Interview: Starcraft 2 pro player Jared “PiG” Krensel

The Starcraft 2 World Championship Series Season 2 Premier League finals are heading to the Metro Toronto Convention Center this weekend with the best players outside of Korea coming together to fight for a share of the US$145,000 prize pool.

Two players from Oceania, Iaguz and Petraeus, made it to this years round of 16 and will be facing some of the world’s top talent. We recently had the opportunity to have a chat with WCS Season 1 representative Jared “PiG” Krensel about his experiences playing at WCS and what he thinks of the tournament as a whole.

Hamish Lindsay, Stevivor: Yourself and Ethan (Iaguz) both made it to the Season 1 round of 32, how was it to be playing on that kind of stage?

Jared “PiG” Krensel: It felt really great to get a fair shot at competing in WCS. Previously I’d struggled to make it through my qualifiers especially playing cross-server with lag could be really hard. After a long time dreaming of competing in Premier League it felt awesome to finally get to experience being flown over to compete in the biggest league in Starcraft.

Stevivor: How’d it feel when you knew you’d beaten Happy in the round of 32?

PiG: Ecstatic. I was experiencing some delirium in the face of long, long games that had drawn out the playing time way beyond I’d anticipated. The jet-lag was hitting me hard and I was drinking a lot of energy drinks to stay alert. When combined with the adrenaline and thrill of the games themselves and a very loud audience cheering the games on, to finally emerge victorious was really something special. A mixture of bliss and relief probably describes it best.

Stevivor: Coming in to the round of 16, were you confident you could go the distance? How did it feel to be counted among the best players Starcraft 2 has to offer?

PiG: I wasn’t too happy with my performance in practice so I wasn’t sure how I would perform. I had prepared some strong and unique builds and knew with a strong mentality I could beat anyone in the tournament.

It felt great to be included in such a big event that all the eyes of the Starcraft community were watching and I was hoping to do myself proud with how I performed.

Stevivor: What’s your opinion on the WCS and how do you think it’s helping grow Starcraft 2 outside of Korea?

PiG: I think it’s a necessary first-step in allowing foreign talent to grow and be fostered. For a player such as myself at the ass-end of the world it provides a rare opportunity to gain great rewards in both money and exposure. It’s really awesome what WCS is doing this year.

Stevivor: Unfortunately you didn’t qualify for WCS Season 2, can you walk us through why you chose to play NXZ and what contributed to your loss?

PiG: I chose to play NXZ because a patch came out right before my challenger match that nerfed the Swarm-host pretty badly, and most of my best anti-protoss builds revolved around making use of this unit. The only other choice was Blysk a strong Protoss player so I chose to play ZvZ instead, usually my best matchup.

There were a few factors that contributed to my loss. One was playing far too much Hearthstone in the previous few months. I daresay I was a little addicted to it. Another factor was some bad habits entering my scheduling and practice-regimen. This was partly due to my issues balancing being a content-producer that streams consistently (which is a far cry from serious practice) with my part-time work as a coach and my own focus and dedication to practice. Whilst I still was practicing somewhat consistently these last few months I could have been much more focused and organised in my practice and could have squeezed in more overall hours.

At the end of the day I’m a full-time pro-gamer and whilst I have many other duties than just working on my own play, it was my own lack of discipline and sense of complacency which led to my elimination so early this season. NXZ played a strong and confident style and was far more deserving of the win on the day.

Stevivor: How’ve you kept busy since the qualifiers?

PiG: As mentioned before I have a lot of other duties to make ends meet as an Australian pro-gamer, and i am able to give a little more focus to coaching and streaming. I also am finding some more time for organising some Youtube content and might find time to commentate some online events at some point.

In terms of my play I’ve taken advantage of my break in WCS schedule to do a complete overhaul of my mechanical techniques and hotkey setup and swapping to a very advanced layout called the Core (if you’re curious).
Making this sort of change is huge and several weeks in my level is still nowhere near what it was with my old setup, but by the time the next qualifiers roll around I expect to be far stronger than I ever was before.

Stevivor: Have recent balance changes (i.e. Swarm Host) affected your play at all? How do you think LOTV will change the competitive SC2 landscape?

PiG: Due to my change-up in mechanics it hasn’t been something I’ve had a chance to properly experience in competition yet. I do think the Swarm-host change has severely nerfed the zerg race and that before LOTV is released ZvP and ZvT vs mech will show some imbalance.

Once LOTV is released it should be great for the game with many new features, more exciting gameplay and so on making it more fun and appealing to new players. However I’m concerned that the fundamental flaws with protoss design may just become more exacerbated as the team seem unwilling to rework a few of the core issues that don’t mesh with their new, aggressive, expanding style of gameplay. I’m also a little afraid the game will have too many spells and abilities and go more in the direction of Warcraft 3 or MOBA’s than the Starcraft I know and love.

Stevivor: Where to now for PiG?

PiG: Just busily preparing for next season, trying to bring my reborn mechanics up to par so I can do myself proud playing a more fluid game than I ever have played before, fingers crossed.

Stevivor: Thanks for your time!

The WCS Season 2 Premier League final takes place from 26 – 28 June and you can catch PiG as he commentates and analyses the weekends games.

For his take on the groups you can check out his predictions here and if you feel like staying up late you can watch all the action live here from 2.00 am on 27 June AEST.