More interviews, more coverage - welcome to playoffs. Read this week what UMich has to say!

Introduce yourselves (as in, the team)!

Nubster: Hello, my name is Tianyi Liu aka [UM]nubster, I am a zerg player who just got to C today ^_^ and I'm the brains behind the team. I am a sophomore studying Computer science.
Funnytoss: I’m Steven Chen aka Funnytoss. I’m a C- Protoss player, graduating this year with degrees in Political Science and Chinese Studies.

Our active team size varies, generally affected by school. We first joined the CSL+ last season with about 5-6 D+ players and a couple of D players, and really we just wanted to do it for fun. We had a fairly tough division and didn’t make it into the playoffs, but it was a great experience and there was absolutely no question at all about us doing this season as well. We have some more “core” members in that they’re a lot more involved, players that don’t play in the matches but show up to obs and cheer us on, and those that are like “oh, next time”. There’s an interesting mix of TL veterans and those who are pretty new to the game or coming back after a long time off. It’s been cool having people like Hot_Bid and AcrossFiveJulys on the team, who have been around in the StarCraft world for a relatively long time compared to a lot of us, and overall just having other people to talk to StarCraft about is really nice.

There’s really not enough space to talk about everyone here… some people just show up and play, some people are more “memorable” for various reasons. Matt Schwag for example is our resident Terran rager when he gets cheesed, which is always amusing to see. Then there’s Hot_Bid who always talks about how terrible he is but realistically he’s one of the better guys on the team. Then there’s Kevin Schalte (BajaBlood) who’s pretty gifted at video games but doesn’t use hotkeys. He gets away with it because he’s Toss, I guess. Also special shoutout to Kevin Kozlowski (Mollusk) – last season he played more games on iCCup than the rest of us combined, and his hard work really paid off with a win this season.

What about the team - what's the team atmosphere like? How often do you practice; do you get together or play separately? Is there a student organization dedicated to SC at your school?

Funnytoss: The team atmosphere is pretty relaxed for the most part, but people like to get together and practice for CSL matches even though we’re all pretty busy. We don’t have a set practice time or regime and so mostly it’s just people messaging each other via IM. Some of us play from our apartments other times a few of us will get together at a computer lab and play there, which is always pretty interesting since we’re surrounded by students studying all the time (MICHIGAN DIFFERENCE) and seeing some kids just playing StarCraft and not giving a crap about school for a couple of hours is always pretty cool. We’re not officially a club. Maybe next year, haha. It would be a lot more convenient since we’d be able to reserve rooms and what not instead of running around the computer lab looking for an empty spot, which gets pretty hard during midterm season.

Nubster: I also want to add that sometimes we like to get together in person to play if a lot of people happen to be free or something (during long holidays or something). It's definitely cool meeting all of our players in person. Also, for fun we sometimes like to do 1v1 team melee with like 3 people on each side or play each other as offraces, which is fun when we get bored of practicing for our matches.

Funnytoss: Sadly, only Hot_Bid seems to be halfway decent at Team Melee. The rest of us seem to play even worse than we normally do :p

Congratulations on making playoffs! How do you feel? You ended the season with a perfect 8:0 record in your division.

Nubster: We had a disappointing 2-4 record last season, but a lot of things changed this season. I think this improvement was due to some combination of: our better players (Hot_Bid and AFJ) being more available to play, our regular players becoming more solid, our entire team improving as a whole, and being in a relatively weaker division (i.e. not having to face UWaterloo or UToronto lol). We definitely cruised through our division with our C- level team. We had some new players join relatively late in the season, and some of them hadn’t played for awhile, and it was cool to see them getting back into it.

I had a strong feeling we would be making the playoffs after watching the replays from week 1, especially since the top 3 teams make the playoffs as opposed to top 2 from last season. I definitely didn't expect to end up 8-0, especially with the presence of teams with strong players like MSU and OSU. I also like how we won each match either 3-0 or 3-1. That way we never had to reveal who our best players are.

A lot of strategical planning also goes into each match. Basically, we would analyze our opponents and would try to figure out who they would send on each match, which worked well at some times, but has also completely backfired at others. I would love to share more details, but will withhold due to strategical purposes. I may be willing to share after (IF?) we get knocked out of the playoffs.

Funnytoss: In hindsight I think we may have overestimated some of our opponents, but that’s a good thing, since giving it all in preparation shows that you respect their skill. I honestly believe we had one of the best divisions in the entire league. None of the teams dropped out and everyone always showed up to play and coordinators were great about adjusting times and what not.

