Greetings everyone! We have another team interview for you today! As always, if you would like your team to be interviewed by the CSL just send an email to cstarleague@gmail.com and we'll be more than happy to conduct an interview with your team.

Today we have the University of Texas at Austin. An amazing team that has been performing very well in this season, winning their first three matches and looking to be a very strong competitor this season. The team took some time after attending MLG Dallas to answer some questions for us and here is what they had to say.

First off congratulations on winning your first three matches and currently being on the top of your division. Are there any of the matches you've played so far this season that you felt were very close games that you struggled to pull out the win?

Thank you! We've put a lot of effort into preparation for the season and have been very impressed with our performance thus far. The three teams that we have faced so far have put up very respectable fights. The closest match, by far, was our most recent one against Wilfred Laurier University. Our players were very evenly matched which means we got to watch some amazingly close games. Luckily, we were able to come out on top with a victory in the Ace.

Your team seems to have quite a large number of players on it, how do you choose who is going to play in each match?

We have been extremely happy with the huge amount of interest for CSL that we've been able to find and harness here at UT. With so many people, one of our hardest challenges is deciding who gets to participate since there are such a limited number of spots available each week. We have put a lot of careful thought and trial runs into different systems. It is ultimately a delicate balance between wanting to be fair to all players while maintaining the excellence we hope to achieve throughout the season. After lots of discussion and experimentation, we finally ended up with a system that strikes a perfect balance between objectivity, coach intuition, accurate measurement of skill, and repeatability (which rewards practice and improvement).

A lot of players have many different ways of practicing from playing specific match-ups with friends to hardcore laddering, how does your team prefer to practice?

While everyone has a different method they prefer, we have done our best of provide our players with the tools they need to excel at their particular match-up each week. Specifically, we have several team coaches that work with players individually to study maps, analyze match-up dynamics, and formulate specific strategies for particular matches. To augment this conceptual preparation, our players love to both ladder and practice with other team members. This gives us a good mix of execution-based practice for particular match-ups and strategies as well as the reactionary based randomness that the ladder offers.

Are there any of your upcoming match-ups that you're particularly nervous about or any match-ups you're looking forward to the most/least?

Before the season started, we had a couple friendly show-matches with other Texas schools. Although we came out on top of Texas A&M, Rice University narrowly beat us. Both of these schools put up very good fights that truly tested our players. Since we are all currently undefeated, these matches will be a testament to how well each school has adapted and progressed. We’re definitely looking forward to meeting both of these teams again during the season and working with them to continue fostering an amazing e-Sports community in Texas!

As any college student knows it is not easy to have time for everything that you need and want to do, do you find it difficult to fit in Starcraft with school/work and having a social life?

Absolutely! Most of our team happens to be computer science or engineering majors, meaning we are constantly busy. However, when you are truly passionate about something, you can always find a way to make everything work out. This seems to be the story of our team so far in that our passion for the game and our insatiable desire to unlock the potential within ourselves carry us forward to accomplish great things. With that said, we are lucky to have a large base of talented members, meaning that our players are always more than welcome to step out of the spotlight when other responsibilities or priorities call.

Do you feel confident in how you're going to perform for the remainder of this season or do you feel as though you still need to put in a lot of practice?

Over all, I am extremely confident in how our team will perform in the remainder of this season. We have a very solid player base that is passionate about competition, improvement, and success. Additionally, we’ve just located some hidden talent on campus that we are very excited about. We’ve put a ton of effort into building a successful organization and a cohesive Starcraft community. We are determined to continue building upon our recent successes and to reach our full potential as the season progresses!

Any closing thoughts you'd like to share about your team, the CStar League, or the current season?

I would like to send a huge shout-out to Texas e-Sport’s Association’s dedicated officer team. We are a brand new organization on campus and have already gathered the interest of over 140 members. Thanks to everyone’s hard work, we are hosting the first of hopefully many statewide Starcraft II tournaments on campus on November 20th. The Collegiate StarLeague is the catalyst that brought us together and remains one of our most important and central focuses. Together, we aspire to promote and actively engage our campus community in all aspects of e-Sports culture and competitive gaming. For anyone interested, feel free to check us out on Facebook or tespa.proboards.com.

On behalf of our team, I would like to thank you for this opportunity and for all of the hard work that the CSL staff has put into making this season such a success! We are very grateful for all of your efforts to create, organize, and maintain such a great league. We are honored to participate.

The University of Texas at Austin was also kind enough to send us a recent picture they had taken at MLG with the infamous Protoss player HuK.

Thank you again for the interview and good luck in your future matches!