Nazgul after GosuCup: 'Mondragon has a bright RTS mind'

Nazgul and his cat Quinten. Paco, the second cat of the house, did not make it to the photo session.

Founder of Teamliquid and StarCraft legend Victor "Nazgul" Goossens played Cristoph "Mondragon" Semke in the first round of the GosuCup and didn't know what do expect from the German veteran as he doesn't participate in a lot of tournaments, but explained after the matches that it felt good to beat him.

- "Honestly it was hard to expect anything with Mondragon not participating in other tournaments. He is high ranked on the ladder but that's only an indication and not really an absolute measurement at all. I just assumed he would be really good and prepared accordingly."

Mondragon won the first game on Blistering Sands, but Nazgul turned it around and managed to win the series 2-1.

- "It definitely feels good to beat Mondi. He's a big name in the community with lots of accomplishments in SC:BW and a bright RTS mind."

Mutalisks secured Mondragon the win in the first game, but a zergling rush in the second did not do the trick, and with the final game being on one of Nazgul's favorite map, Nazgul could lean back as we awaits ZpuX in the next round.

- "The first game was on Blistering Sands a map I'm really comfortable with. Mondi broke my rocks early and instead of facing the cannons behind he ran by while my base management was lacking a bit at that point I didn't have enough units to beat the roaches from my main quickly enough. He killed a lot of probes and slowed me down tremendously there which lead to fighting an uphill battle all match long.



- "In the meanwhile he switched to mutas which is a lot less upset heavy in SC2 than it was in BW considering there are no corsairs or storm to take care of them. To beat mutas you have to be able to pressure the Zergs during the right timing window. Because the early damage he did to me this timing window disappeared and he made great use of that by switching mutas and securing the game while he was ahead."

- "The second game was pretty basic. He went mass ling and hoped to surprise me with it and run me over when going out with a few immortals, but I had an obs out as well which could see there were only 2 drones mining at his expand. By just waiting and massing more sentry/zeals I knew once my army got large enough his lack of drones would kick in and I could run him over.

The final game was on Lost Temple which was a surprise to me. There are a few maps very hard for PvZ but they are not called Lost Temple. After Blistering and Kulas Ravine, Temple is probably the map I preferred the most. A zealot harass lead to a dead queen and from thereon I was able to secure my expand and mass a rather large army. I played similar to how I played in game one but was able to get the expansion up without sustaining damage. While taking my own gold I was able to kill the expansion at his gold and that was the beginning of the end."

Your next opponent is the zerg player ZpuX. What are your expectations for that match?
My expectations are high you can look forward to an all-out war. Zpux is the last Zerg to beat me in a tournament series, a nice bo1 game on Desert Oasis a few weeks ago in Zotac. Other than that my PvZ tournament record has very few losses so I'm coming to get my revenge.

Who do you see as the favorite to win the whole tournament, and who is the opponent you fear the most?
Well I lost 0-3 in the final of the ESL invitational to Lucifron it speaks for itself that he has a good shot here again. Haypro is currently the best Zerg player I think and Lucifron/DeMuslim are some of the best Terrans. Together with myself I think the winner will be one of that group.

Nazgul also mentions that they have some clanwars coming up for Team Liquid, but don't know the future plans for the clan other than that as it is hard to predict how things like that turns out. Nazgul will be facing ZpuX in the quarter finals of GosuCup next Sunday, April the 11th.