Trump at SeatStory Cup: "The way I practiced for SSC was a little untraditional"





Our Dota 2 leader Sovann "Skim" Kim took a trip to Krefeld for the SeatStory Cup to get his needed Hearthstone does and diversify up his MOBA coverage life. There, he ran into the Mayor of Value Town, TSM's Jeffrey "Trump" Shih and he got him for a quick chat about the tournament, why doesn't he travel to many offline events, how did he prepare and whether we'll see Prison Trump at future events.

SeatStory Cup is over, sadly you didn't make it to the finals. How would you rate your own performance?

I would rate it 10/10.

Really? Not that I'm not agreeing, but would you say it was a bit of bad luck or were your opponents just better?

I'm not the one to usually admit to bad luck or otherwise, but in this case I got to a point where I was 3-2 ahead of the opponent and I had two decks that I considered favorable. Even my opponent said that my Zoo against his Mage was like 95% in my favor. It is just - sometimes things happen.

I recall you saying on the first day of the stream that you had to use free to play decks or something like that? Could you elaborate on that?

Yeah, all of my decks that I brought to this tournament are free to play, because we were playing on the European server. I didn't spend any money on the actual cards even though there are quite a few legendaries, of course, and that's because I play arena. I have a full collection on NA so I moved all my arena activity to EU and just through the days of playing arena I've managed to get a pretty full collection, enough to play any deck I want.

So you weren't worried at all when you came to this tournament?

No, I already build all my decks before I came.

How much did you prepare for this tournament, in terms of sheer practice. Did you have practice partners for certain match-ups or you just decided to wing it?

The way I practiced was a little untraditional. Rather than play games, I watched streams and tournaments and then talked myself through what my plays would be. All five of my decks are actually inspired by decks that I've seen in the past. And this isn't just "I copy-pasted all the decks", it's more about looking and seeing what styles fit me the most and I looked at a lot of statistics and compiled a lot of stats myself and just generally found a good circle of decks which would do well in the tournament. It's just a shame that I lost a very favorable match-up.

"The way I practiced was a little untraditional. Rather than play games, I watched streams and tournaments and then talked myself through my plays would be."



Would you also say that you actually prefer playing against seemingly high tier players because they have more exposure, giving you more chances to study them, as opposed to lesser known players like Mirrari who could've been your cryptonite?

It's true that when I'm facing players with greater exposure I can study them a bit more. I would prefer the lesser exposed players because they tend to be - and I'm not saying they necessarily are - a bit worse. I would rather take, for example, an unknown over Kolento any day, or in this case against Savjz.

Yeah, I can get behind that. Although you did beat Kolento! Did you expect this one?

No, I did not expect it. I don't think anyone goes into a game and expects to beat Kolento but, hey, it's really nice that happened.

So, you're actually not as active as other players in terms of competitive play, attending LAN tournaments, etc. Is there a specific reason for that?

The main reason is that I really hate travelling. To come to SeatStory Cup, for example, it takes a good... well, here's a good sidestory. Originally, I was booked on a 24-hour flight to Germany, but fortunately the organizers at TakeTV found a better flight later and it got down to something like 14-18 hours. And that's the main reason - I've never enjoyed travelling, I hate sitting still for long periods of time.

It seems weird, considering I still still all the time but at least I'm doing something cool. Thank goodness for technology because now I watched almost the entire first season of The Wire, probably will finish it on the way back. So that's something, but still: there are downtimes, moments where you run out of power but we're getting to a place where it doesn't suck as much.

"The main reason I don't attend many events is that I really hate travelling. I hate sitting still for long periods of time."



You were also supposed to go to WCA, right?

I was supposed to, yes.

What happened?

So, I was originally booked on a flight but it got changed and the day of the change was - this is actually my fault mostly - it was communicated in such a way that I thought it was the day after. So I officially missed my flight by something like 22 hours because I was two hours early... That's the short of it.

Did you specifically choose to go to SeatStory Cup? I suppose you got more invitations than just SSC.

Yeah, I pick and choose very carefully. The last live event I went to was OGN Korea, which is quite a few months back. I like to join the occasional one to meet all the other Hearthstone players. SSC invited quite a few of the best ones.

How do you like the atmosphere? Obviously it's very chill, less pressure, it doesn't really feel like a tournament per se, actually.

You're right and in some ways it's important to not get too comfortable if you want to compete well in the tournament. I, for example, stood up until something like 4 a.m. in the night, studying my next opponent.

Looking back at the tournament, Savjz won it all. Did you expect him to win, based on the final match at least?

My prediction for this tournament was that someone from Cloud 9 would win. But, that turned out to be incorrect, Savjz won and there wasn't even a Cloud 9 member in the finals. But if you told me Savjz was gonna win this tournament I wouldn't be surprised; I only thought it'd be a C9 player because they had the most members and Kolento in particular is something really good. I wouldn't have been surprised by a Kolento/Savjz grand finals, it's just they were matched in the Ro8.

Let's get to you personally. You're a streamer and an active YouTuber as well. How does it feel doing something that is sort of unconventional?

It feels great. I've always liked trailblazing my own path and doing something I have a lot of control over while having a lot of fun doing it, which is playing games.

Good thing you're just wearing a shirt. If you had a jacket, I would've checked for an assassin's blade. *Trump laughs* I saw that video, how did you get it together... did you actually order an assassin's blade?

Since I've been doing "Duel of the Champions" videos with Ubisoft and they're the makers of Assassin's Creed, which is the game that blade is associated with. They just decided to send it to me. I didn't actually have something prepared, just decided it'd be fun to open it on stream.

You have a very dedicated stream following. How long do you think this will last, the momentum that you have right now with Hearthstone, the YouTube videos and all?

Like I said in my "Paint my life", I'd be doing this until I was grandpa Trump so I'm going to plan for a few more decades.

"I'd be doing this until I was grandpa Trump so I'm going to plan for a few more decades."



Speaking of which - well, not grandpa Trump in particular - you have a different persona you like to play on your stream. Do you think he will make a tournament appearance?

When it comes to tournaments, I like to make sure I'm at my best and I think wearing sunglasses would be damping to that, but I can't see a reason why Prison Trump can't showcase his style even if he's without sunglasses.

In a match between you and Prison Trump, who wins?

I'd say it's about even.

Last question: Will we see more from you competitive-wise? You've been ramping up, enjoying a good streak basically, you did really good this tournament with your Zoo.

Yeah, you can expect to see me at most major tournaments that don't include travelling and even some that do, if they're big enough. Or if they're cool enough, like SeatStory Cup.