TERA news » Interviews with the Skyring Slam 2015 Winners!

On Saturday, April 25, some of TERA's finest competitors battled their way through the first two rounds of our single elimination 3v3 tournament for a chance to win some awesome prizes. On Sunday, April 26, the remaining eight teams fought it out for a chance to be in the final four and to vie for the top prize.

In the final match, the dark horse, crowd favorite, and ranked 20th by the community in the tournament power ranking, lancer-reaper-priest combination of “Pavlov’s Dong” faced off against “Kimchi Corn Dogs” comprised of a lancer, archer, and mystic. Kimchi Corn Dogs almost took the first match from Pavlov’s by drawing first blood with a kill on Godjumpa, but a fantastic resurrection was able to bring Godjumpa (Pavlov’s reaper) back from death, eventually leading to a Pavlov victory. Kimchi Corn Dogs played a fantastic tournament, but Pavlov’s was able to win 2-0 in the Skyring Slam 2015 Grand Finals match.

Please join us in congratulating the first place team, Pavlov’s, whose victory earned each of their members 3,000 EMP, one mount of their choice, and one costume of their choice! And don't forget the amazing performance of Kimchi Corn Dogs, whose second-place showing, earned each player a costume of their choice and 1,000 EMP. And, of course, all the teams got to walk away with two Hat Trick accessory boxes, just for participating—and some great stories to tell!

Did you miss out on the epic conclusion to the Skyring Slam tournament? You can catch up on all 15 hours of the action missed or rewatch your favorites on Twitch. All our past broadcasts and highlights are available on our official Twitch channel!

After the tournament was over, we had many, many questions for the top two teams.

1. Congratulations on winning the Skyring Slam 2015! How do you guys feel?
   
   The.Dirty.Bubble: I'm swell. The feeling of sweeping a tournament 10–0 leaves a euphoric tingle down your spine.
   
   Onette: I'm happy about it, of course! There's a lot to be happy about—especially us winning when nobody thought we had a chance, or even gave us a second thought. It is a little saddening though; I know a lot of people aren't happy with us winning.
   
   Godjunpa: It feels awesome! Never knew we could have done it. I was really hyped about the tournament but at the same time, relieved that the pressure is over.
   
   Helette: I feel like the second best bench-warmer in the world. First obviously goes to Jush.
   
   
2. How long have you guys been playing TERA and how long has the team been practicing together?
   
   The.Dirty.Bubble: I've been playing TERA on and off since early release, as has Onette. We started practice boot camp a week before the tournament, with sessions ranging from 10–20 minutes.
   
   Helette: I've been playing TERA on and off for about two years. I’m still somewhat inexperienced to the 3v3 scene so Bubble and I would practice with whichever DPS wanted to come with us—most of the time it was Velvet.Hippo (now known as Red.Velvetcake) or Godjunpa. We’ve been playing together here and there for about two months.
   
   Godjunpa: I started playing TERA towards the end of the VM1 patch. As a team (Bubble, Onette, and me), we played our first 3v3 match together the night before tournament day, since we don't have the luxury of BiS gear on the real server.


3. You placed 20th in the community’s power ranking votes, but became the champion of the tournament after winning against other well-known teams. Going into the tournament, what were your expectations in terms of placement?
   
   The.Dirty.Bubble: Our expectations were “high,” right from the start. We knew that as long as we focused and did our best...we would still lose. As it turned out, our end result was completely different than what we had planned.
   
   Onette: There was nobody who could've expected we would win the tournament. I thought we would at least get into the top eight, though. I really wanted to at least get top four, since you get a costume for placing in the top four.
   
   Helette: Junpa and Bubble have good synergy when they’re “in the zone,” but I personally wasn’t expecting the team to get past the second round. I was participating for the experience.
   
   Godjunpa: In terms of placement, I didn't have any. Lose or win, we were just playing to have fun and enjoy the game.


4. Your team composition for the tournament was a bit different in the fact that there was no archer included. What was the strategy or plan behind this?
   
   Godjunpa: There wasn't much plan or strategy in our comp. We've been good friends for awhile and it just happened we played those classes.


5. For your final matches against Kimchi Corn Dog, you guys had a lancer-reaper-priest team composition. How did you come to the decision? Is there a reason you guys chose a priest healer over a mystic?
   
   The.Dirty.Bubble: Initially, we were considering running lancer/slayer for the majority of the tournament. But our slayer was unavailable. Losing him turned out to be a blessing, as we were forced to run—and succeed—with lancer/reaper for the entirety of the tournament.
   
   As for our third, we were planning on running mystic as our healer due to the strength and control that their CC abilities bring. We made the switch to priest midway through our matches. Although we faced unparalleled obstacles, our team composition choices ended up paying off.


6. Despite the first two deaths of the final match being The.Dirty.Bubble and Godjunpa, you were able to end the match quickly in victory. What was going through your mind when the first two deaths happened so quickly?

Helette: “Oh no.”

Onette: Since I was the person who reacted quickly, I can probably answer this question the best. When our Lancer died, I knew that the enemy mystic's Regress was on cooldown, so I just went for it. It just happened to work well. Then when our reaper died, and the enemy mystic's Regress was on cooldown again, as I recall. I checked my buffs for rallying, and went for the Resurrection. I made sure to tell them to pop their panaceas both times. We made a comeback from there.

