I was able to chat with the squad from mYinsanity - an organization that does not lack of validity in the eSports scene. Staying ahead of the meta and focusing heavily on practice are priorities for the players, who are currently on a losing streak, but remain very optimistic about the future. Excited to learn more about the team, I asked them:
For those in the community who are not mYinsanity fans yet, would you like to introduce yourselves?
HasuObs: I'm Dennis, better known as HasuObs. I used to play Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 before I switched to Heroes of the Storm. I'm playing the specialist and ranged assasin role for mYinsanity.
Nurok: My name is Nils 'Nurok' Gebhardt and I'm 24 years old. Before I started playing Heroes of the Storm, I played a whole lot of World of Warcraft, League of Legends & the DC-Moba Infinite Crisis (was rather unknown). I'm also streaming sometimes, so if you want to get to know more about me, check it out! :P
Darkmok: Hello, I’m Darkmok, and my favourite hero is Illidan! I played League of Legends semi-competitively as an AD carry before swapping to Heroes. I've played in several teams with Blumbi, who is still on my team, by the way.
Blumbi: Hey there! I'm 22 years old, and I'm half german half finnish. I love good music, esports, pizza, and our sponsor mYinsanity as they enable me to buy pizza! Some might remember me as the best Swain euw in League of Legends. As the “One trick pony”-life started to get boring, I had to move on to carry games on Stitches since technical alpha.
Splendour: I’m Splendour, the support player of mYinsanity HotS. Last year I played for NaVi and made it to the semifinal of the Heroes World Championship.
Knowme: Hi, I am Steffen or Knowme the stand-in player, streamer and caster for the team. I used to play Starcraft professionally for Team Alternate, then started Heroes with Hasuobs, Socke, and my brother Pausnclown. We founded Well Met more than a year ago and qualified for the first ESL Major League season which we played with GerdamHerd. Hasu and Socke then went to team Roccat, GerdamHerd joined Nurok, Darkmok and Blumbi at Alternate Fancy and I founded Team Spartanien before we now joined forces at mYinsanity ;).
I'm sure we will see a new meta once the patch is live.
Are you excited about the changes that are currently being made to the game?
HasuObs: I'm very positively surprised by Blizzard. Alot of the coming changes seem to be very nice and I'm sure we will see a new meta once the patch is live.
Nurok: The new hero with the reset-mechanics will be very fun to play, but might be frustrating to play against (at least against good Wizards). In the end, I'm only missing Arthas-buffs (or talent-reworks), the Syndragosa tweaks are very weird, as are the Hinterland-Blast changes.
Splendour: I’m really looking forward to the Rehgar changes. He’s turning in to a much more mobile and aggressive hero, rather than the healbot he was.
Knowme: I was actually very sad that the Heroes community reacted so aggressively to the small break that Blizzard took for the Christmas holidays. Aside from that. they are balancing the game with good accuracy and great speed - especially compared to what we saw in Starcraft 2. I love the game and I personally think that Blizzard is taking steps in the right direction pretty much with all the patches. As a tank player I am not as hyped about this particular one tho ;).
How did you react to the announcement of the $4 million global championship? That has to be some big news for quality players like yourselves?
HasuObs: It’s nice to see that Blizzard decided to support Heroes of the Storm even more than last year. Coming from Starcraft 2 and knowing the WCS format, I'm happy we're getting something similar for heroes.
Nurok: With the recent acquirement of MLG and the announcements for 2016, Blizzard really wants to go ham in esports - and I love it. Hopefully it pays off and Heroes of the Storm will only grow from now on. I'm excited for the future.
Darkmok: First time I hear someone say I’m a quality player. But in all seriousness, it is great to hear Blizzard is focusing more on making it a worthy competition for people to play Heroes of the Storm competitively.
Blumbi: That's huuuge for the Heroes scene - I'm really hyped about it!
Splendour: I didn’t know what would happen to the competitive scene, so I felt relieved when I heard Blizzard is committing more this year.
Knowme: I was very hyped about the general announcement that Blizzard wanted to invest way more in Esports, which I’d hope is related to buying MLG and which obviously is not only about the world championship but also Heroes of the dorm and maybe even more stuff that is not announced yet (fingers crossed).
EU is definitely a lot weaker than it should be at the moment because of all the roster swaps that are going on.
Have the roster swaps in Europe created a stronger or weaker European region?
HasuObs: I have no idea, we have to wait and see how the teams perform, but the quality level of individual players is rising. Let us wait for the first big international tournament with teams from all regions, but I'm sure that Europe can compete with the best.
Nurok: That’s really hard to say in my opinion, only time can tell. Katowice will be the first major tournament for the EU-region and I’m sure we will have a very strong competition just like last year, but potentially even stronger.
Darkmok: People get better at playing the game the more they play, don’t they? So even though in this game, teamwork, decision making and shotcalling might be superior to raw mechanical play, people will get better. But I would say that swapping around so much doesn’t necessarily make teams stronger.
Blumbi: EU is definitely a lot weaker than it should be at the moment because of all the roster swaps that are going on. Some teams are practicing 24/7 though, so it's just a matter of time until two or three really strong teams will stand out. Right now it feels like there is not a large gap between the very best and the upcoming teams. I think the top 6 or 7 teams in EU would probably all go 2-1 in a BO3 vs eachother. And that's not because those teams all play super good - it's because everyone is still making a lot of mistakes.
