Maelk's Insight on ESWC 2010

Left to right: MaNia, Pusher, BabyKnight, PlaymatE and Maelk

EWSC Day 2 finishes off with a few surprises as none of the ESWC 2nd favorites namely AeonSports and LOST -making reference to Pre-ESWC poll- qualified. Only four teams EHOME & DTS (Winners bracket) and MYM & Nirvana.Int (Losers bracket) still have a chance to claim ESWC 2010 title. Zeyall, our LIVE reporter from Paris, brings us an exclusive interview from MYM|Maelk during Day 2 right before their semi-finals against DTS.

First of all, congratulations for advancing to the playoffs. Did you expect that in the beginning?
-"I don't think we had those expectations but we had high hopes for going to the playoffs."

I heard you did 'boot-camping' and had a few problems in the beginning. How did things go?
-"First day we lost like 4-5 games in a row to LOST. But we improved over the days and towards the end we won pretty much all of the games against them."

Did you only scrim against LOST?
-"No, we played a few matches with other teams like OK, DTS and some rather unknown teams."

Your first game was against AEON, which you lost. What happened in your opinion?
-"Yeah we lost against AEON in our first game since we totally forgot about Visage and didn't ban that hero. It was a brain-fart and iceiceice pretty much handled that game on his own."

The other game you lost so far was against Nirvana.my. Didn't you care about that game?
-"We knew they play Drow and always wanted her, but decided not to ban or pick that hero. That was probably the biggest mistake of that game. Drow won that game alone. We knew we would advance and also be first in our group to face DTS later (since that was already determined). I wouldn't say we didn't care, we still tried to win. But as the game continued, we made more mistakes than usual; people weren't that into the game as they were before. None felt the need to win; there was no excitement or adrenaline as in the previous K.O. games."

You mentioned DTS. Are you happy to meet them in the semi-finals?
-"From a point of view if we ever want to get into top 3, this is the best possible solution for us. Everyone seems to be afraid of EHome though; I haven't actually seen them play myself but I have just heard it from other people. Well, I am fine with DTS, we would be fine with EHOME as well, because if we wanna win, we have to beat everyone."

How would you rate your chances to advance to the grand final?
-"I think we are capable of doing it, but the picks and how you lane them will ultimately decide who'll win. EHOME for example is extremely talented, they have so many good players and have put some much time into learning theirs opponents and theirs strategies. Their manager is running around and writes down all the picks and bans from each game and discusses them with his team. So I not entirely sure what they have up their sleeves, but we have to take each game."

Do you have something special up your sleeves?
-"No, we dont have anything specially prepared for the matches. We just try to outpick and outplay our opponents, doing our best with what we are comfortable."

Are you overall fine with the tournament and the organisers?
-"I think the playdays are way too long. yesterday we were told to be there at 9am, but didn't play before 3pm and didn't get home before 7pm. We got up at 7am, so that means 12 hours without relaxing and no real food. And for today they also want us to play the semi-finals too and also the whole schedule got delayed due to several reasons. I just think they should have split it up more."

Alright, thank you for the interview, glad you found time between the groupstage and the semi finals. Good luck against DTS.
-"Thank you, bye."