This Friday we roll into the AWC EU Summer cup #6, the last online WoW Arena tournament on the #roadtoblizzcon before the Wildcard team hopefully lands in the top 4 and heads off to the Summer Finals. It’s certainly been a rocky road with a lot of unexpected potholes in the shape of a Rogue Mage Druid. We’ve met our match, and we’ve formulated a way to try and overcome it. Based on last week’s performance… I think we’re getting close. The games this Friday are important as we aim for the top 3, a difficult feat knowing what lies ahead of us in the now predictable meta team compositions we’ll be faced with. But- We’re optimistic.
This week I took some time to sit down with our World of Warcraft Arena team to chat about AWC, life as a professional WoW player, and generally just pick the guys’ brains. We turned to sources like Twitter and Twitch to gather some questions, too. But… Let’s just say some of you are nuts and I just could not ask the absurd questions you had.
Check out the interview below and see if your question made the cut!
So first off we tried to get questions from Twitter- Did you guys know the WoW community were trolls?
Blizo: Yes.
What got you into playing WoW competitively?
Blizo: Well I’m kind of the competitive type so I always wanted to compete in some game professionally and since I spent most of my time playing WoW it eventually worked out.
Maro: Just happened kind of randomly. I was asked in 2017 by a good friend and just kept competing since then.
Zeepeye: Just for fun! I get to travel and play with friends.
Loony: Yeah, same!
How did you all meet up and decide to do this professionally?
Maro: The WoW competitive community is very small, so all the pro players basically know each other.
What team is your biggest rival? Why?
Blizo: Method Black. They are better players than anyone else right now and put up the biggest fight.
How did everyone get their WoW names?
Maro: It’s my real name.
Loony: I had a 60 gnome mage called loony, and my account name was loony, so I just stuck with it because I’m crazy.
Blizo: I used to love the ability called blizzard from arch-mage in Warcraft 3 and from that somehow I made it to Blizo.
Zeepeye: Random name generator.
Name generator! Really?
Zeepeye: Yes! It was ‘SheepEye’ but I just changed s with z and removed the h to get ‘Zeepeye’.
How long have you been playing WoW? and was it always PVP?
Zeepeye: I’ve been playing for 10 years, and played pvp 6 years.
Maro: Since 2008, but played casually for a few years and started PVPing during Mists of Pandaria in rated battlegrounds.
Blizo: I’ve been playing for 11 years.
Loony: I’ve been playing since 2006 and started pvping season 3 in TBC.
Why did the team decide to bring Maro in this season?
Zeepeye: We decided to bring Maro in because warlocks are always bad and mages are god tier so taking a mage was a no brainier.
Blizo: Yeah, pretty much what Zeepeye said.
I’m sure we can all assume it was going to be brought up. How does most teams running Rogue, Mage, Druid (RMD) in the current meta make you feel?
Loony: It’s… demotivating. It’s not just because its ”rogue mage”, It’s more because of the fact it’s nearly if not just completely unwinnable if the RMD team plays well. Normally every comp has counters and can lose to those counters, but in this meta RMD can’t unless they play badly or just have a rough day. Rogue mage was good for the entirety of Legion expansion but I never was demotivated to play against it because I knew there were comps that beat it! That’s why people complain about it now.
Maro: Yeah, also in the past rogue mage used to play aggressive and win fast, currently RMD wins by doing nothing other than waiting for dampening which makes you lose in an even more depressing and demotivating way.
What team composition requires the most skill to play and why?
Loony: Right now I’d say Turbo Arms enhance shaman + any healer because it’s very hard to land kills and to survive into most comps like rogue mage.
Blizo: I’m with loony on this one, I’m a big fan of turbo!
Zeepeye: In my option thunder is the biggest skill, to be honest.
Blizo: Yeah, or thunder-cleave.
If Loony were to be unable to heal, which one of you would be named the healer for the day?
Maro: Probably Zeepeye- He used to play resto shaman.
If you could nerf one class which one would you pick and why?
