Winner's Interview with Miyako

September 26th, 2016

We asked Miyako a few questions after her victory in the FSL Season 1 Playoffs.

Congratulations for winning the very first season playoffs of the FSL! You went through this season undefeated in every series, went 11:0 through season mode and 3:0 in the playoffs. You also won the Real Starcraft Master Tournament. I think what most viewers would like to know right now is: How did you get so good?

We both know I'm not that good, eheh :P But as Byun once said to me, and as I myself said to Grizzly, the only way to improve is training. Some may improve faster than others, but there is no shortcut. Train your mechanics and your weaknesses. Even if the improvement seems very slow, after some time it eventually pays off.

When did you start playing Starcraft and what attracted you about the game?

I started to play StarCraft almost at the release of it, even though I was a real casual player. I was playing mostly team games with my friends.

You are known for your diversified gameplay, being able to play a lot of different tactics, being unpredictable. How long did it take you to learn all that?

It took me a very long time, because when you start to improve, it's very hard to focus on specific things to train and usually the most important one as terran is your macro/micro abilities ( by that I mean the ability to do both at the same time). Your "style" only matters when you start to really improve. So what I did was: I just trained one build for all three match-ups. Then once I was Master, I started to off-race to try learning more about the game and the other races' mechanics, that's how I ended up playing Random during HotS for the first 5 seasons.

Unfortunatly when I went back to Terran I wasn't able to reach Master's and my level was terrible, also the other players' level had raised a lot and my Terran was barely Platinum level. So I started all over again, but this time using Korean builds, trying to reproduce some stuff I had seen in the GSL and GSTL etc.

And I think, all this experience, and mostly watching other players, what they do, what they don't, even the small details, helped me to diversify my games. Also, when you reach Master's with not too many gimmicky builds, you need to update your knownledge a lot about the current metagame because it constantly changes.

So what happens in a BO5 or BO7 for example, is, that you can use a build you saw in a pro tournament. It can be a specific timing, or an all-in, or simply a specific opener that gives you some sort of advantage or leads to some special mid game army composition - but it is really important, and mostly for pro KR games, to understand why he did this specific build, because they also do a lot of map related builds, or use specific tactics to counter a game style. You can use a build that is not used in the meta to surprise your opponent or you can rely on your own mechanics because you feel confident enough and play the build that is considered as the meta at the moment.

Did anyone help you with it? Coaches, practice partners?

Byun, to name the most famous, coached me a lot during HotS, gave me replays and advice (he was even watching my stream from time to time). Sadly he doesn't have time anymore. LDLCcomHG was my first coach - very nice person and a very good teacher. Then I got coached by Zeruph and SonGG.

I'm also helped a lot by Reinca and Soulspirit at the moment. They're really talented and suggest builds and give advice.

How did you prepare for the matches throughout the season and in the playoffs? Did you prepare at all?

The first matches I trained a bit. I was worried about Koshkii mostly, but then "Legion" hit pretty hard and I kinda deserted SC2... again. Usually, as I said, I'm just watching pro games, get an idea of how to play the matchup, they try it directly on ladder.

Fun thing is: Against Koshkii I did know the build from Maru (some 1/1/1 Tank-Marine-Lib push) but I had watched Gumiho's one with an expand on the day of our match, so 10 minuntes before the game I had to learn it and try it vs the AI, and well it turned out to work pretty well actually.

What would you say, is your best and worst MU right now and why?

I think all my match-ups are bad right now, because I think my TvP works decently, but everytime I face a Protoss that is strong in a macro game, I always lose. As a Terran I can't say that TvZ is good. The matchup is poorly designed, and often one-sided. And TvT is extremly random and I dont like the current openers.

What do you do when you don't play Starcraft?

I play WoW, OSU, or I sleep.

Why did you join the FSL and how have you liked your membership so far?

Well the FSL is a gender based league. I dont think it means anything, but it's fun to play in and I also have to admit I was a bit disappointed because some of the other "top" females didn't join. I won't speculate on why they chose to not join, but they used to play in previous female tournaments, mostly when there was a cash-prize in it (at the start FSL had no cash-prize). I think, as a Master's player it is good to join, even though you expect to win, it doesn't take much time (one BO5 per week isn't a lot) and it's motivating for the other female players. I remember I was really impressed by Akane and Maddelisk back then and they inspired me a lot and I think I wouldn't have tried to improve and compete, if they hadn't played tournaments. I wanted to be as strong as them, and on the other hand being able to beat them was also a motivating goal.

Can we expect to see you again in Season 2?

I think so, I'm still wondering which race to play. I'm mostly considering playing Zerg.

How are you going to finish this glorious evening?

Drink Vodka and sleep.

Any shout-outs? Where can people find you, if they'd like to see more of you?

Well shout-outs to my friends, Green and Zeruph, even though Green is whining about everything all the time. Shout-outs to Reinca and Soulspirit for their help, and all the players on our Skype channel, including Contentgaga, even though he's a bit mean. Thanks to my team mates and my team, team-LDLC.com and all their sponsors (that probably don't sponsor the SC2 division anymore :D - but if you guys at ASUS, Intel, Cooler Master, Ballistix or SeaGate ever read this, maybe you can do something about it; Kappa). Shout-out to Judeau for organizing the FSL and OFU for supporting it. Shout-out to Byun #fslxgslchampion - let's get married.

Thank you very much for the interview and congratulations again for becoming the very first FSL Champion!