MYM.Naniwa in The Way I Play

In this new format, the players are going to be talking to you directly and writing their thoughts. Some editing has been done to help change the tense of the language but largely these are thoughts of the players. We hope to build this series to give you insights into their lives – In and Out of Gaming.

This young player hails from Sweden. All of 20 years old and owing his roots to the popular RTS Warcraft 3, we have much pleasure to introduce to you one of the top tier European Protoss players, Johan “MYM.Naniwa” Lucchesi.

Introduction
Hi. Most of you guys know me as Naniwa. What most of you don’t know is that I got my nick from an anime flick I used to watch called Hajime no Ippo. That’s a boxing series in case you are wondering. My early roots began in Warcraft 3 and then on to the Frozen Throne. The only other title by Blizzard I claimed to play before that would probably be Diablo 2.

I think my fondest memories are playing in the WC3L or the Gamegune tournament. Yeah, those days were so much fun. I experienced competitive gaming at a whole new level. I think that’s what pushed me on to play more and more tournaments. It was just so much fun. I think my parents are usually as much concerned as other parents are about my future but I just finished school. I think it’ll be good to spend some time progaming and then when I go back to Sweden I’ll take up my studies again.

Warcraft 3 to Starcraft 2
In Warcraft 3 I played the Undead race. In StarCraft 2 I now play the Protoss race. Starcraft 2 is a really nice game. I really enjoy playing it. I think the appealing part is what you have to do to be safe in the game and because many people ignore this we get shitty games. For example: skipping on detection and playing unsafe. A lot of players such as MaNa and so on you’ll notice get punished against White-Ra when he made Dark Templar. That’s a very appealing part to me that you can stop cheese and punish it with good scouting and detection.

The biggest challenge to play Starcraft 2 for me personally was the macro being so much more important than micro. That was hard getting used to as a Warcraft 3 player.

Thinking of transitioning between the two games, I think the only transferable skill was to know where I needed improvement and how to go about improving. That’s something that comes from experience and playing in many tournaments. I think coming from a Warcraft background there are just some adjustments one should make to compete at the top level mainly in terms of macro.

I feel that Europe is almost equal to Korea in terms of skill and US is probably a little behind but nothing major.

On choosing the Protoss Race
You know at the end of TFT, Orc was pretty much the strongest race. I looked at Protoss and found that they were similar, with the high hit points on units and that they would be overpowered in Starcraft 2. But that’s pretty much not the way it turned out to be. Sometimes I wish I picked Terran as they are clearly overpowered. I feel Protoss is a limited race currently. There are a few players I admire though and one of them is White-Ra. He just practices so hard and then never whines if he loses and just has a lot of discipline. I think Tester too is great with the amount of practice he puts into the game.

On Getting Good
I play a lot of games and watch a lot of replays so when I practice on ladder or in custom I learn what’s good against what. I think the top five qualities of any good player or any player wanting to get good at this game would be:

1. Knowing what you do wrong every game
2. Patience. It’s extremely important to stay patient and no matter how much you lose you must not give up.
3. Developing a strategical mindset. Knowing the strategy in and out.
4. Macro Mechanics
5. Micro Mechanics

I always try to think of new builds all the time, if I think something works in a certain situation I tend to test it a lot of times before I use it in a real match. At the moment I mostly I play ladder. I feel while laddering it is very very hard against Terran. They have Point Defence Drones, Marauders and Medivacs are too good to counter. My practice partner is Cloud with whom I’m staying with. So you know I get a lot of practice versus Terran.

What would I change about the game?
I would like to change medivacs so that they have to research drop and start with heal, and the hitpoints of marauders and the Point Defence Drone clearly needs to be reworked. I think these are the main issues that makes Terran ridiculous at the moment. I really enjoy playing against Zerg because I feel that’s a pretty well rounded matchup. To be honest I feel that Protoss might have a slight edge over Zerg but it’s quite balanced.

In terms of balance I think most Terran players have it easier and can afford many mistakes before winning. I feel there are only a handful of players who really understand how to abuse Terran and do the imbalanced things. Two examples would be DeMusliM and Brat_OK. Their styles are very simple and don’t require much skill to win with and sometimes I wonder why everyone doesn’t just copy their style. I’m sure Blizzard will realize something is horribly wrong. But ladder is good practice.

On the three matchups

Protoss vs. Terran
I think you need to have an expand faster than Terran because with mule they just outrun you so fast economically. So I try to rely on having a safe enough strategy to defend against everything and then adapt to what they are doing. I feel that it's too simple for the Terrans to play against Protoss for the kind of efficiency it gets. For example making 3 Barracks Marauder with Medivac / Viking is something any player could do without practice and yet it's so effective with no real weakness. I feel that it's a big problem that Terran is too simple to play.

Protoss vs. Zerg
I think this is the best matchup I like to play. Maybe in slight advantage of Protoss because of the maps, but I really feel that the better player wins there.

Protoss vs. Protoss
I feel that PvsP is alright, it's a bit luck based right now because of the maps as well. I feel that a blind proxy double gate is unbeatable if they luck out without scouting at the right position. I think it's quite a problem and Blizzard should prevent it by reworking gateways and zealots in some way so that it's easier to handle all the "cheese" tactics.

On the new patch
I think Protoss just became weaker. This was a useless patch now that I have to spend more minerals on getting gates and using my boosts on that because I can’t get as many zealots as I used to. And they didn’t do anything about the point defense drone at all!

My Daily Routine
Cloud usually wakes me up at like 10 and then we practice a bit, check forums and then we go eat. That’s usually how the day starts. Then we just practise some more, watch some series online and then try to think about the strategies and test it out together. In terms of learning I always try to study the Korean Protoss players especially Tester who I feel is the best Protoss right now. I was extremely disappointed with NexGenius who I thought was a great player but in GSL he just fizzled out.

I usually read up on the GosuGamers forum, myMYM and TeamLiquid. I feel the best Zerg right now is IdrA even though he’s not very stable it seems. The best Terran by skill is probably Satiini at the moment. He’s just one step above the other Terrans in my opinion. I am a left handed player so I use the Deathadder left hand edition. I also use the Razer mousepad Megasoma and the Razer Orca headset. I think my setup is pretty good.

What do I do besides gaming
For fun I enjoy drinking sometimes with my friends in Sweden but in Germany I’m here to only focus on my gaming. My hobbies are to train in the gym some times each week. But I don’t know of any place here to train so that’s a little disappointing. In Sweden there is not that much of a culture for RTS play. I feel that the treatment at the Inferno Online LAN was very bad. They mostly focus on FPS. I feel Germany has a much better environment that way and better if you are a German. I feel they seemed to be biased towards the Germans and that’s alittle hard for a foreigner to live here.

I find the language barrier here to be difficult when I speak to non gaming Germans, but most gamers know English quite well so that’s okay. I don’t know Madfrog in particular too much so I’m pretty much the lone Swede here. I just don’t like the Brood War players mindsets like MorroW who think people who come from WarCraft 3 are trash and the former Brood war players are gods.

To end this
I would like to shoutout to Kevin (caval), David, Joakim and Andy who are gonna read this interview later. Also a shoutout to ClouD, Demuslim, Hasuobs and Rotterdam. Thats all!

Article by Karthick "KAGE" Gopal
Edited by Patrik "Raistlin" Hellstrand
Photos by myMYM.com