caelym Profile Joined June 2008 United States 2396 Posts Last Edited: 2013-07-23 04:30:28 July 23 2013 01:13 GMT #1

Interview with Necro, Coach of Season 3 Brazilian Champions paiN Gaming

Hello Summoners, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Coach Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva about his team's recent victory at Campeonato Brasileiro. We talked about how he and his team achieved their success and all things eSports. Necro breaks down their road to victory and the final series vs CNB in great detail. He also drops some major knowledge bombs in regards to adaptation and mind-games in a tournament setting. Oh, by the way, paiN has sports psychologists to back them up. Without further ado, the interview.





Necro is Vin Diesel Junior

Feng “caelym” Wu: Hi Necro! Congratulations to your team, paiN Gaming, for becoming Season 3 Brazilian Champions! It's a huge accomplishment, and over 100k viewers got to experience it with you. Can you introduce yourself to foreign League of Legends fans and talk a little about your role and history with paiN?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : Thanks, caelym! Well, for the smart eye, I'm not new to the e-Sports scene. I first joined this world as a caster. I casted the 2012 São Paulo local IEM League of Legends tournament in Brazil and acted as the translator for the event (the one that Violet won).



After that I continued my job as a color caster until around IEM São Paulo 2013, where I hosted the event. After the event, Kami, Tittu and SirThulio (players of paiN) asked me to coach them. That's how I joined the team. I played with Kami since season 1, along with Wushu (the manager).



My first job as a coach with paiN Gaming was qualifying for IEM Hanover. We had a really enlightening experience at the event – an experience that made us dominate the scene in Brazil ever since. We haven't lost a single offline event since Hanover.



Feng “caelym” Wu: You sound very confident in your team. Did you expect such good results going into Brazilian Championship? Was the victory just a confirmation for what you already believed in your heart?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : Well, funny thing you ask about confidence in the team. I actually trash talked a lot before this event, which was part of my strategy to induce psychological errors in most enemy teams. I even made a bet in a live interview with Melão13, one of our famous casters that if paiN Gaming did not win the CBLoL I would wear a dress in the next offline event.



Feng “caelym” Wu: Haha that's very funny. Was the trash talk just psychological warfare or did you really think paiN was going to take first place without a problem?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : Both. I mean, there was thirty thousand dollars at stake. Wouldn't you use every weapon at your disposal?



Just to make sure.



Feng “caelym” Wu: On the topic of using every weapon available, how else did paiN prepare for the tournament? From my perspective, your guys were more impressive in your teamplay and execution than innovative strategies (not to say your strategies were bad). Were there specific things you and players focused on?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : Since CNB and Keyd wouldn't scrim with us (because of the fact that they didn’t want to scrim with us because I trash talked them specifically), we had to raise the level of other teams. I actually coached Nex Impetus a bit coming this event, so they could be decent scrim partners.



We had two scrims against Velocity. We learned a lot with the meta differences and with some North American paradigms in the game, but eventually we did not want to scrim anymore. Playing with a high ping is very demoralizing. Nk Inc was invading our jungle at level 2 and outsmiting SirT, we couldn’t coordinate skills and etc. We decided not to scrim anymore because it was just frustrating.



Other than that, we watch a LOT of OGN and try to analyze everything they do, from movement to compositions and picks/bans. I worked a lot as a game analyst, besides coaching. Most of our daily regimen was scrimming, replay watching and solo queue playing different champions we might want to try.



Feng “caelym” Wu: So that's why Nex had a strong showing this weekend... Let's get started on the event itself. paiN started the weekend off weak with a loss to CNB on Friday morning. However ever since that defeat, you guys looked stronger and stronger after every game. Were you worried after the early game loss? Does it take time for paiN to gain momentum and warm up in a LAN event?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : Actually, losing the first game was my fault. I had a little analysis paralysis, and as I was preparing for every single possible first pick from CNB, I forgot about Elise. That left the players surprised, and they went with the Shen/Karthus composition.



Later I learned that Kami is too good of a player to play Karthus. The champion actually limits him. He is more suited towards champions that can roam and make plays, as you could see by his Gragas and Ahri.