What has been your hardest/most memorable match up to this point?

Nubster: My most memorable moment was probably the match against OSU, where Funnytoss and I decided to stream and commentate the entire match. I previously had zero experience commentating, so that was a fun experience, especially with all the technical difficulties we had with the stream and whatnot. Unfortunately, a couple of the games were pretty uneventful.

Funnytoss: I’d agree that the most memorable match was probably the one against Ohio State, for various reasons. First of all, they trounced us last season as well as on the football field so everyone was pumped up at getting some revenge, and based on iCCup rank and other results we figured they’d be the team closest in skill to us. Unfortunately that didn’t turn out to be the case, but it was certainly a humbling experience (streaming, that is). We’ve got a lot more respect for commentators and streamers now ^_^

Which of your playoff matches do you anticipate being the most difficult?

Nubster: UCSD definitely looks pretty intimidating, but I think we have a decent chance of taking them down if we play our cards right. I'd be pretty happy if we made it that far anyways.

Funnytoss: Just like in the regular season, we’re going to take every match as it comes. After analyzing replays and what not I feel like we have a good chance against UVic. Maybe not in rap battles, but definitely in StarCraft. We’re not really thinking that far ahead yet, but if we can win a playoff round I’ll be pretty happy.

Next week you face the winner of Purdue and UVic. Any words to them?

Nubster: Be prepared to get crushed ^_^ Also, I find UVic's raps pretty hilarious. lol

Funnytoss: I really wanted Purdue to advance, because we had a great time playing them in the regular season. They were well-mannered and some players stayed behind to play some matches for fun with us after it was all over so that was nice. That said, UVic’s rap videos cracked us up so good luck to you guys as well.

…

Oh, Purdue got knocked out. Well then, to UVic: WE WILL AVENGE THE BIG 10.

How has your team's CSL experience been so far? What do you like about the way CSL is run? What do you think the CSL could improve on?

Nubster: I would like to see shorter regular seasons, since with 9 weeks of division play a lot of teams easily run into problems in later weeks with finals and with playoffs, running past the end of the term. Maybe have a greater number of divisions with fewer teams per division? An alternative would be to have maybe 2 matches per week during regular season (which I think is managable)

Funnytoss: I agree that the season seemed a bit long but given that many of the teams won’t make the playoffs, the regular season is all there is and as such, the current system seems to be the best way to get everyone involved, compared to more divisions of smaller size. There were some issues this season (mainly with teams dropping out) that really hurt the experience for a lot of people, I think. West 1 was thankfully immune, but the division I was admin of lost a few teams partly due to SC2 and that was *really* disappointing. I’m not completely sure how to fix that – the requirements for the CSL (one match a week, etc.) were pretty clear from the beginning.

I’d definitely like the playoff map pool to be released earlier, because as it is right now, it’s Monday afternoon and we still have no idea what the maps are for next week. Overall though, I think the league has been very well run, and I wanna give a shoutout to Darth in particular, for basically being always available and “on call” when stuff needed to happen (which was fairly often).

With SC2 over the horizon, what are your thoughts about it and SC1? ESPORTS? Do you think CSL should run a competitive team-league once the game is released?

Nubster: Personally I would like to see two separate leagues for SC1 and SC2 when SC2 does officially come out. As a side note I've also been running into some familiar names from our division while laddering in SC2. (Proteus from Uchicago and Roffles from Northwestern).

Funnytoss: I haven’t really gotten into SC2 yet, at least from a competitive mindset. As a game by itself I think it’s already pretty polished but as a sequel to Brood War it’s definitely got a long way to go as far as balance and spectator viability is concerned. I would like to see a separate CSL league when SC2 is finally released, partly because I know that the demand is there and it’ll be great to ride upon the wave of excitement when it first comes out, hopefully broadening ESPORTS on our college campuses and what not.

That said, I would like to see the CSL continue for Brood War as well, because at this point I personally think that the original is still much more fun, and hardware-wise it’s much more accessible. That’s one of the things that made BW great for me – you could just install and use it anywhere, and share it with your friends because it was just that awesome. You didn’t need a high-end machine to do it and so arranging in-person LANs and what not was easy. The move away from the “couch party” video gaming session seems to be the trend right now, but I think the human interaction is still very important.

Any closing remarks?

Nubster: We still have a lot of tricks up our sleeves =) Y'all better watch out.

Funnytoss: What he said. Thanks to the CSL, this season has been an awesome SC experience!