Blizo: Definitely mage! It has the best cc in the game, best suitability and really high damage Mages used to be really squishy but now they are tanky and if they don’t want to die they just kind of…. Don’t die, especially vs melee.
If you’re not PVPing what else do you enjoy in or about WoW?
Loony: Pet battles are fun.
Maro: Yeah, Pet Battles and Mythic +!
Blizo: I like Mythic+, too.
Zeepeye: The logging out screen and watching my gold.
What other games do you enjoy playing?
Loony: I was always a fan of Blizzard games, especially Diablo! Diablo 3 wasn’t very good so I’m just stuck to WoW. The newer games aren’t my style, either. They feel like games for grannies; Like Hearthstone and Overwatch…
Maro: I don’t really play that many other games anymore except CS:GO. I used to play all kinds of random games but I’m just kinda stuck with these two now.
Blizo: I enjoy CS:GO, Battalion, PUBG, and Dead By Daylight.
Zeepeye: I just play WoW, CS:GO, and improving my Tinder game.
What advice would you give to an aspiring WoW Arena pro?
Maro: Just play as much as possible! I think that’s the best advice to give for any game/sport.
Blizo: I’d say maybe record your own games and then re-watch to see mistakes. That’s super helpful!
Maro: Obviously watching pro players is helpful, too. Try harder to improve and you gain more out of the time you spend practicing.
Zeepeye: Buy coaching from Loony.
What did your family and friends think when you told them you were going to pursue WoW Professionally?
Loony: They were supportive!
Blizo: Same!
Maro: Same here, mostly supportive.
Zeepeye: Yeah, they were all supportive.
What’s the strangest thing that has ever happened during a competition?
Zeepeye: My healer lost his arm!
Maro: Yeah… Well he broke it.
Loony: I had to amputate it.
Blizo: That’s why we’re not doing as good as we did last season. Loony plays with one arm.
Who would win in a MMA fight between you 4?
Zeepeye: Me. Was klba now it’s over for klba.
Loony: When I had 2 arms it would easily be me. I’d kill everyone in my team, 1v3, same time. But now I only have one arm, so I can’t win anyone.
All of you are on a boat and it starts to sink. Who takes command? Who is the pessimist? Who is the optimist? And who drowns?
Blizo: Zeepeye drowns, Maro is the pessimist, I’m the optimist, and Loony prob takes command?
Maro: Wrong! Zeepeye drowns, I take command, Loony is pessimist, blizo is the optimist. Easiest choices of my life.
Blizo: Yeah… I was thinking about that too.
Maro: Loony always cries. Don’t have to talk about the Zeepeye one…
So we did get a few decent, non-trolly questions for you. Here they are!
@WCMatt2 on Twitter
If Girls found out Loony was the healer would that impact his swag?
Zeepeye: No, but if they found out that hes gay they would.
@Adams0960 on Twitter
In World of Warcraft what has been your greatest challenge or achievement?
Maro: Greatest challenge is doing world quests every day. Greatest achievement is probably qualifying for Blizzcon last year and getting 5th place!
Blizo: Greatest achievement would be 1st place 2017 EU Regionals.
Zeepeye: GCD champion 110!
StressXCookies on Twitch
Favorite non-conventional team comp and why?
Maro: I’d say elemental shaman balance druid mist weaver monk. Feels very safe to play, even though it’s not that good at the moment.
G3miniChick on Twitch
What arena class compositions (other than RMD) have you come up against that you dread?
Maro: Mage lock druid! It’s always really long games and always very, very annoying.
So… I got some interesting answers to say the least. I’d like to note that Loony does, in fact, still have two arms. While he did break an arm in a freak arm wrestling accident (Yeah, that sentence is real) he’s doing much better now- The team just has a really good sense of humor about the situation!
You can tune in to watch the Wildcard boys play in the EU Summer Cup #6 tomorrow at 1:00PM EDT right here on our website by visiting https://wildcard.gg/wowarena/. If you haven’t already snagged your own #stackthedeck Twitch emote you should hop on over to our Twitch and pick it up- And while you’re at it, show our Stream Team some love! You can check them out here https://wildcard.gg/influencers/.
