Xellos, Jihoon Seo, for an interview and he was very friendly but our conversation was limited by our language differences. Also he was accompanied by a friendly translator and the team manager that, although very helpful, I suspect made him more shy.He referred that the only gamers he was afraid of were the other Koreans. I asked him if he knew Starcraftgamers but I only obtained a diplomatic puzzled look. He showed me the Korean site he mainly visited: Fighterforums! I explained to him that we check it too but that it was hard for us to translate Korean and that we I usually had tears down my eyes because I could not understand the site content. They seemed very surprised that westerners knew about the site and wished it to be in English and informed me that maybe they would "fix" that!
He showed me his gamer callus which was pretty small compared to other gamers. It took us several attempts to make him smile but
d4d, a comedian by profession, succeed after several attempts (he mooned him.) I was amazed at his humble and polite manner and I tried to visualize the overwhelming fear his opponents must feel upon facing him in the Starcraft arena.I asked him if he saw himself winning and he replied that he would do his best. I asked him if he knew Trek and he did not, so I warned him not to underestimate him should they meet and he gave me a confident smile. I showed him a bunch of "foreign" gamers and he recognized only a few. This gave me an insight, albeit very personal, in how much Korean Pro-Gaming is self absorbed in its own community.
What did Xellos do after our small conversation? He went and won 3-0 with absolutely no difficulties. He looked more relaxed during the games than in our conversation. It goes without saying that he is my bet this year.
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