Hello! I am 'macrosdxc', an amateur reporter from Russia. This year I visited Dreamhack Summer to watch the MId-Season Brawl live, meet the international community and make some interviews, and I had a chance to talk to QuackNiix! This is the very first time I'm doing interviews so any feedback and criticism appreciated. Thank you!







It wasn’t a really great run for Fnatic as you finished at 6th place. How do you rate your personal performance and Fnatic’s performance overall?

I think overall we are quite happy with finishing 6th because we were not expecting a lot going into this tournament. We didn’t practice as much as we normally do, and therefore we just came there trying to do our best and have fun as well, so we are overall happy with our performance.

Let’s move to the Fnatic split. In your latest twitlonger you mentioned that you were actually kicked from team. Could you tell a bit more about what exactly Fnatic didn’t like in you — was it your low hero pool or maybe not enough good shotcalling?

For a long time, I had been very close to burning out. I’ve been trying so hard for so long, but everything has stopped working for us as intended, and I just reached the point where I completely burned out. Then I essentially became the problem because I was feeling depressed and demotivated. As the shotcalling drafter, which is arguably the most important role, when I started failing and not being close to my own standards, the whole team suffered.

The decision was made before the Mid-Season Brawl. Did that hurt your relationships with your teammates in any way?

Yes, and no. There is no bad blood between me, Breez and SmX — I’ve been playing my whole career with them, so we have been through a lot together. But it did hurt our preparation for the tournament. Normally we practice for 3 weeks in advance and we would go for a bootcamp practicing 9 hours a day. This time we scrimmed for 1-2 weeks ahead of tournament and we played one scrim session every day, which is 3 hours, instead of 6-9 hours.

Who’s going to shotcall for Fnatic now as you’re moving to Zealots?

I’m not 100% sure but I think scHwimpi will be shotcalling and drafting for Fnatic, and I will be shotcalling and drafting for Zealots.

For the Phase 2 of HGC 2018 season Fnatic pick up new player, LastHope. He’s pretty much unknown among most of the HGC viewers and he doesn’t have a lot of backstory. Could you tell something about who he is and why Fnatic have such a trust in him?

Picking up a player from soloqueue is always a gamble. I talked a lot to that guy – he was here at event taking photos for the next split. He seems like a really cool guy – I think he has a very professional mentality. If they treat him well and make sure he feels comfortable, I think they will do really good.

You are being praised a lot for being active on social medias. Some even call you a Fnatic’s public face. Have you ever considered yourself the one?

Yeah, of course. I'm really outgoing and I enjoy people, so I consider myself as the big part of Fnatic for all these years.

Let’s talk a bit about your new team, Zealots. Was it you who reached out to them or was it them who invited you to the team?

I reached out to the most of the teams just to make sure every team knows that I’m a free agent now What I was looking for mostly was going to Team Liquid or Zealots - that’s the two teams I feel have the most impact in contesting the top-3. I even didn’t get to tryout to Liquid because they were set on Arcaner – they were sure they need just a mechanical player. Zealots really wanted me because they needed a leader, a drafter, a shotcaller – that was the role they were looking for, and I was a perfect fit.

Are you excited to play with such skilled teammates like Cris and Shad?

I am really excited about joining a new group. I think most of the players in this rosters are good, and I do truly believe that we can contest top-3.

Phase 2 of HGC 2018 season starts in just one week. Have you had enough time to play with your new teammates? What are your expectations on your start in Phase 2?

We didn’t really practice a lot – we just did tryouts, set the roster, and after that I had to practice with Fnatic for this event. When I will get home from this event we are going to start practicing right away. We will have roughly 10 days, maybe one week. It doesn’t really matter to me if we don’t go for the first event, but hopefully we can do it as well. In the end, ultimately I just want to go to Blizzcon again, and I’m going to work really hard to get there.





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