A warm welcome to you Kyle, I just want to begin of course by saying a huge thank you for having time to join us in our interview, and I am sure that many of the readers who would be reading this would already know who you are - but just to clarify for those who don’t, can you introduce yourself a little bit? Hi! My name is Kyle Freedman, and I'm currently the leader/drafter/utility player for team sGty. I'm 19 and and a freshman in college living in the oh so stereotyped state of New Jersey. I've been a part of the HoN scene since closed beta, playing for boss teams such as 143 (shoutout to Thrice), ICE (shoutout to Singapore), and now, sGty. 
Swindlemelonzz at DYA
“ I've been gaming since I was very very young, starting with the whole Backyard Sports series and Putt Putt”
Sender, Main Support player
Is League of Legends going to be a threat towards Heroes of Newerth and Dota2 and if you were working for Dota2 what would your marketing plan be towards making it more successful than Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends? League of Legends is a dota clone that is very far from a dota clone. For that reason, while it probably won't enjoy the success Dota 2 will (although I doubt Riot is complaining) it will definitely survive as a game. As far as my marketing plan for Dota 2, I'd release the game free to play with an option to buy "full" accounts (a legacy HoN account) for 50-60 dollars, which almost every serious player would most certainly do. I'm actually kinda surprised HoN isn't offering legacy accounts for the retail price yet, as I think many people (at least five real-life friends of mine included) would be glad to purchase it.
“ As far as my marketing plan for Dota 2, I'd release the game free to play with an option to buy "full" accounts (a legacy HoN account) for 50-60 dollars.”
Tralf, bringing in a vast amount of experience from SK
For my own interests, the name Swindlemelonzz has always been a humorous topic among the team Infused ventrilo because of many variations that could be put in place of melonzzz... haha , would you mind sharing how you came to that name? Well, the original tag I played under was KFreek for obvious reasons, while my brother (who I played with all the time) was ZFreek. After open beta started we began playing with our cousin a lot, and renamed to the wonderfully uncreative and racist names "n***aapples, watermelonzz, and purpledr4nk". Watermelonzz stuck, and I began playing with it, and eventually started hosting a ton of in-houses. Since at the time auto balance wasn't around, and the fact that most of the comp HoN scene acts like entitled primadonnas 95% of the time, I'd normally have to swap teams a bit because of grudges after the auto balance, or just lock people against each other. The running joke was that I was a swindler, especially if my team ended up with a perceived advantage/won the game. After a couple people prompted me to change to swindlemelonzz, I did, and the legend was born......... | | Let’s talk about your team now, with quite a selection of players - what is your strongest main line-up and their main roles? Our main five at the moment is: Swindlemelonzz - Captain/Drafter/Utility player. I can play almost every hero in the game, although I truly despise going mid I've done so on special occasions. I normally end up in the jungle, farming, or soloing.
Tralfamadore - Solo Mid/Ricer. He is very adept at pretty much every hero that enters the mid line, and extremely good at them as well. He's got an aggressive play style and personality, and that fits perfectly with how our teams are normally drafted - I wouldn't take any other player in HoN over him for my mid player.
Sneyking - Occasional Mid/Ricer/Side Solo. At times brilliant and at times a giggling thrower, the King is without a doubt an irreplaceable part of our team. A very accomplished creep slayer, look to see him hoisted on our shoulders for many future LAN victory celebrations.
Sender - Support/Solo Melee Master. Sender is without a doubt the most consistent player on our team, and can always be counted on as a support or melee solo. There is no player in the game I could expect the same quality of play from, and it is for that reason he was the first person I asked to join my team at its inception.
Peterpandam - Support/Kraken player. No doubt the player who gets the most punishment on our team, Peter is often the whipping boy on the forums, but nevertheless an integral part of our team. His calm nature and study of the game outdo even mine, and his reliability rivals Ripken himself. With tkolol as our 6th he is our utility/Brazilian player. Unbelievably devoted to forum trolling, Tkolol was the last addition to our team and without a doubt the best bench one could ask for. His attitude is fantastic and he always helps to lighten up the vent atmosphere.