Let’s say that, we don’t need to warm up, but we have a really good adaptability throughout the tournament. We grow tremendously with each loss - a good example of that is our single win in Hanover and the dominating game we had against Fnatic, which we lost because of some decisions mistakes. We are pretty much Saiyans if you think about it. Every loss makes us even stronger.



Feng “caelym” Wu: Was your adaptability the reason why the final series vs CNB ended up being so one sided in the final games? What was your overall strategy coming into the final series?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : After our group game against CNB, we changed our whole strategy. Watching them play the rest of the group and semi-finals, we realized that they evaluated Elise very highly (like us) and that Leko, their toplaner was only a threat when playing Kennen. Alocs plays a really good Thresh, so we decided to leave him without it in the first game. We banned Ryze, Ahri and Lissandra, Takeshi's champions, so he would play Jayce and we've picked Thresh, so Alocs wouldnt take it.



Our support, Espeon, does not feel very comfortable with Thresh, and after the first game we had to fine tune the strategy. We've decided to leave Lissandra open and pick it, while banning Thresh. Both our mid and top laner plays a really good Lissandra, so it became a part of our strategy. Thulio (editor’s note: Thulio is SirT) had developed a pick/counterpick strategy against Nunu and Nasus, if Danagorn decided to use it, but in the end they decided to use Elise. Danagorn's Elise is nothing compared to Thulio's, and we did not feel threatened by it.



By leaving Elise open, CNB expected to control the picks by thinking we would first pick it everytime, and that thought was decisive in their demise. When we firstpicked Kennen in the last game of the series, they felt the pressure to take Elise and Lissandra, and then we had them in the palm of our hands.



Feng “caelym” Wu: Wow that's a lot of mindgames. CNB looked really good at drafting for most of the weekend, but was very uncomfortable vs paiN. What do you think contributed to this? Was it because of the focus bans on takeshi?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : Philip and I are really good friends, so we watch most of the games together. During the games, I decided to throw out a lot of different compositions, with a lot of champions we use, so he would feel the pressure of preparing for every possible angle.



The thing about focus banning takeshi is that he's really versatile, playing 4 to 5 champions. The rest of the players from CNB tend to rely on certain champions, so we could predict most of their picks. By making sure takeshi would just pick one champion, we could develop a strategy to overwhelm them.



Feng “caelym” Wu: More psychological warfare! I'd be scared to talk to you if my team was facing paiN in a tournament.



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : teehee, stop flattering me



Just to add something: We also have a team of psychologists helping the players maintain their cool during games. That's another reason why we rely so much in psych warfare.



Feng “caelym” Wu: I can't tell if you're joking or if you're serious. paiN Gaming has sport psychologists to help out the team during big events?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : Yup.



Feng “caelym” Wu: Wow. That is next level team support. I don't think even Koreans have that.



Now that your team won Brazilian Championship, how do you feel about the state of paiN Gaming? I found it funny when I congratulated you last night, one of the first things you said was that the team needs to work on transitions and mid game map movement. Is there still a lot to improve? What do you want to achieve next?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : I don't think there's A LOT to improve, but I think there a little things to improved that take a lot of work to do it. These things are so subtle and smooth (transitions and mid game movement) that they are really difficult to point out. Of course, communication is also something that can get better.



The next big achievement for us is winning the Wildcard Tournament. Then, after that, is getting out of group stage in S3 Finals.



Feng “caelym” Wu: How will paiN prepare and train for Gamescom? The regions are new, and so are the teams, so there is not a lot of material to study. Some people say BR is the favorites for the tournament. Do you feel that way? And are you worried that the large exposure of the BR scene makes paiN easier to prepare against?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : Well, even the teams that know us better than anyone couldn't prepare against us, so I think they will have trouble planning against us.



We will probably scrim a lot with CNB and Nex Impetus, try a lot of things and work on the transitions. I think we are the stronger region, close with Turkey. We want to impose our style of play in the other regions. Try to define what champions are must pick and must ban and work from that. We will probably play with the world-meta paradigm that Lemonation spoke recently about.