Knowme: I think it will still take some more time till the teams are getting back to the level of teamplay that they achieved last year. I do, however, think that there will be even more top level teams that can beat the Korean, Chinese, and American teams.
Are there any heroes that you see as underrated right now? Are there any sleeper OP heroes that you’d like to call now?
HasuObs: I think we will see way more Lunara now that the patch is live. I think she is on the edge of being good. With the small buffs she's received, she will definitely make it into the competitive scene.
Nurok: Lunara & Cho’gall will see more play with this patch, also looking forward to the Gazlowe changes... maybe he becomes viable then. ;)
Darkmok: Illidan will always be my pick for a hero who is super good, no matter how much he gets nerfed or played.
Blumbi: Chen is amazing right now. I dont want to leak more strats, though, as we are ahead of the meta most of the time. We played Thrall and Stitches way before anyone else did, so I will keep the future OP heroes hidden for now.
Splendour: Greymane is a sleeper. He has extremely high burst that is very hard to react to.
Knowme: I think Stitches should always be first pick and aside from that we are seeing Greymane and Lunara starting to grow on everybody. Monkeys of the Storm brought back Butcher to punish weak back lines like Zagara/KT. I think we should see more of that in the future.
Europe is best in terms of strategy and game knowledge.
How do you think Europe stack up internationally? What is one thing that Europe does better than the other regions?
Splendour: Europe is best in terms of strategy and game knowledge. NA teams have the best teamwork and coordination. Chinese teams are the most aggressive and are extremely good at securing pickoffs. Koreans have the best mechanics, you can really feel it in their movement.
Knowme: There should be no doubt that EU is the strongest region overall: there are the most high level teams. Obviously Cloud9 won Blizzcon so they can claim the title of having the highest peak, but if you count the top 10 teams of the world you should come up with something like 2 from China, 1 from Korea, 2 from America, and 5 from Europe. For that reason, the meta game develops the best in Europe. More teams are trying different things at the highest level, so we end up with superior strategies more often than other regions. Obviously that does not mean that other regions can’t find specific stuff like the Murky, Abathur, Leoric stuff that we saw from Cloud9.
Is there anybody that the mYinsanity team could not go a day without? Who is the lifeblood of the team?
Nurok: The apple merchant is a crucial source of energy.
Blumbi: I've played with Darkmok for about a year now, so I guess I'd miss him if we weren't on the same team anymore.
Splendour: The apple merchant. Blumbi would starve without him.
Knowme: As stupid as it sounds I feel like everything is truly carried by great teamspirit. They share the organizational stuff, discuss everything as a team, focus for the scrims and tournaments, but also have fun together for the remainder of the day.
I’m a person reading this interview; convince me that I should be a fan of mYinsanity!
Nurok: We coin-flip our games and decide to throw spontaneously, so better watch and be entertained.
Blumbi: Our jackets/jerseys just look the best!
Splendour: It’s okay if you’re not on our side - we’ll pull you in with hook or Sundering.
Knowme: Well...we have 6 times EPS champion Hasuobs! That should be good enough right? The team plays very aggressive and that makes for extremely exciting games. Being a fan of this team makes watching tournaments a lot of fun!
LIGHTNING ROUND:
If you had to pick one, what superpower would you choose?
HasuObs: Invisibility
Nurok: Mind-reading
Darkmok: Is being a Saiyan a superpower?
Blumbi: Mind control
Splendour: Time travel
Knowme: Immortality
If you could could have any non-Blizzard hero in HoTS, who/what would it be?
HasuObs: Chris Redfield
Nurok: The Masterchief.
Darkmok: The nameless hero from the Gothic series.
Blumbi: Swain from League of Legends
Splendour: Saitama
Knowme: Thomas Häßler
Do you have any hobbies outside of HoTS?
HasuObs: Esports, music concerts and german beer.
Nurok: Movies, esports (from all different games), music, going to the gym (when I find the motivation and the time again!).
Darkmok: I like to make Pizza while listening to music!
Blumbi: I love music! I play the piano/guitar and love making beats.
Splendour: I love anime.
Knowme: Esports (Starcraft2, CS, Dota2, LoL, Hearthstone I watch them all), German board games, Handball, Trumpet.
To conclude, do you have anything to say to the mYinsanity fans?
HasuObs: Thanks for all the support! Looking forward to play offline tournaments and meet some of you.
Darkmok: Thanks for all the support you give us, even though we might be struggling to perform right now. Better times will come!
Blumbi: Thanks to everyone who supports us <3 I promise to start streaming soon!
Splendour: Thank you for supporting us, we’re all really happy to have fans from around the world. I’m sorry for the rocky start we’ve had this year, we’ll make up for it in the rest of the year.
Knowme: Thank you very much for all the great support. For me this started several years back in Starcraft 2 but especially since we founded Team Spartanien and then joined mYinsanity the community feedback is really amazing. You made all of this possible for me!
A special thanks to David Reyes, mYinsanity's P.R. manager, as none of this would have been possible without his support. To follow the team, go to www.myinsanity.eu, https://www.facebook.com/mYinsanity.eu, and @mYinsanityEU on Twitter .
Follow us on Twitter @GosuGamersHotS for more Heroes of the Storm esports news.
