Introduction

Yesterday in the night at about 1 AM CET, right after the tournament marathon with the Zotac and SK 1v1 cup for the players, streamers and viewers ended, I was able to get a statement in IRC from the French QuakeLive player Kevin ‘Strenx’ Baeza. Player names if not mentioned completely will be stated by their nickname. A complete list of references is found at the end of the article. The following topics will be covered:

Health condition
Temper
The ping issues during the final match
What his point of view towards fans and haters are
Who is really n-steps ahead (‘av3k’, ‘cooller’, ‘cypher’, ‘rapha’)
The agitation towards him by Anton ‘cooller’ Singov
People who enjoy that bait
TDM team preparation ‘AIRKISS’
Sports
Time until the next tournament (DreamHack Winter 2011) in now less than one week

'Strenx' with some friends

Quick overview about the two mentioned tournaments:

ZOTAC QL Duel Cup #110

prizemoney for the 1st place: 100 €
participation system: open registration, check-in 1 hour before
number of participants: 99
Official tournament page: http://qlive.cups.gamesports.net/en/cup
ESReality news and community driven discussion: http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=2184222

SK Champions Trophy

prizemoney for the 1st place: 250 €
participation system: invite, qualification
number of participants: 33
Official announcement: http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/35543-SK_Champions_Trophy_for_QuakeLive_this_Sunday
Official tournament page: http://www.jeesports.com/tournament/PC/Quakelive/644/-SK-Champions-Trophy-Qualifier-by-JeeSports/home
ESReality news and community driven discussion: http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=2182566

Interview

‘Strenx’, How do you feel right now, after that long Sunday, participating and winning both Zotac and the SK cup?

I’m really happy that I managed to win those 2 cups. I had a plethora of emotions, especially during SK tournament. Actually, I was winning 2-0 against ‘sk-rapha’. Thus, all of a sudden, he had 999. It was like 6-0 then he reconnected. Albeit I had a big stack or armor, he decided that we replay the game with equal stack and a 5 frag lead. You already know that 5 frags is not so much on Hektik. I had my reason to whine, especially when I had the same situation at Kiev on T4. But as I’m really emotional, I have a hard time to show my feelings when I’m angry. So my English looked really bad. But I really think my English is fine.

Hektik is a fast paced map, as we have seen ‘rapha’ pulled a comeback. That situation could have been solved differently maybe. Honest question: How much time did you have to take a break today, to eat and drink and relax a bit?

Well I did not even eat anything, since I had to play my games. I had Zotac, then I had to play SK trophy immediately afterwards.

So basically no decent dinner since 14 CET until 0:30 CET , about nearly 11 hours?

Exactly… First time of my life.

What about the bananas you mentioned once? As far as I know they provide a good energy stack, didn’t you put them aside to eat some of them?

Nah I really ate nothing after 14:00 CET.

What about drinks? Water, tea, coffee? Or perhaps beer or even vodka?

Only water xD

At least something!

Yes but it was the first time.

Imo don’t do that too often, it’s detrimental to your health!

It was the first time and its gonna be the last time – I wanted to beat rapha. But it was a nice sunday though.

Before we go talk about the days until the DreamHack, the final vs. ‘rapha’ was exciting from a spectators pov! Like ‘rapha’ had his crowd, you had your crowd. You took the lead on Furious Heights. And it was looking good for you on Lost World. You had a slightly better stack and the better position at the top 50 HP bubble corner.

Yes I was sure to win that fight 100% and all of a sudden my ping went to 300, that’s why I missed 2 crucial rockets.

You both engaged the fight, you died, and it would have been quiet in the audience, ‘rapha’s fans would have cheered, and they probably did! You called the timeout and the ping was… that high as you mentioned.

I don’t think I have so much fans. I think I have a lot of haters. I really don’t know – I think I have 10% of haters or maybe 95% – tell me

Numbers don’t mean nothing in that case, well…

It means a lot.

To be honest, I can understand completely that situation for anyone of you. You called the timeout and you were stressed, didn’t take a break and what not. Money was on the stake and you were on the road to victory – It must have been felt ultra-stressful. And you acted totally human.

