Team GosuGamers player Mattias "Naugrim" Ottosson has qualified for the the StarCraft 2 tournament at the Gadget Show Live, in Birmingham, England on April 16 - 17.
Together with Naugrim, another seven players have qualified through the two online tournaments held the past week. Naniwa, iNSoLeNCe, Socke, SjoW, Goody, SelecT and HappyZerG are the other seven.
The eight will battle over the £5,000 GBP prize pool.
GosuGamers caught up with (one of) our Swedish Zerg players.
Hey Naugrim, congratulations on the final four placing yesterday!
- Thank you! Actually, I was practicing with merz and he told me "hey, I gotta sign up for this Gadget Show tournament." So I asked him what it was and he sent me a link and I signed up. I didn't even know what it was at first, but when I saw it was a qualifier tournament to an event in England I got very excited and wanted to qualify badly. I played 4 people in total, and the toughest opponents were DarkForce and Mana, but I managed to win without too much of a problem.
Both matches against Darkforce and Mana ended in a 2-1 win for you. Could you talk us through the games?
- The first game was against Darkforce on Metalopolis. We spawned close positions and we both went for pool first. He was doing this kinda all-inish 10 pool 10 gas very fast banelings without Queen build. I was hoping he would open up with hatch first, so I went 13 gas 12 pool and wanted really fast lingspeed and baneling nest. I saw his early ling with my overlords, so I took guys of gas and made 6 lings, a queen and a spine crawler. He first went after my drones but I just microed them around my hatchery until my lings popped, so I didn't lose a single drone. He then morphed 2 banelings and I killed one of them with my Queen. Then speed finished and I just went and killed him.
Second game was a standard macro game on Scrap Station. We both went hatch first into roaches. He took his third faster then me, and I kinda panicked and went all in on 2 bases with 3 hatch roach/infestor. But I got a bad concave due to the narrow choke points on scrap station and lost. As for the third game, I don't really remember it, haha.
But it was a win, nonetheless! And then, against MaNa, which was the game for Top 4, how did that one go?
- First game was a typical close position game on metalopolis. He went 3 gate expand, I went speedling into expand and then lair. I took a late third and tried to pressure early with speed roach/ling but mana defended the attacks very well. He then got his colossus out and just went to kill me, because I didn't have enough tech to deal with those.
The second game, MaNa went for a force expand and I went for 14 pool 16 hatch. I scouted a stargate and went for spire tech. My spire was hidden so all he saw was an evo chamber as well as a hydralisk den. I then just started harassing with my mutas and kept him in his base until he almost had mined out his 2 bases. He then tried to attack but I had 4 bases and a lot of spine crawlers with infestor support, so his first attack failed and I won.
Last game was pretty interesting. We both went fast expansion, he 3 gate and I ling-speed expand. He poked around in the midgame without really engaging and waited for colossus. Meanwhile he took a third and I turned that into my advantage by dropping his main, attacking his natural and 3rd base. He couldn't be everywhere at once so I did a decent amount of damage, and meanwhile expanded so I had a total of 4 bases. After that he started to stabilize and pushed me back. I had brood lords and and baneling drops ready though, so after numerous fights I came out victorious.
Aside from you, we saw Naniwa, Insolence and Socke advance from this qualifier. There's also SjoW, Goody, SelecT and HappyZerG going to the event. What do you think of your chances in Birmingham?
- I'm starting to get in really good shape now. I think that if I work hard and prepare well, I definitely have a shot at winning the tournament, especially now that ZvP doesn't feel impossible anymore, haha.
Which opponent out of the eight would you rather NOT face until the final? Who do you rate the highest?
Actually its really hard to say. If I had to pick one, it would probably be SelecT.
What changes would you say has helped you reach your ZvP play to where it is today?
- Actually I had no idea what I was doing in ZvP before. I really didn't know how to win. I got upset on day when I practiced ZvP and thought to myself, I should really quit this game right now. But then I calmed down and bought a premium GSL ticket so I could watch how the Koreans play ZvP. After that I got inspired and changed my ZvP style and now I play much better. Also I think the infestor buff is really necessary to deal with the Protoss death ball. It's still hard to kill, but if you have an economical advantage you can actually kill that army. Before the patch I couldn't kill it no matter how many bases I had. Protoss would just make that 200 mass stalker/colossus or void ray colossus and kill me before I could reinforce enough times.
