Starcraft 2 news » Grilling the PiG: IEM Katowice
With the WCS StarCraft 2 Winter Championship rapidly approaching, we sat down with Jared "PiG" Krensel who recently qualified as the ANZ WCS seed to ask him a few questions.
First tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you and what has your career in StarCraft been like?
I go by the alias PiG and I’m a professional Zerg player. For the last five years StarCraft has been at the center of my life. I first started competing internationally in 2011 and since then have had the chance to live and train in team houses in Korea and Switzerland as well as compete at many events all over the world. Last year I also started commentating a lot of WCS and IEM events and was really excited to see the events I'd played at from a different point of view.
This is not the first time that you have qualified for a higher stage of StarCraft. You made it to the Round of 16 in Season 1 of WCS 2015. How do you feel about your chances for this championship in Katowice?
Whilst I'm returning to having more of a focus on competing this year, I'm still doing a lot of things like streaming and commentating events. I know that in January my form was pretty bad and I set a goal to steadily get back to being the best Australian/SEA player by Season 2. So qualifying here for the first championship was actually a big surprise. I don't really think I'm consistent enough to be favoured vs many qualified players so I think the chances of me making it far are pretty slim. That being said, if I get a good draw and can get in my groove and just play the fun styles that I want to then anything could happen!
What do you think changed between your results at the end of last year and your dominant performance in the recent ANZ WCS finals?
Being a progamer is one of the hardest and most demanding things there is and realistically, at the end of last year, I wasn't giving it enough attention as I focused on other areas of my career. Now that there are so many opportunities, I've been motivated to put more back into my competitive practice. A big thing that helped me improve was dropping all other multiplayer games so I could focus all my competitive drive and mental energy on StarCraft. After I stream each day I practice a few more hours in a more serious mindset, watch replays and then study pretty much every Zerg VoD from the Korean leagues. I can tell when I'm focused and in a good competitive mindset because all I think about is StarCraft—whether I'm in the shower, falling asleep, or going for a jog. I've pretty much been playing or watching StarCraft for 12+ hours every day for a few weeks and it showed in the qualifiers.
The problem is I know I can't really keep it up in the long run as I only have so much energy and spending too much time on practice whilst balancing other responsibilities can have a negative effect. I'm thinking I may need to lay off a lot of my coaching hours if I want to keep putting so much energy into my practice so I don't burn out.
The Round of 16 was an especially strong showing given your results against all three match ups. What match up do you feel most comfortable with at the moment and why?
Legacy changes so fast that it's really hard to say. I think I have the best range of play in ZvT but lately I've let my momentum get swept away from me too often in the matchup. ZvP I feel like I'm steadily getting more solid—there are still certain playstyles that I fumble vs, but I'm getting there. At the moment I feel like ZvZ completely depends on who I'm playing and how well we both understand each other on the day.
Legacy of the Void only came out last November. What are your impressions of the expansion of the game thus far and its impacts on your own play?
It's really good. I'm not great at just sitting there and defending in StarCraft. I like to play by feel and use tactics and movement to win the game. There's a lot more of that with the increased rate of expansion in Legacy so it's been a much improved experience. It's also way easier to watch StarCraft now with the diminished downtime in the early game, so it's definitely helped re-invigorate my passion for the game.
What is your favourite LotV unit currently and why? Which unit in LotV do you think has had the biggest impact on play?
Probably the Lurker. It's really nice to have a ranged AoE damage unit now. Also the ability to toggle off its attack and then activate it at the prime time can create some awesome moments.
You've been commentating more and more such as IEM Taipei last month. Has this impacted on the way you play now as well?
Studying VoDs for commentary prep is actually pretty good for helping my understanding of the game as I really need to understand what I'm watching. Generally, it is less energy spent playing though, especially with travel. So I wouldn't say it's a net gain for my play. Nonetheless it's something I've always wanted to do since I first got into StarCraft and, as a player, I always relished the opportunity to guest-commentate at events. I'll definitely keep commentating whenever the opportunity arises.
You mentioned that you would like to hold some kind of BYOC LAN/HomeStory cup style event at your new house. Could you elaborate on what you want to do here?
Well at this point I don't know many of the details. I just know I really want to do it - and a lot of people in the Sydney community have responded with excitement to the idea so I'm going to make it happen. Basically it'd aim to be a miniature imitation of HomeStory cup. The focus isn't on the highest level games, it's more about community gathering and just sharing passion for the game. And if we can reward some of the best Sydney players with some cash, and everyone else with beer, then it should be a win-win!
You can catch PiG’s stream over on Twitch.
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