I was not stressed at all. I was upset because this situation happened when it was an important moment.

You proposed in-game to reset the map if I remember correctly. Do you think that would have been fair? And what if in the end you didn’t make a comeback and map victory, like you did?

I think, from now on, as I am not angry anymore, I think that not restarting is fair because this ping issue was not rapha’s fault. But you have to admit that I had a lot of issues, and my reaction was totally normal. People do not want to see further than this. Hektik situation, then cooller started to bait me. On Toxicity there was a situation when I should have taken the MH, but I did not somehow.

On that issue. Do you even think a lot later about certain similar major admin decisions? About the what-ifs. Especially, if you lost a match.

Im sure if I had 999 on Hektik against cooller they would recreate the same situation.

You mean, as they did on Vertical Vengeance once? (IEM 5 European Championship in Kiev Semi-Final)

Yeah. Even though I complain, they won’t take my thinking into account. I really reckon that I was right there. But as I was really angry, I couldn’t make a correct sentence. To be honest with you, I start to not like Quake anymore. I hate ESReality comments, I hate those big egos. I have an ego also, but not as much as I could even see. Most of the time I just talk for fun, but 95% of the people take it seriously. There is a big injustice even if cooller is wrong, people will always agree with him.

And if you succeed in any society, you will get similar situations.

Yes. But as you know, Quake is a game, so it’s not so important for me, if people enjoy my game. It’s something that I think is important that people enjoy someone’s game. I’m not so active as people think, I just play during Sunday. Do you think they want to mindfuck me up because I’m getting better?

Yes, I think that. Its a common technique to hinder someone better as themselves. Well, afterwards you made yourself the target of the attackers, ‘rapha’ dodged the flaming as he dodged bullets in QL. Your ping stabilized. You continued and turned the 2nd map to your favour. On Hektikagainst rapha in the 3rd map, you achieved quickly a good lead with 5-0 frags!

6-0. But admin decided to put 5.

The game was paused, because ‘rapha’ had a 999 ping. Warning of a big connection problem. And he timed out.

He would die anyways on that situation.

You were upset, that you had the map control, and after the map restart, the situation was not recreated completely, but only adding 5 frags for you in favour and keeping the timelimit to 7:17 minutes.

But still you know that on Hektik it is easy to make 5 frags…

Yes, so unfortunately ‘rapha’ made the comeback there.

…it happens.

On Toxicity it was similar, you started quick, frag after frag, railing the first two frags on each distance with perfect accuracy. Until the mid-game where you missed a MH jump.

Yes.

This situation…

It was a crucial moment, I was pissed of quake at that time. On my screen I took it, I really wanted to whine, but it was my own fault.

Did or didn’t you call a timeout? If you didn’t call one, why didn’t you do it? It’s your right?

On Toxicity? Why should I.

Aye, after that moment.

It was a QL bug – making a pause would look disrespectful. It was my fault.

In the end ‘rapha’ took the forth map and you both went into the fifth and deciding map: Aerowalk… after all that trouble before.

Yes, I was really angry about myself, so I wanted to play my best game ever on the last map.

Where there any crucial moments on that last map? I mean… ok the end score was high for you in favour, but still…?

On hub, it was one sided game for sure I hitted everything.

Overall, what can you say about ‘rapha’s gamestyle after that match, maybe the only one you will have, before meeting on LAN? Do you think he stepped up too?

I really don’t know. To be honest with you – I really don’t know

Do you think he’s still (n-number)-steps ahead?

No he is not, I really think he is not. I always thought that cypher are a few steps ahead, even ‘av3k’. Well, maybe not ‘av3k’ before, but now I really think it. ‘Rapha’… I can’t tell, really.

'strenx' thoughtful

What about ‘cooller’? Your semi-final was on the first map Aerowalk one-sided, but on the second map Lost World, it was close!

Yes, really close, but it’s always close on Last World. It’s a slow map.

The last battle on it was very risky from the spectators point of view. But you won a few seconds before the 10 minute timelimit was reached……

It was 1:1, then 2:1 in the last seconds. I had 100-190 … so =) Even if my opponent had 200-200 I’m confident that I can kill him.

