Hello everyone and welcome to Week 3 of CSL Interviews! This week we've got the University of Ottawa and Binghamton Unviersity that have taken the time to sit down and talk to us a little about their CSL+ experience so far. Binghamton joined the CSL last semester with only 5 players, but has since doubled the size of their team with some strong players (read: Koreans), while Ottawa is a newcomer this season that has started to show some impressive results in its division. As always, if you want your team to be featured in this interview series, send an email over to cstarleague@gmail.com and we'll set you up.

Read more after the jump!

First of all, I'd like it if you could introduce the team - players/races/etc. but also how you guys got started up and how your experience with CSL has been.
Before I get into that, I'll explain some of the background to our team. Someone on TL organized a LAN, and the majority of the people who showed up to it were from UOttawa. The LAN was organized by 3 guys, actually, and 2 of them are on our team: Shawn "Gooser" and John "TheNearl." Shawn is a P player, although he played a sexy game as Z against Harvard John is a Z player, he definitely made a mark against Harvard, although he lost. And until the third member decides to join the team, I will refrain from mentioning him any further.

Anyways, they were awesome hosts, and the LAN was a complete success, so we ended up having 2 more. Carlos is a T player who showed up and came 2nd in the first LAN, 1st in the second, and 2nd in the third. He's a pretty awesome guy and goes by the ID of "Storklos." (Is he a Stork fan? Honestly, I don't know if he is a stork fan or not, I think it's just a joke that I'm not in the loop of.)

Gabriel "Thratur" is amazing. He brings cake to the LANs, and he's definitely an A+ at Battletoads. Gabriel is a Random player, and is an awesome theory crafter. William "Onisparda" is a Zerg player, who also came to the LANs. Ed "Boo-B" is Chef on TL. He showed up to the third LAN and demolished everyone. They were awesome games. Chef is a Random player, although he prefers Zerg. Miroslav "tps_01" kinda showed up randomly on TL when I made a post about the team. He is a Protoss player. Simon "Simon" (very creative.....) also showed up due to the post I made on TL. He was so enthusiastic that he actually joined the team before telling any of us about it. And, due to some complications, we acquired a player who is currently attending multi-school program between UOttawa and Carleton. Had he been able to choose, he might have gone to Carleton. Cam "dRaW" a Protoss player. And he is good. Very good.

I'm Logan "Impervious" Lewis. I started the team because I saw interest in it, but nobody was stepping up and taking charge. And we've had a lot of fun with it. Although it is more work than Hazelynut said it would be :P I think I got everyone.

Haha, okay. Sounds like you have quite a team put together.
Yes, we do. Not only Uottawa students attended the LAN's, some students from Carleton attended and we had a lot of fun. The third LAN was on the same night as the OSL finals, and, for the prize for the tourney, a golden mouse was on the line, so there were 2 Golden Mice handed out in the same night. There's a thread on TL with a pic of it.

Let's talk about your games last week against Harvard. I ended up watching them earlier this week, and I have to say... wow.
Yes. I had no part in that madness. I was away for the study break, and I had no access to the internet. When I came back, and I started reading the correspondence between the players on our team, and I saw what was going on, my jaw just about hit the floor, and when I saw we won, I just about cried from laughing because I couldn't believe that it actually worked. We're currently playing MiT (going on at the time the interview was being conducted). I tried to find some of the same magic that my team had last week by repeating the same strategy. Unfortunately, I failed. At the moment, the 4th game is going on; we are currently down 2-1.

Quadruple 4 pool: madness, or genius? You decide.

Hmm, well - good luck to you then! MiT is a pretty solid contender for playoffs in your division, given its record last season. Speaking of which... what do you think your chances are at making playoffs?
I think we can make it into the playoff as well. Speaking of which, the 4th game just finished; we are officially 2-2.

Okay, I think that's about everything I really wanted to cover - any last thoughts?
Yes. We're going to win the ace match and be 3-0 this season, and then go on to sweep the division and take it all home. (E/N: Ottawa's dRaW went on to win the ACE match later that night! Congrats to Ottawa, and good luck!)

So, this is your second season in the CSL, if I'm not mistaken. How has your (and your team's) experience been so far?
Yes, this is our second season of the Collegiate StarLeague. Our experience has been great, especially since the Binghamton Starcraft Team started this semester. We have met many avid Starcraft fans, as well as those who would like to play matches for the CSL. It's a group where people can come and play Starcraft matches in the Computer Labs. Also, we go over what mistakes people do within the games, and try to learn from them.

That's good to hear. I know a lot of schools have something similar.
Yeah, more schools have joined the CSL, so therefore those schools will need a way to recruit more potential members.

It seems like you've managed to recruit quite a few more this season. I remember last season you only had four or five?
Last year, when we joined CSL, we had 5 members on our team. We joined CSL because we thought it would be a good idea to participate, since we were all Starcraft gamers. Our team sent the same lineup every game, with our TZPR combination. It was a great learning experience. Well, I mean if the CSL implements a race rule, which is up to the CSL staff, then we are equipped to deal with this, unlike a lot of schools.