Kebap playing for us when needed until he finds a team of his own (he's fantastic btw, and definitely the best free agent on the scene) he is a Troll/Utility/Drafter. Probably one of the best leaders the HoN scene has ever had, we're quite glad he was willing to join our roster as he adds a ton to our personality on vent, and tons of viewers to our streams, a fantastic player and person, Kebap #1. We saw your team recently being picked up by the organisation called Virus-eSports, but later chose to leave, what was the real story behind this and are there are future plans to look for a more stable home who can give your team what they need after such impressive results over the last few weeks? The story behind that isn't really as dramatic as the forums made it out to be. We were approached by a guy named Daniel who said he was going to be able to get us to DreamHack Winter through a partnership with Virus-eSports. We got far enough along in negotiations to see the sample contracts, and agree verbally to those terms, and tag up. However, after Virus and Daniel had some disagreements (mostly due to changes in the contracts about prize distribution/the amount of money Daniel was paying), Daniel decided it really wasn't worth his or our time to negotiate any further with the company, and backed out. We weren't interested in paying 500 Euros a month for 12 months any more than he was, and we followed him out the door.
It’s always sad to see another team not being able to get the sponsorship they deserve but really, what does sGty actually stand for? Open to interpretation. My personal favorite is "sneyking gonna throw yo". With 2 more online FNATIC BEAT IT DreamHack qualifiers and your team having already secured a spot as well as $1000 for winning the 2nd qualifier, what are your thoughts about this tournament and expectations of your team throughout the event and can we actually expect to see your team at the main event in Sweden? While many might not expect us there, we most certainly plan on attending. If we cannot find a sponsor, we'll (hopefully) be using a combination of prize winnings, personal savings, donations, and private investors to reach our cover our estimated costs ($8500). If we do end up arriving in Sweden, victory is the only outcome we'll accept.
“ Peterpandam - Support/Kraken player. No doubt the player who gets the most punishment on our team”
Digital Youth Awards Stage
There has also been a lot of criticism when it comes to the teams... strange communication towards each other when things don’t go well during a game, what is your opinion? The fact of the matter is we're a very emotional/loud/volatile team. That's a main reason we're playing as such a high level, as all mistakes, no matter how small, are scrutinized. That leads to a bit of flaming/raging/trolling, but in the end, we're still the same five we started with five months ago, and we're still improving at the same rate. As it is there are so many different rankings of the top teams of Heroes of Newerth, what is your own personal list of the top 10 teams? 1. MSI 2. SGTY 3. COL 4. OK 5. LION 6. WHP5 7. DM 8. INFS 9. PORT 10. DSKB Who do you see as your biggest threat or threats? MSI has been the strongest team in the competitive scene for a longggg time. While I do think we've improved past them, we've yet to been able to prove it in a tournament, and until we can do that, they are without a doubt the biggest threat. Complexity Gaming is starting to practice as often as we are, and is definitely our strongest North American threat. With rumours of a Nations cup being organised, just out of interest if you were team captain for America who would be your line-up of players? Honestly, if I had to create my own all-star team I'd probably just take the four teammates I have now. Big names create expectation, not victories, and as I consider my team the best in HoN I think we'd be able to take on any nation, regardless of how much hype thrown their way. Any America vs Europe vs Asia comments? As far as US v EU v Asia goes, we're all people, and the only different between the nations is the play style/time invested. I spam USA a lot, but mostly for my own amusement as it makes a lot of people deliciously mad. We're all equal, and regardless of who wins what game, US vs EU is pretty even in terms of the HoN scene (the Asian scene is mostly consolidated on Garena, and thus not as competitive). Yet again I thank you for what must be a very unpleasant time Kyle, I wish you and the team the best of luck in your progressions! Are there any shout outs or last minute words you would like to say? Big shoutouts to my family, especially my four brothers Zak, Andrew, Brandon, and Gavin! My mom/grandma/cousin Tyler have also been fantastic people and hugely important to me during my HoN career. As for last words, I thank profusely anyone who read the entire interview, and I thank you for your support. God Bless! |