‘Cooller’ baited you during the games also in the final map as spectator, when the first timeout situation happened on Last World. Even afterwards in IRC when the cup was over. (note: chatlog retrieved by ‘ischju’: http://pastebin.com/F6NM26qT).

… [00:45:39] [M5`Cooller]: one more time [00:45:50] [M5`Cooller]: and i will crush your face. …

There is a comment that I liked: “Anyone who threatens to start a fight in real life over some silly internet trashtalk is an insecure douchebag”.

How often do you receive similar threats, and do they affect you in any way?

He is the only guy who threatened me on LAN, because I’m the only guy who hurts his ego.

I will quote you:

… [01:09] fnatic\strenxi: he told me that he would crush my face on lan [01:09] fnatic\strenxi: 3 times …

Maybe 2, he is always saying the same when I pummel him, but he forgot that he did the same to me on DM6 a lot of times.

So he threatens you for fun? For me there is a difference between fooling around and threatening, despite you met each other also personally. You are definitely not his best friend or brother with whom he can talk like this.

You know, cooller is human also, he has his kid moments. He was serious when he talked (note: this time). But he raged because as I said, I hurted his ego. I can break his ego in 1 minute If i want to but i won’t. I can bring all his kid logs when he’s crying. ‘Cooller’ would not be appreciated the same. But I’m not like that.

Let’s assume this situation. He would actually lose it and go postal. Since he is like an idol of Quake 3, what consequences do you believe that would have for Quake Live and e-Sports? And… do you think that level of trash-talk is necessary at all?

No it’s not.

So, you don’t like that aggressive level of trash-talk? So you don’t know which consequences would happen? What do you think about the people, who enjoy the heat of that level?

I hate this level of trash-talk, because it is useless, and it is never good. I don’t understand how they can love that.

Me neither, it’s such a waste of time and energy.

I’m really emotional, so when someone say something bad to me I don’t like. Unfortunately, cooller started to act childish, and I did also, so it was not nice. He started to say a lot of stuff that I did not like. Some people told me that he told me bad things in Russian on stream.

I assume, that would have been some general trash-talk for the Russian audience only…

If everybody knew the Russian language, I could bet anything that cooller would not be liked as much as he is right now and this is true. This is something very true

As far as I know you and ‘cooller’ will be part of a TDM team ‘AIRKISS’ together with ‘av3k’ and ‘cypher’…

Yes.

After this event, how will you get along?

We will, no worries, when ‘cooller’ rages, he talks a lot, but he won’t make anything. We will get along, no problem. The thing is we waited him a lot to train, but he never came I even missed party for him and he never came so where is the disrespectful – him or me?

To conclude this interview, what will you do until the DreamHack event? Any special preparations? Any sort of training-schedule?

I will play a little bit tomorrow and in 2 days I stop. I will make some sets against some people to gain some confidence and that’s it. I think I’m well prepared. ‘Cooller’ will never play serious against you during a train, which I think is disrespectful. He will just analyse you. I mean, I really play my best on train, all the time. I try to.

Besides of gaming, is sports an important factor in your life?

I’m doing gym.

Like av3k and cooller, and possibly a lot more?!

‘Av3k’ yes, ‘Cypher’ yes. ‘Cooller’ no.

Do you believe you reached your pinnacle yet?

'strenx' facebook fanpage logo

No. I still can improve.

Okay. So we have here strenx, who plays and wins usually once a week the Zotac cup, who does go to gym, forgets about dinner during the heat of the tournament, who does not prefer aggressive trash-talk, and believes that he has not reached his pinnacle yet. Anything to add Kevin ‘Strenx’ Baeza?

Thank you for the interview, and I’m sorry to be emotional when something strange happens to me. But at least, I try to reply to everybody as much as I can, and I’ve never ignored any of you. It’s always a pleasure to help, never forget. Thanks to fnatic to put trust on me.

You gotta go party as soon as possible!

Nah i won’t party until DreamHack =)

Then I thank you for taking the time to do this post-tournament interview, hope that you maintain a healthy condition and wish you good luck for the upcoming next big and as usual possibly major final LAN event the Quake Live community will see – The DreamHack Winter 2011!