Welcome to Thunderdome CSL Finals. It's been a long journey this season, but at last we have the best of the West and the beast of the East facing off this Sunday! Read what each team's coordinators have to say after the jump.

Interview with UCSD's coordinator, Duran Parsi

Welcome back to the finals. This season has been all over the place across the divisions, but it seems that UCSD has been holding it down. To what do you owe your remarkable success?

• I’m just an awesome leader! Well seriously, our team is very good and I think we have a pretty good level of dedication. Losing in the finals last season hurt, and one of our most important players, randomko_Orean’s mother passed away and he has quit BW as a result, so we’re also playing for him, and all those factors have come together to put us back in the finals.

You knocked out two longtime rivals, UC Irvine and UC Berkeley, in your playoffs run.

• It was especially nice beating Berkeley, just because last year in the UCPL they had beat us, so it was like revenge, although I lost my match in the playoffs. UCI was a really exciting match, as it always is when playing them. I’m kinda sad we didn’t get to face UCI’s top lineup, two of their 4 best players were basically MIA the whole season, so it would have been a much more thrilling match – I still feel good though.

How was your match against the University of Michigan? Did you expect it to be as close as it was?

• That was honestly the most exciting CSL match I have ever seen or played in – it was crazy. I didn’t expect them to come this far, they didn’t even make the playoffs last season and here they were in the West finals. They have some really strong players, and they were even better than I thought. We started off 1-2, with Jaeyun winning his game and then Andrew and Cheese dropping matches (Cheese choked big time). My match was the biggest I’ve ever played in SC, just because of the amount of pressure, since if I lost we would have been eliminated.

  My match was crazy, it was 30 minutes of going back and forth and I was literally centimeters away from losing, Kim (my opponent) BARELY missed an EMP that would have nullified 4 of my arbiters, but they were saved and I used them to stasis his entire army and turn the tide, and won the match. Really GG’s (check my on-demand for the broadcast: livestream.com/xeris)

I'm glad to see that this season we have far more diversity in the finals, though I suppose I can attribute that to Duke fielding a few Terrans. What are your expectations in this series?

• I’m really scared actually. I spent almost 2 hours trying to predict their draw, and I was right for sets 1 and 2… but 3-6 I was totally wrong. We were REALLY trying to get myself a PvT (success, since every CSL loss I’ve had is vs Zerg) and avoid getting Jaeyun vs Nony (which happened). I really thought they’d use a Terran on Tornado… so I put Jaeyun there, and I thought Nony would go on FS or Outsider. Also didn’t think Frozen would go on Match Point.

  The draw is really tough for us, and I think I have the best chance at winning, although even then it will be hard since Julian (my opponent) is a really strong player, better than most people I’ve played so far. But, if by some stroke of luck I manage to win my match… it will really hinge on the other players, since in all likelihood, Nony will win his game. We’re trying to win it in 5 or 6, if it goes to the ace we’re probably dead. Hopefully we won’t lose 1-4 like last time.

Any special comments to go to Duke?

• We won’t lose two seasons in a row. Watch out.

Which sets do your team feel most confident in? Did you have an underlying strategy in creating your lineup? Are there any specific sets that you think will be particularly exciting?

• As I mentioned earlier, this was my thought process: they were going to put Nony in one of the first four slots (to try and win 4-0 if possible), and Frozen would go on HBR as a safeguard (since he played like 5x on that map during the season). Also, they have two terrans, so I thought that either Desti, Match Point, or Tornado would be occupied by Terrans, since we have a lot of Zergs. That’s why I put myself on Desti, Jaeyun on Tornado, and Cheese on Match Point – to try and counter their Terrans. I knew Bo would be on Outsider, so I got Andrew a ZvZ, and TOP on FS was the holdover. JeeSu on HBR was meant to handle Frozen. Obiously, the draw didn’t quite work out that way – so we’ll have to adjust, although I got lucky to get my preferred MU. I need to train a lot though – hopefully I can win.

Let's talk about William Lee (Xeris_T.O.P). He's only played two matches per season, and he'll be going up against Jangsoon Park (DukeJS), who, by his 7-1 record alone, seems like quite an impressive player.

• JS is really strong from what I’ve seen, but TOP is a good player. People don’t know him very much because he hasn’t competed in the CSL too often, but he’s probably one of UCSD’s best players. We had a big LAN in January and he got top 5, beating me and Cheese in good series’ so I think he has a good shot if he practices (like most of us, he’s been gaming SC2 exclusively lately).

I remember watching in last season's finals Jaeyun's inspiring play against uW)Master, one of Waterloo's top players. This time, fate has him paired in the same matchup (ZvP) against Nony, an even more intimidating player. Any comments?

• People don’t know how good Jaeyun really is. I think Nony will underestimate him and think he’s a newb. I hope he does, because if so I think Jaeyun has a chance at winning. Obviously the odds are stacked WAY against him, but I have faith :D

How was your experience playing this season? Any thoughts on how CSL could improve or expand?

• It was awesome. This will be my last CSL game, possibly ever, and definitely my last for UCSD. So I’m going to give it everything I have and hope for the best. Also, since this is probably the last CSL game that will be Brood War – my team has a lot of motivation! I think we will switch to SC2 next year, since the retail will be released in July, giving us ample time to prepare to transition the league.

Any final words?

• DISCO, DISCO! Also, shout out to team UCSD… Andrew, Andrew, Andy, David, William. Thanks to Sheng, Eugene, Gordon, Jon, Peter, and Paul for being super awesome too and playing games with us! Big <3 to Luke we’re winning this for you!

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Interview with Duke's coordinator, Yue Jiang

Welcome to the Finals; we're all glad that you made it. Looking back on your journey, it seems like you breezed through the competition. To what do you owe your success?

• Good players, mainly. We just have solid players that can handle cheesy builds.

Princeton managed to knock you out last season in the Playoffs, but you defeated them handily 3-0 this season in the Ro16. What, if anything, changed between your first encounter and this one?

• I'm not sure. I don't think anything really changed besides the fact that we won.

Earlier in the season, Georgia Tech took the match between you two in a 3-2 series in divisions, but in the Ro8 you paid them back and knocked them out of the playoffs bracket.

• They're a great team.

I'm glad to see more diversity in the Finals matchups as compared to last season. What are your expectations in this series?

• Some fun games, hopefully. I hope all players play to the best of their abilities.

Any special comments to UCSD?

• Good luck and congrats on making it to finals.

Which sets do your team feel most confident in? Did you have an underlying strategy in creating your lineup? Are there any sets that you think will be particularly exciting?

• I'm most confident in sets with Jangsoon. In creating our lineup, I just facebook message everyone the mappool and ask which maps they want. I don't know about any particular exciting sets.

Based on my limited awareness, I know that Nony has been spending a good amount of time on SC2. How has the beta been affecting your team's practice? What are your plans for next season, especially in regards to SC2?

• We don't practice in general, so the beta doesn't affect it. The only BW games the players still play are their weekly CSL matches. If BW CSL is still alive next season (which I don't expect), then we could probably still field a team that practices to the same degree we do now (i.e., none at all). Hopefully we can field a strong SC2 CSL team.

How has your CSL experience been so far? Is there anything we could do to expand or improve CSL that you think would be interesting?

• Fun? I don't know, we haven't actually brought everyone together at all this semester; people just play from their dorm rooms. It's more like a CW to us, really.

Any final words?

• Thanks to all my players for an amazing season.