else on the EU ladder so I ran into him so much that I kind of knew how he played so I thought it would just come down to who played better on the day and I came out a little bit ahead.

GC: Talk to me about that crazy game where you opened Mech and then transitioned into Bio play and then back to Mech?

B: I wanted to do a CCfirst build order on Vaani Research Station, it's something I've been practicing a lot, you can take your gas a bit quicker than normal because you have a pocket natural and you can do a really strong attack, but Petraeus went for a fast mutalisk play and my attack kind of didn't work out for me, then I wanted to avoid the mech game, the really slow mech game so I transitioned into bio after that, and I tried to kill him with a push but it didn't quite work out, Petraeus barely held with Ultralisks. In the end I was forced to play the long turtle game and it didn't go so well because I didn't have a lot of practice in that situation and I think Petraeus has played those kinds of games a lot, there are a lot of European players who play really long games like that so he outplayed me a bit there, maybe I should have played straight bio that game.

GC: What do you think of Petraeus as a player?

B: I think Petraeus is a very interesting player. I remember like half a year ago playing him on the ladder and it was almost like, this is really easy I don't think I can lose to this guy, and then afterwards when he came to Europe he started playing like 30-40 games a day, something insane, just grinding so much...and you could really see he improved very fast and I think it's gotten to the point where he is absolutely one of the best foreign players. I think maybe he just needs a little bit more experience offline, but overall I think his skill level was the second highest in the group.

Bunny crushed Jim in a convincing 2-0 victory to finish first in his group

GC: What were your thoughts on the group overall?

B: I think Kane could have performed a little bit better, I don't know if he was feeling a bit off, I know he's been a bit lazy lately so that probably plays into it. I think the group results went as I would have expected. I think Petraeus getting second place is actually very realistic, I think a lot of people are underestimating him because you don't see him in that many actual games.

GC: Looking forward to the round of 16 in Toronto, how far do you think you can get in the tournament, and who don't you want to go up against?

B: I'm having pretty big expectations for myself, I think I can go all the way on a good day, it'll depend a lot on how I'm feeling, if I'm jet-lagged at all, it I'm feeling good and in the groove. I'm pretty confident going into it. I'd like to see all of my teammates there of course, I have a lot of friends playing in the WCS like Lilbow, MarineLord, those guys...I talk with them a lot on Skype so it would be really cool to see them there. As for players I don't want to go up against, I'm a little afraid of Hydra, Snute as well...he's been beating me a lot in practice recently.

Bunny looks forward to performing well during WCS round of 16 in Toronto.

GC: A lot of people consider you as the best foreign player while that title previously belonged to Snute, what do you make of that?

B: I think it's still between me and Snute. If you think objectively, for the past year I've had better results than any other foreigner, but it's not like I'm way ahead of anyone else so...I don't think it's realistic to call me the best foreigner, I think I'm just another guy who's working hard...that's how I see myself at least, I don't consider myself as the best foreigner and I don't really attach any pride to that title.

GC: You like to play arcade games to warm up, which ones would you recommend?

B: I play one called Knalle Micro Map, it's very nice to warm up. I usually play the reaper challenge where you have to micro a reaper against a lot of workers and you have to target the right workers which is very good for your mouse accuracy, and I think generally during offline tournaments the first thing to go is your mouse accuracy when you're playing on a new monitor with new settings. The keyboard is not really a problem, it's not a big deal, but how you see things on your screen and how you use your mouse varies from tournament to tournament, so those kinds of arcade games are great to warm up with.

GC: Taeja has long been Team Liquid's pride, is this a player who you've practiced with and learned from?

B: Actually I haven't talked to him that much. Even for a Korean he's a bit of a shy guy, he doesn't talk that much...he's kind of hard to contact. Of course I've watched a lot of his games...if you've watched any tournament you'll have seen Taeja because he wins so much, although not as much recently, though he's still probably the best player on the team.

I like to watch and learn from all the high level Korean Terrans. INnoVation is probably my favorite player to learn from...I think Maru's the best but he's hard to copy, his style is very fast and very unpredictable. To play like him you have to react to very small things in the game and it's more of an intuitive style than it is something you can prepare for. It's not like "oh my opponent does A so I'll do B," it's more like seeing everything that is going on and reacting to everything your opponent is doing. It's very difficult, and it's something you develop by playing thousands upon thousands of games of StarCraft 2 and you eventually get to that point where you flow like water within the game where you have just such a good understanding of it.

GC: We're in June right now, meaning we're more than half-way through the year in terms of WCS. Do you think we'll see a foreigner in the top 16 at BlizzCon, and if so, will it be you?

B: It's funny you mention that, because I was looking at the WCS standings after I won my group and there's not a single foreigner in the top 16. I think I'm at 18 right now or something...so I'm not really sure if we'll see a foreigner at BlizzCon, though I think I'm at a pretty good spot. I'm still in the WCS now, I did well during the first season, I have a decent amount of points. We'll see though, I'll have to keep doing well throughout the whole year to get there, but it's going to be very hard. I would love to go to BlizzCon though, that would be the ultimate goal for the year I guess.

GC: So will we see you at more DreamHacks, IEMs, and other tournaments?

B: I'm going to try and travel as much as possible, I'll try to get as many WCS as possible. I just like going to offline tournaments...sitting at home practicing is all good, but it gets boring when you stay at home for long periods of time. I really enjoy traveling a lot and playing official offline matches is very exciting for me personally so I always look forward to them.

GC: Any words for your fans?

B: Thanks for cheering for me. I'm really looking forward to the WCS matches in Toronto. I'm very happy that I was able to make it yesterday...Toronto is a great city, I was there for IEM so I think the round of 16 will be great and I hope you'll cheer for all my teammates who are still in the WCS, it'll be more fun if they can also make it.