Also, I'll try to research their players’ individual skills and playstyles, so I will be able to plan for them.



Feng “caelym” Wu: Let’s move on to some less serious topics. In the preview article I wrote, I jokingly compared paiN to TSM as "the people's team." Like TSM, you won your region's championship. What do you think of my comparison? Which team would you compare paiN to?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : I think you were pretty spot on with the comparison. We are pretty much alike TSM in Brazil in a fan-base comparison. If you compare us with gameplay style, I think we are closer to LG-IM. But our gameplay style changes a lot in the course of weeks, so I can't compare with anyone, really.



Feng “caelym” Wu: Do you look up to any teams?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : CJ Blaze, CJ Frost and MVP Ozone. They are our inspirations. And FYI, I think Kami is better than Rapidstar.



Feng “caelym” Wu: Now I want to ask about paiN's gaming house. Your team is the first in Brazil to get a gaming house. What was the catalyst for establishing one? How is the atmosphere in the house? Fun? Silly? Serious?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : We knew Riot would invest big in Brazil, so we wanted to get an edge over other teams, so the response from the organization was building a gaming house. The atmosphere is casual, we are all friends. Surely, when we get to work, its work time and we get serious.



Feng “caelym” Wu: Was the week before the Championship very serious?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : They spent the first four days of the week scrimming and the last three we went theorycrafting and planning for our matchups, so yes, very serious.



Feng “caelym” Wu: For the last question, I'll ask you the same question I asked Philip. How do you feel about the current state of the Brazilian League of Legends scene? What future developments do you expect or hope for?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : What I expect is the team who produce events like CBLoL get better. There were a lot of errors that they could improve on. What I'm really hoping for is LCS Brazil and for sponsors to get a bit more serious here.



The teams are starting to invest a lot in houses and good living conditions for the players. I know of at least another gaming house that is to be announced soon. What the teams need, though, is more sponsors. Equipment only is not enough to provide housing and salaries to the players. With big events such as CBLoL and IEM and possibly LCS coming here often, those sponsorships tend to come with them.



Feng “caelym” Wu: Muito obrigado, Necro! Thank you for taking your time to share with us the behind the scenes details of paiN's impressive victory at Campeonato Brasileiro. I'm sure the readers learned a lot about both the game and the nature of the competition from your responses. Again, congratulations on the Championship! Would you like to say some final words?



Guilherme “Necro” Henrique da Silva : I would like to thank you, caelym, for the interview and give a shoutout to all of TL! Love you guys.



I would also like to thank paiN gaming for the opportunity to work in e-Sports and invite everyone that enjoyed the interview to like my Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/painnecro



Also, like paiN Gaming:

http://www.facebook.com/paingamingbr



Thanks!

