

This week I had the opportunity to interview KzN of Team Freedom. With recent HGC results, I wanted to get his perspective on the competition and support play, before the Western Clash. Enjoy!

First, congratulations to your team for getting a Clash spot. How do you feel about your performance throughout the first half of the phase, and what are you looking to improve upon going into the Western Clash?

I am overall happy about our performance this Phase 1. Obviously, Week 4 was a disaster but we managed to still punch our ticket to the Clash which was the goal for our team for Phase 1. For myself, I think I played well during Week 1, 2, and 3, but kinda struggled during the last two weeks. I’m going to make sure I work hard during the bootcamp to be consistent again with my play.



I think our Macro play as a team as been really good but we’ve been struggling with small decision making like when to take small 2vs2 fights, stuff like that, and overall teamfighting. We identified theses problems not long ago so we are focusing on that right now.



There are several European teams that are looking quite strong. What are you doing to prepare to face them, and are you more worried about them than the rest of the NA lineup going too?

We are going to be playing a lot of Hero League and scrims to make sure our mechanics and team play are on point. We are also heading to Poland early to bootcamp there and practice against the EU teams. We will also being doing a lot of VOD reviews to find weakness in the others team play and find a way to punish that.



Dignitas looks like a team that could go head to head against the best Korean Team. We are excited to see what we can do against them. The rest of the EU and NA teams are definitely beatable. Every other team is (in my opinion) pretty much on the same level and this tournament will be really interesting.

Did the NA side of the standing play out as you expected or were there some things that surprised you?

The top 4 teams in NA are exactly what I predicted. I didn’t expect GFE to be that close to the top 4. The bounce back of Simplicity and SpaceStation Gaming at the end of this phase was really impressive. I can’t wait to see what happens in Phase 2. Every team is getting better and I think it will be very close.

With Maiev becoming playable for the Western Clash, do you see her getting high priority, or mostly relegated to a counter pick (or not at all)?

To be honest, we are just getting started in scrims with Maiev so i’m not really sure where her priority will be in draft. From what i’ve seen in Hero League, she’s really strong in teamfights but is lacking in just the 1vs1 scenario. We can expect her to see play at the Clash for sure.

We’ve now had some time since the sweeping support changes went into effect. What are your thoughts on the overall support meta, and would you like to see Blizzard change anything?

The current support meta is one of my favorite in a long time. We’ve seen a lot of Malfurion, Uther, and Rehgar all over the world. Still, Stukov, Monk, Lucio, and Alex have their place in the meta. I get to play a lot of different heroes and it’s been a great support meta so far in 2018.



The one thing I want to see Blizzard work on is releasing more supports with play making potential. I want to see supports with a potential engage tool that can make a big difference in a fight. Something like a Thresh, an Alistar, or a Braum (from League) would make me so happy as a support player.

If there was a player looking to learn the support role, what heroes would you recommend focusing on, and what tips would you give them?

I would recommend going in try mode, try every support real quick then play the support with the kit you like the most. If you are learning a role, pretty sure the most important part is to have fun with it.



The important part of being a support player is positioning. If you are not in range to heal your teammates or if you are too deep in enemy territory, it’s not good. Start by playing safe then start learning your limits and you will improve for sure.

What do you hope to see from Blizzard for this year of HGC? Are they meeting your expectations, or is there anything specific you’d like to see added or improved upon, as well as anything you’re really excited/happy about?

One of the subjects that has been on the table lately, at least for me, is the lack of content around pro players. Doing small interviews before our matches is great but we could do way more around that. What does a day with Psalm looks like? What does a bootcamp with Team Freedom looks like? All this kind of content would bring great publicity for HGC, the teams, and the players themselves. In the end, HGC as a league has improved a lot since last year and I believe they will keep improving moving forward in 2018.

I would like to thank HeroesHearth for the opportunity and shoutout Team Freedom, HyperX, and my boys from the funky squad.