WOW ARENA CHAT ON XFIRE WITH MYM
December 5th, Online.

Prior to the chat that saw them answering our users’ questions, the players from Mym had an interview with OliT and Gerd from Xfire that introduced our guests to the WoW fans who attended this unique event

[Xfire] Chatteox: Hello and welcome everyone to the second edition of the Xfire EsportsZone. Today's guests are non other than the MYM WoW Arena squad members Akina, Macken and Prophet! These guys form one of the best WoW Arena teams in the world. They notably ranked 2nd at the European regionals last summer, which earned them one of the few spots in the World finals at Blizzcon.

Today they're here for us. We'll start with interviews at 19:00 CET and then at 19:30 CET it will be your turn to ask questions to our guests.
Enjoy!

[Xfire] OliT: So, guys. Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do.
mackzter: I'm Mackelina, Playing Paladin in MYM. WoW arena team. I am also co-guild master in the PvE guild.
MYM|Akina: My name is Alexander Andjelkovic, I play a warlock in Meet Your Makers called Akina.
Currently taking some time of my studies, but will continue with uni as soon as I can decide what to study .
MYM|Prophet: My name is Johannes, I live in Finland, been playing Wow since beta as a Tauren warrior, which I’m now playing in MyM. I'm currently a student and playing poker to get my bills and stuff paid


[Xfire] OliT: On to the next question! Ok, how long have you been playing WoW for?
mackzter: I've been playing WoW since the release pretty much, I didn't play the Beta too seriously because I wasn't really enjoying it too much. So what is it now, a bit more then 2.5 years?
MYM|Akina: I tried WoW for the first time in EU Beta, but never really got into it until retail when a server called Haomarush opened on EU.

[Xfire] OliT: You had a background as a team before MYM as well, could you tell us a bit about it?
mackzter: We have been in the same guild together for quite some time, Me and Prophet have played together for 2 years or so. And us 3 together have been playing together for hmm... a year~ A bit before the TBC release.

[Xfire] OliT: The team as it is now is a mix of Swedish and Finnish players, how do you feel about that?
MYM|Akina: Finnish people abuse the sauna too much.

[Xfire] OliT: and drink too much beer?
MYM|Akina: beer is fine
mackzter: For me its alright, obviously its easier if everyone would be from the same country because of the communication, but its alright. And yeah, like akina wrote...there has been some "can’t play now gotta go sauna".
MYM|Prophet: I've always liked to play with competitive, skilled players, so it doesn’t matter for me where the players are from.

[Xfire] OliT: Do you feel that you would want to change anything about the way the team is now?
MYM|Prophet: I'd like to have premade characters so you could play whichever class you would want
MYM|Prophet: Levelling and gearing up a character takes way too long
mackzter: Yeah, we have to learn a bit more multiple classes

[Xfire] OliT: Well, I guess we know some stuff about the team at this point. What about your best memory so far in gaming?
MYM|Akina: Has to be Hamburg, where we placed 2nd in the EU regionals.
mackzter: The travelling to Germany & USA no doubt, we all had a really good time at both places getting to meet people from other teams and everyone in your own team. That was as I said the first time we all met also.
mackzter: yeah Hamburg.

[Xfire] OliT: Hamburg, was that a big tournament?
MYM|Prophet: Hamburg was definitely the best time so far, was the first time we met each other in real life and we had a lot of fun there, also placed 2nd in the tournament
MYM|Prophet: Hamburg was 8 EU teams competing for a spot to blizzcon
MYM|Prophet: Actually, there were qualifications to make it to Europe, there were first 36 teams who could make it to the qualifiers from separate servers/battlegroups. From the 36 teams only 8 qualified to make it to Hamburg’s EU Tournament. From there the top 3 teams advanced to blizzcon


[Xfire] OliT: Before big events, how much more than usual do you practice?
MYM|Akina: Hmmm, about 17:00 - 22:00 before tournaments.

[Xfire] OliT: and otherwise?
MYM|Akina: Otherwise we play when we can, usually start at 17:00 and play for an hour or two.
MYM|Akina: It comes down to a lot of individual practice when there are no tournaments around.

