Power Gaming

The latest addition to the Power Gaming team is our first Starcraft 2 player, Samuli "elfittaja" Sihvonen. Samuli is a well known Finnish Warcraft 3 player, who recently switched over to SC2. Already he has managed to score a few impressive results. In his first SC2 LAN tournament at DSRack, he managed to beat the IEM champion Mouz|MorroW in the single elimination playoffs and take a 5-8th finishing position. More recently he won the ESL Viking Cup #18, becoming the first non-Terran player to do so since the beta cups. Today he won the Dreamhack Winter Finnish qualifier tournament at Digiexpo, Helsinki. I managed to catch up with him right after the tournament and conducted a quick interview with him.

You've just returned from a victorious Dreamhack qualifier at Digiexpo, Helsinki. How does winning your first SC2 LAN tournament make you feel?

Of course I'm really happy right now. I wasn't the favourite there, so it's always nice to be able to do upsets. I'm really looking forward to Dreamhack. Haven't ever been there even though it's so close. In WC3 I tried to go there but failed to qualify :(

What were your expectations going to this tournament? You clearly are on form at the moment after winning the Viking Cup #18, but there were also some very tough opponents like Naama and Satiini attending Digiexpo.

Well, I expected to perform fine there. I think I've got the upper hand at lan against Naama and Satiini at the moment. They play a lot better online than LAN but that will surely change in the future.

You come to SC2 from Warcraft 3 like many of the top level players. Which game do you like better and what made you decide to switch over to SC2?

I liked WC3 a lot more. There you had to save all units all the time. In SC2 you can afford to lose them more freely and I also liked heroes and creeps so that you had to do something all the time. I had played WC3 for like 7 years in a row, so I was kinda tired of it and there were so many more tournaments in sc2 so the decision was pretty easy even though the game isn't as good.

You play protoss in SC2. Any specific reason you selected this race?

Well, Orc was imba in WC3 and it had the biggest hp units, so Protoss, which has also the biggest hp units seemed best for me. Protoss is definitely the best race for really lazy players like me. Couldn't even think about playing Zerg. You just have to do so much more than Protoss or Terran and I didn't really like the camp unit of Terran (tanks).

How do you see the current game balance between the three races?

Hmm, hard to say. I don't think this game is yet played at really high level like WC3 or SCBW,  the game and the balance is still under a constant change, but overall I would say Terran is the best race.

Who are your favourite players to watch and why?

Can't say any players that I like to watch really much, but mostly I like watching Protoss games.

Are there any specific players you like to practise with or do you practise by laddering?

I like to ladder more. I like it more that you get new opponent every game, though sometimes there aren't many playing, so you get the same opponent every game. And then he simply doesn't play normal any more and does a blind counter without scouting or something that kinda sucks. I always try to play normal, even though I know the opponents normal strat is a hard counter for me. Then I just have to do small changes at a time since in serious game if I play some unknown player, I will have to be able to win with my normal strat even if he does that hard counter.  About custom games... I think they can be useful but only if you are a top player and your  basics are nearly perfect. When I feel my basics are good enough, I will start playing custom games but at the moment ladder is better.

What's your favourite build right now and why?

I like to rush in WC3. I was pretty lazy and never made expansions and I like to play one base in SC2 as well.

What are your future plans for SC2? Obviously you're attending Dreamhack Winter, but if given the chance, would you like to go the other big tournaments as well. IEM, MLG or perhaps even GSL in Korea?

Only time will tell. It's hard to say at the moment what I would do but I would go to IEM and MLG. However, GSL is such a long tournament and I would have to move to Korea to attend it, so that\'s totally different from normal tournaments.

That's all the time we had today. Thanks for the interview Samuli. Congratulations again and best of luck in your future games! Hopefully we'll see many more exciting Starcraft 2 matches from you.