This April we held our StarCraft 2 Qualifiers at The Party in Eindhoven and Lennart ‘Sushilicious’ Roest won our Qualifiers and a spot in the Main StarCraft2 Tournament @ DreamHack. As a warm-up we went ahead and held an interview with our star player!
So Sushi, tell us, who are you, what do you do and how did you get to win the SC2 Qualifiers @ The-Party last month?
Hey everyone, my name is Lennart Roest, I’m from The Netherlands and I’m 23 years old. I’ve been playing Warcraft 3 competitively for a couple of years and then switched to Starcraft II as soon as the Beta came out. So I’ve been here since the beginning, playing Zerg since day 1 and have been enjoying it a lot. Aside from gaming I’m doing a study at VU university in Amsterdam at the moment where I hope to finish my Masters degree next year.
Last month I went to The-Party in Eindhoven and as can be seen, I won. To be honest, I didn’t really expect to win because normally I don’t really end up in first place with qualifications or other tournaments since the Benelux has a couple of nice players who can compete at an international level. Even though I’m one of them, I still don’t always feel too confident about actually winning the title. Winning The-Party was one of my best Starcraft 2 achievements so far, even though the tournament did not represent the full scale of the Benelux potential. However, to be honest I think I had a small edge over the rest of the players there which give me the win in the end.
Last Winter you got into the finals for two different Intel Pack4DreamHack Qualifiers, loosing the first to DaBoO and the second to servaNt. How did it feel finally winning the Intel Pack4DreamHack Qualifier?
Well there’s a Dutch saying that goes “drie keer is scheepsrecht”, which means the third time/attempt you will succeed. It might not be a coincidence that this third time was my lucky one : )).. however, I feel really good about it, because as said, I lost to Daboo and to my teammate Servant in the first two qualifiers. But oh well.. you can’t have it all! Now it’s my turn!
Now you are seeded in the Main Tournament of the DreamHack StarCraft 2 competition how do you feel playing against legends like ThorZaiN, TLO, Naama, MC, FruitDealer, IdrA, Huk and others?
Well of course that’s great. Since the day I started gaming more competitively I’ve been through a lot of emotional changes on what and how I feel about those ”legends”. Now, I finally have grown to a point where I can take them on, thinking they’re just normal guys just like me, and that they’re beatable. Especially since Starcraft 2 provides the opportunity to win from better players than yourself because of how the game works. So in short, I feel thrilled and kind of pumped up to show my potential on the big screen.
Do you ever practise with these players?
This is an interesting question. I do play against some of them, but only on ladder, not in practise. It’s my ‘training’ schedule, laddering 100% and custom games 0%! Well only from time to time when people ask me to but if they wouldn’t I’d probably play ladder all the time because I come from Warcraft 3 and did the same there basically, kind of like the diversity you get in maps/opponents. It prepares you for the most things I guess. Even though most players probably wouldn’t agree with me here, I don’t care because everyone should make his or her own personal plan on how to improve, and this is mine.
Looking at the Benelux SC2 Scene we have got some top players, like Grubby and Ret, and some sub top/top players much like NTT, DaBoO, servaNt and you, what do you think of the future, for the scene and for yourself?
I believe the Starcraft II scene in the Benelux has a lot more potential than it had in Warcraft III. I couldn’t say exactly why, but it might has to do with what I said earlier about lesser players being able to beat better players because of how the game works, but it also has to do with Benelux players having more feeling with the game, I don’t know. But what I do know, is that we’re at least more competing in Europe, so that’s a start. About my own role in this process, I know I can perform well on European subtop/top level, however I never show it. It’s simply because I don’t spend enough time on Starcraft II with other (social) obligations, school, work, sports and so on. But if I could I’d definitely play in more online tournaments where you get a lot of media attention if you go to the quarter finals. And the times I did play in them I came quite far a lot of times so I really hope that I get more opportunities to show my game skills in a public fashion rather than in the isolated ladder section.
Thanks for reading this, and if you guys ever want to see me streaming, follow this link:
http://www.justin.tv/srsrazersushi
I won’t stream on a daily basis because of the before mentioned reasons but I try to do it twice or three times a week.
See you guys!
Lennart ‘srs[RAZER]Sushi’ Roest