: Hi Necro! Congratulations to your team, paiN Gaming, for becoming Season 3 Brazilian Champions! It's a huge accomplishment, and over 100k viewers got to experience it with you. Can you introduce yourself to foreign League of Legends fans and talk a little about your role and history with paiN?: Thanks, caelym! Well, for the smart eye, I'm not new to the e-Sports scene. I first joined this world as a caster. I casted the 2012 São Paulo local IEM League of Legends tournament in Brazil and acted as the translator for the event (the one that Violet won).After that I continued my job as a color caster until around IEM São Paulo 2013, where I hosted the event. After the event, Kami, Tittu and SirThulio (players of paiN) asked me to coach them. That's how I joined the team. I played with Kami since season 1, along with Wushu (the manager).My first job as a coach with paiN Gaming was qualifying for IEM Hanover. We had a really enlightening experience at the event – an experience that made us dominate the scene in Brazil ever since. We haven't lost a single offline event since Hanover.: You sound very confident in your team. Did you expect such good results going into Brazilian Championship? Was the victory just a confirmation for what you already believed in your heart?: Well, funny thing you ask about confidence in the team. I actually trash talked a lot before this event, which was part of my strategy to induce psychological errors in most enemy teams. I even made a bet in a live interview with Melão13, one of our famous casters that if paiN Gaming did not win the CBLoL I would wear a dress in the next offline event.: Haha that's very funny. Was the trash talk just psychological warfare or did you really think paiN was going to take first place without a problem?: Both. I mean, there was thirty thousand dollars at stake. Wouldn't you use every weapon at your disposal?Just to make sure.: On the topic of using every weapon available, how else did paiN prepare for the tournament? From my perspective, your guys were more impressive in your teamplay and execution than innovative strategies (not to say your strategies were bad). Were there specific things you and players focused on?: Since CNB and Keyd wouldn't scrim with us (because of the fact that they didn’t want to scrim with us because I trash talked them specifically), we had to raise the level of other teams. I actually coached Nex Impetus a bit coming this event, so they could be decent scrim partners.We had two scrims against Velocity. We learned a lot with the meta differences and with some North American paradigms in the game, but eventually we did not want to scrim anymore. Playing with a high ping is very demoralizing. Nk Inc was invading our jungle at level 2 and outsmiting SirT, we couldn’t coordinate skills and etc. We decided not to scrim anymore because it was just frustrating.Other than that, we watch a LOT of OGN and try to analyze everything they do, from movement to compositions and picks/bans. I worked a lot as a game analyst, besides coaching. Most of our daily regimen was scrimming, replay watching and solo queue playing different champions we might want to try.: So that's why Nex had a strong showing this weekend... Let's get started on the event itself. paiN started the weekend off weak with a loss to CNB on Friday morning. However ever since that defeat, you guys looked stronger and stronger after every game. Were you worried after the early game loss? Does it take time for paiN to gain momentum and warm up in a LAN event?: Actually, losing the first game was my fault. I had a little analysis paralysis, and as I was preparing for every single possible first pick from CNB, I forgot about Elise. That left the players surprised, and they went with the Shen/Karthus composition.Later I learned that Kami is too good of a player to play Karthus. The champion actually limits him. He is more suited towards champions that can roam and make plays, as you could see by his Gragas and Ahri.Let’s say that, we don’t need to warm up, but we have a really good adaptability throughout the tournament. We grow tremendously with each loss - a good example of that is our single win in Hanover and the dominating game we had against Fnatic, which we lost because of some decisions mistakes. We are pretty much Saiyans if you think about it. Every loss makes us even stronger.: Was your adaptability the reason why the final series vs CNB ended up being so one sided in the final games? What was your overall strategy coming into the final series?: After our group game against CNB, we changed our whole strategy. Watching them play the rest of the group and semi-finals, we realized that they evaluated Elise very highly (like us) and that Leko, their toplaner was only a threat when playing Kennen. Alocs plays a really good Thresh, so we decided to leave him without it in the first game. We banned Ryze, Ahri and Lissandra, Takeshi's champions, so he would play Jayce and we've picked Thresh, so Alocs wouldnt take it.Our support, Espeon, does not feel very comfortable with Thresh, and after the first game we had to fine tune the strategy. We've decided to leave Lissandra open and pick it, while banning Thresh. Both our mid and top laner plays a really good Lissandra, so it became a part of our strategy. Thulio () had developed a pick/counterpick strategy against Nunu and Nasus, if Danagorn decided to use it, but in the end they decided to use Elise. Danagorn's Elise is nothing compared to Thulio's, and we did not feel threatened by it.By leaving Elise open, CNB expected to control the picks by thinking we would first pick it everytime, and that thought was decisive in their demise. When we firstpicked Kennen in the last game of the series, they felt the pressure to take Elise and Lissandra, and then we had them