Well, I doubt that'll be the case - though while we're on the subject, let's talk a bit about your players. Could you introduce the team?
Well, there's Wil Wong, our President, who plays Zerg, who owns the SNSD mousepad that Princeton saw last week. Our Terran player Ascher Friedman, who seems to be lucky in TvT, since he just make the opponents quit unexpectedly. Our other Terran player this season, Heagon Lee, is very good, he loves to set the pace to the match, as noted in last week's match with Battlecruisers in TvP against Mark Ha.

Our Protoss player this season, Sunkoo Kwon, knows his game sense really well, and gives advice to the team. Two newcomers that just joined our team, JaeHyun Kim (Protoss) and Youngbin Park (Random) show potential to be included in our lineup considerations. As for me, well I will continue to play Random, and I will do fine as long as I do not get Zerg in a match. I was not pleased with my match against Peter Liu; I made a promise to myself that if Binghamton got to my set leading, I would close it out. I am still hoping to get a Random vs. Random match in the CSL, but that's unlikely, given the number of Randoms in our division.

Well, you might get your chance yet, should the CSL do another Individual Tournament in the near future. Let's turn to your games last week - 2:3 against Princeton, who made it to playoffs last season. What happened in your set against Peter Liu?
Well, I made many critical mistakes in that match. First off, my split was poor, then my Overlord didn't scout in the right direction. When I did see where his starting location, I didn't sacrifice an overlord to see his tech; I went for a faster Lair and Corsairs just raped my overlords before Hydras could get out in time. From that point, it was all downhill as I tried to contain him with lurkers, but he broke through and proceeded to crush me. The team always yells at me for playing Random because Zerg is my weakest race, and tell me that I should play Protoss or Terran exclusively. Even with Wil's SNSD mousepad, it did not help.

I have been playing a lot of Starcraft 2, so I was used to having seperate rallies, automine, MBS. Rest assured, I will try to play more Starcraft: Brood War.

Back to the team, though... how would you say the rest of the team performed last week? Admirably? I watched the first few games of the series; I hope Mark Ha didn't cry himself to sleep after all of his dragoons melted.
As a team, I felt that everyone did what they could, except me, as I let the team down Heagon Lee did very well against Mark Ha last week with his pushes. The reason that he built the Battlecruiser was to set the pace for our team. Mark Ha should've said GG a long time ago, when Terran was on 3 bases, and Protoss was on one. Sunkoo's match was not bad, as it was a standard PvT on Fighting Spirit. We didn't recognize David Thomas from last season, so we took this match seriously, as we thought he would be very good. Ascher's match was downright disappointing. He made many mistakes that he normally will not do, and he felt that the best way to beat Mike Chen was to do a BioMech push, somewhat like our only win against Carnegie Mellon last season in the ACE match. Needless to say, Michael Chen is one tough Protoss to beat.

When the Ace match happened, all of us picked Heagon because we knew Princeton was going to send out Michael Chen, who's PvP beat Nony last season in the playoffs. Michael Chen, abusing Protoss and Destination well, bad manners Binghamton with Mind Control, and building a Command Center in the center of the map.

Payback for Mark with that BC in Set 1, maybe?
Of course that was payback against Heagon. No hard feelings from our team though, as it was an enjoyable match overall. Many teams will think that Binghamton will be a pushover team, and we need to send a message to other teams that we will be competitive, and our goal is to make the playoffs. Of course, this road will be more difficult since Princeton beat us, but I have confidence in beating all other teams, except Rutgers, since they beat Princeton.

Good to hear that. Let's change gears and talk about the SC2 beta, since everyone seems to want to hear about it. Thoughts? Opinions? Tortured screams of "IMBA"?
Well, I'm the only one on the team that has the beta, but the team comes over to my room and play the beta as well. Yesterday, a new patch came out that tried to balance the races, but I feel that Protoss is too strong against Terran, and is just too strong in general, especially since Protoss counters most Terran combinations with Immortals, Colossus, or Protoss Air.

The Protoss macro mechanic, Chrono Boost, makes it way too easy for Protoss to make units. Combined with Warp Gates, Protoss players could make Zealots faster than Zerglings. The Zerg has a decent balance of units, though I feel that the Roach is too cost-effective to build any other units, especially in ZvZ. Mutalisks have been useless, since Mutalisk Micro is very hard to control, and the high cost of 100 Gas. Terran is weak, since their macro mechanic has trade-offs with Mule and Scan. Their building production with Reactors and Tech Labs are not efficient, since they take time to build and cost gas. I wanted to rage against IdrA since he did the Immortal rush, and I had no way of stopping it.

SC2 is certainly a faster pace game, with less micro involved. Unit mix is heavily emphasized in SC2, since there are a lot more hard counters than in Brood War. The IMBA units that I feel are the Immortals, Mothership and Roaches. Otherwise, everything is decently balanced for a beta, and that there would certainly be more buffs to Terran, and nerfs to Protoss.

Well, that's certainly a lot to consider. Since this interview is getting long, do you have any final words?
I want to thank you for taking your time and interviewing me. [RUTGERS]Clazz wants to be mentioned in this interview, so I guess he'll be in this now. Also, the Binghamton Starcraft Team will continue to play good matches against other schools. If anyone is interested in NYC LANs, you should definitely come to one of my events that I will make on TeamLiquid, probably 2 over the summer break.

And that's all! Good luck to these two teams in divisions, and hope to see you again next week with a very special interview!