[Xfire] OliT: So, that means that you went to blizzcon and got to play there, what happened there?
MYM|Prophet: We went to blizzcon and placed 5th-6th, We did good with our outdated setup but was very difficult for us to perform any better. With the amount of stamina and resilience everyone got it became harder and harder for our team to succeed against others as it become more of an outlast fight which our setup was not good for. They had also nerfed Shadowpriests and increased resilience to dots. So we lost to EG Gaming (Hukhukhukhukhuks) and Nashwan, who we earlier beat in Hamburg

[Xfire] OliT: How did you handle that "failure", if you would want to call it that?
MYM|Akina: Well, if you fall down the horse you have to climb up again eventually.
mackzter:

[Xfire] OliT: Did any of that individual practice in the game change the way you are in real life, did it make you a better person perhaps?
[Xfire] OliT: I guess that what I am getting at is how much have you changed on account of professional gaming?
mackzter: Not much I'd say, Just that I take gaming a lot more seriously and that it can happen to anyone.


[Xfire] OliT: What about WoW arena then, do you feel that it has a strong future?
MYM|Akina: Yes, a lot of people play WoW so there is potential for sure. They need to make it more spectator friendly though.

[Xfire] OliT: What recommendations would you give to someone who would want to get to the top in WoW arena?
mackzter: Find 4 other players that are as motivated as you are, and play a lot together Do your homework, spectate other teams/setups and stuff like that.
MYM|Prophet: Play a lot, do what you can to improve your gaming, ask for tips and others how your playing as you cannot always notice your own flaws.

[Xfire] OliT: What is in the future for you, as a team or as players, anything you can tell us about?
MYM|Akina: That's up to ESL and maybe Blizzard I'd say .

[Xfire] OliT: In a game like this, where users are limited on how much they can modify, the developers play a big part. How well is Blizzard handling it?
MYM|Akina: Or some other gaming league/event organizer.
mackzter: I think they are making it better and better with every patch that gets released, the game is becoming more balanced all the time. They really seem to put effort into making it an eSport friendly game, but like Akina mentioned earlier they have to make it a lot more spectator friendly. Also succeed in getting a big league like ESL/WCG to pick it up in their league.
mackzter:

[Xfire] OliT: Where do you think that you will be in ten years?
mackzter: I really have no idea, I just finished school 1 year ago and now I'm just working casually. Hopefully i'll get a job in something that I think is interesting, like Gaming. I'll take Mercy's spot in MYM, np.
MYM|Prophet: Hopefully, finished my flight school so I’d be a acrobatic/commercial pilot. Also be a professional poker player and gamer. All things I’d want to do and be successful in :]

Gerd: During arena fight there are a lot of things happening. How much voice communication is important in MyM team? Do you speak only in critical situation or you speak all the time?
mackzter: A lot of communication is always needed, its a huge part. Some people always speak like Prophet, since he is announcing the target that we are trying to kill.
MYM|Prophet: Communication is the key, you really need to know what your players are doing. Usually someone is always talking when we are in an Arena game, vent is never silent
mackzter: Otherwise you speak when there is something that’s needed to say, which is quite often
Gerd: If Blizzard will allow you create new arena map, how it should looks?
MYM|Akina: I like Blades Edge the most, so maybe something similar.
mackzter: agreed, where people can either fall down or you can throw them down with Mind Control off the bridge, something similar to that
MYM|Prophet: Blizzard really needs to make more BG's and Area maps, it’s not so difficult to do them, people are getting tired of the same old stuff in pvp. There’s too much emphasis on pve and too little in pvp. I actually talked to the main developer of pvp at blizzcon but I don’t think he really listened to what I had to say. There is so much that could be done for wow pvp that still hasn’t been done.

Gerd: In your opinion: How are the best team class setups (in 2vs2, 3vs3, 5vs5) after 2.3 patches?
MYM|Akina: 2v2: not balanced.
3v3: all about counter setups.
5v5: a lot of setups work, my favourite is probably Warrior, Paladin, Priest, Hunter, Warlock.

Gerd: To be good in PvP you have to sacrifice PvE? Or you have time/gold to rebuild and raid?
MYM|Akina: PvE messes with your head , sure you can do both. That's up to you how much time you want to spend playing basically.
MYM|Prophet: When new content is out, it’s really hard to find time to do PvP if you wanna be really hardcore in PvE. But after everything is on farm status its easy to do both PvE and PvP

Gerd: How much time do you spend on arena training weekly (approx. arenas or time in hours)? How much time did you spend when you were learning PvP on Arenas? How long you train to be on top teams? (skirmish or rating battle to train?)
MYM|Akina: Always rated battles, nobody plays skirmish.
When there's a tournament coming up we usually play 17-22 everyday.
When there are no tournaments around, we try to play as much we can but it's usually a few hours everyday 5 days a week or so.