Godjunpa: Nothing really. It just all happened so fast. Personally, I still don't even remember who had died first. I just remembered everyone just kept playing. I felt like the deaths had little to no impact on our gameplay/mentality.


7. Now that the tournament is over, do you have plans for the team? Any comments or shoutouts?

Helette: Not really. I feel we’d have to get ourselves to +15 and get dyads. Junpa and I have the best gear out of the five and that’s two pieces of +15 Renegade. Everyone else is struggling to make ends meet. Jush is in Controvert Chest, but at least he has a +15 Renegade weapon. Onette is in complete potato gear. Don’t even inspect her. Bubble took about 233 tries to +15 his weapon and as a result is eating scraps off the table.

Speaking of which, I’d like to thank everyone who donated to the Help The.Dirty.Bubble Get To +15 Foundation. He would still be crying himself to sleep to this day if it weren’t for you all. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with Manifest as we overcame obstacle after obstacle. Personal shout-out to Joey, Jacqui, Amy, Josh, Velvet, Axy, Golets, and Junpa (even though your head is huge).

The.Dirty.Bubble: We had plans to make a professional League of Legends team, but Jush and Junpa are just too awful (Bronze 5).

Shout-outs to the salty haters, we harvest your tears for fuel. Personal shout-outs to Finity, Manifest, and Iris.

Onette: I probably won't be getting any play time until next year, if I am still playing that is. Shout-outs to everyone who helped cheer me up after we won the tournament, since despite us winning, some people were big jerks about it. For Axy, Bella, Breadbutt, Breadbutt, Flustered, Iris, Joey, Josh, Jung, Laufie, Lulla, Magegi, Velvet, Wilson, and anyone else I may have forgotten.

Godjunpa: Shoutout to Bubble, Onette, Helette, Axylus, Velvet, Jush, Golets, Lulla, Helette, Suzamia, Hyper.Potion, Ellipseiris, the Manifest crew, the Money Team and the BOYZ for supporting us throughout the tournament! And finally, thank you to Tonka, Minea, Harmonia, Treeshark, and the rest of EME staff who made this tournament possible!

1. Congratulations on placing second in the Skyring Slam 2015! In terms of meeting your expectations, how did you do?
   
   Xilian: Thank you. As for our expectations, we were in it to win it and went in 100 percent trying to score first place. Unfortunately that didn't happen, but I believe every member played to the best of their ability.
   
   Luminously: Obviously wanted first but was not disappointed.


2. For your final matches against Pavlov’s, you guys chose lancer-archer-mystic. How effective was this team composition against the other team?
   
   Xilian: I believe it could've been effective if we focused on killing the healer first while the DPS were cc’d otherwise the priest would just get resurrections off (which is what happened).
   
   Luminously: Don't think the composition was wrong, all down to RNG crits.


3. Looking back, would you have made different decisions for the tournament—whether it be a different team composition or strategy, etc.?

Xilian: We could have run archer-lancer-priest or reaper-lancer-priest as a safer pick with Kaia's Shield and the possibility of resurrecting if one of the DPS died.

Luminously: Played priest in the final match. Kaia's Shield from a priest helps recovery a lot quicker. Maybe even reaper-archer to kill quicker.


4. Were there teams that you were expecting to face in the finals? What teams were you most concerned with or had the most difficult time against?
   
   Xilian: Everyone that was in the top of the Skyring Slam power rankings was a concern to us because every player on those teams have been consistently doing Team Queue Skyring and have continuously been high on the Skyring boards. As for who we were expecting to face in the finals, I was expecting to fight Ecks Dee Squiggly after looking at seedings and assuming we won our game against Giga Ahhhh Shiba.
   
   Luminously: Plsnogigarrino or Ecks Dee Squiggly. We played them on MT and it was always back and forth.
   
   Dark.Kaia: I was most concerned about Giga Ahhhh Shiba’s team since they were the returning champions from last year’s Skyring Slam.


5. When the first match ended in the other team’s victory—despite you guys scoring the first two kills—what was going through your mind?
   
   Xilian: It definitely sucked, but it’s a part of the game so no use crying over spilt milk. We knew that we had to stop the resurrections from going off so our plan going into the second round was to kill the healer in our combo, but we were unsuccessful since Pavlov’s played really well around that and capitalized on asserting pressure on one player and bursting them down.


6. Now that the tournament is over, any plans for the team? Any comments or shout-outs?
   
   Xilian: We’ll be doing more Champion’s Skyring and maintaining our dominance on the leaderboards on Mount Tyrannas. I encourage people that are interested in Champion's Skyring to start queuing for it and remember that no one started at the top, so don't be afraid to lose and learn. Shout-out to our guild, Good Fight, which houses a lot of talented players including Suntail (who I learned almost everything about archer from). And finally thanks to EME for hosting this event. I look forward to another one next year.
   
   P.S.: PM Haimon or Giraffee about recruitment!

Details from the Skyring Slam 2015 Finals

Match 1:

Winning Team: Pavlov’s Dong

Duration: approximately 12 minutes

First Player Defeated: The.Dirty.Bubble by Xilian

Match 2:

Winning Team: Pavlov’s Dong

Duration: approximately 3 minutes 18 seconds

First Player Defeated: Mayfair by Godjunpa