in the palm of our hands.: Wow that's a lot of mindgames. CNB looked really good at drafting for most of the weekend, but was very uncomfortable vs paiN. What do you think contributed to this? Was it because of the focus bans on takeshi?: Philip and I are really good friends, so we watch most of the games together. During the games, I decided to throw out a lot of different compositions, with a lot of champions we use, so he would feel the pressure of preparing for every possible angle.The thing about focus banning takeshi is that he's really versatile, playing 4 to 5 champions. The rest of the players from CNB tend to rely on certain champions, so we could predict most of their picks. By making sure takeshi would just pick one champion, we could develop a strategy to overwhelm them.: More psychological warfare! I'd be scared to talk to you if my team was facing paiN in a tournament.: teehee, stop flattering meJust to add something: We also have a team of psychologists helping the players maintain their cool during games. That's another reason why we rely so much in psych warfare.: I can't tell if you're joking or if you're serious. paiN Gaming has sport psychologists to help out the team during big events?: Yup.: Wow. That is next level team support. I don't think even Koreans have that.Now that your team won Brazilian Championship, how do you feel about the state of paiN Gaming? I found it funny when I congratulated you last night, one of the first things you said was that the team needs to work on transitions and mid game map movement. Is there still a lot to improve? What do you want to achieve next?: I don't think there's A LOT to improve, but I think there a little things to improved that take a lot of work to do it. These things are so subtle and smooth (transitions and mid game movement) that they are really difficult to point out. Of course, communication is also something that can get better.The next big achievement for us is winning the Wildcard Tournament. Then, after that, is getting out of group stage in S3 Finals.: How will paiN prepare and train for Gamescom? The regions are new, and so are the teams, so there is not a lot of material to study. Some people say BR is the favorites for the tournament. Do you feel that way? And are you worried that the large exposure of the BR scene makes paiN easier to prepare against?: Well, even the teams that know us better than anyone couldn't prepare against us, so I think they will have trouble planning against us.We will probably scrim a lot with CNB and Nex Impetus, try a lot of things and work on the transitions. I think we are the stronger region, close with Turkey. We want to impose our style of play in the other regions. Try to define what champions are must pick and must ban and work from that. We will probably play with the world-meta paradigm that Lemonation spoke recently about.Also, I'll try to research their players’ individual skills and playstyles, so I will be able to plan for them.: Let’s move on to some less serious topics. In the preview article I wrote, I jokingly compared paiN to TSM as "the people's team." Like TSM, you won your region's championship. What do you think of my comparison? Which team would you compare paiN to?: I think you were pretty spot on with the comparison. We are pretty much alike TSM in Brazil in a fan-base comparison. If you compare us with gameplay style, I think we are closer to LG-IM. But our gameplay style changes a lot in the course of weeks, so I can't compare with anyone, really.: Do you look up to any teams?: CJ Blaze, CJ Frost and MVP Ozone. They are our inspirations. And FYI, I think Kami is better than Rapidstar.: Now I want to ask about paiN's gaming house. Your team is the first in Brazil to get a gaming house. What was the catalyst for establishing one? How is the atmosphere in the house? Fun? Silly? Serious?: We knew Riot would invest big in Brazil, so we wanted to get an edge over other teams, so the response from the organization was building a gaming house. The atmosphere is casual, we are all friends. Surely, when we get to work, its work time and we get serious.: Was the week before the Championship very serious?: They spent the first four days of the week scrimming and the last three we went theorycrafting and planning for our matchups, so yes, very serious.: For the last question, I'll ask you the same question I asked Philip. How do you feel about the current state of the Brazilian League of Legends scene? What future developments do you expect or hope for?: What I expect is the team who produce events like CBLoL get better. There were a lot of errors that they could improve on. What I'm really hoping for is LCS Brazil and for sponsors to get a bit more serious here.The teams are starting to invest a lot in houses and good living conditions for the players. I know of at least another gaming house that is to be announced soon. What the teams need, though, is more sponsors. Equipment only is not enough to provide housing and salaries to the players. With big events such as CBLoL and IEM and possibly LCS coming here often, those sponsorships tend to come with them.: Muito obrigado, Necro! Thank you for taking your time to share with us the behind the scenes details of paiN's impressive victory at Campeonato Brasileiro. I'm sure the readers learned a lot about both the game and the nature of the competition from your responses. Again, congratulations on the Championship! Would you like to say some final words?: I would like to thank you, caelym, for the interview and give a shoutout to all of TL! Love you guys.I would also like to thank paiN gaming for the opportunity to work in e-Sports and invite everyone that enjoyed the interview to like my Facebook page:Also, like paiN Gaming:Thanks!

bnet: caelym#1470 | Twitter: @caelym