ToD interviews MaNa

It's something we haven't done before, but we're definitely interested in hearing your opinion about this feature. The interview is followed by different top players' impressions of MaNa.

Hi Grzegorz, first of all could you start by introducing yourself for those, that might not know exactly who you are.

My name is Grzegorz Komincz, 19 year old Polish protoss player currently living in Polczyn-Zdrój. Just finished school and I am about to start 1 year fulltime pro.

You recently were in Sweden playing in the Dreamhack Summer 2012 in which you lost to LiveZerg in the first groupstages, and then in the second groupstages you lost to Qxc and Protosser but still advanced with 1/2 beating merz. Did this affect your confidence at all going into the rest of the tournament and how relieved were you to make it out of this group?

I was really angry and disappointed when I lost to Protosser the last match of the groupstage. I was sure that I am already out of the tournament and I was really upset because of that. When I found out that I am still in the tournament. I tried not to think about my previous loses, but it defiently did affect my confidence a little bit.

You beat Cytoplasm later on in the bracket only to face HerO in the next match. We saw Stephano kinda taunting you on twitter, I know you guys are friends, how well did you take it?

I bet Stephano was happy when I won over hero, and that's normal. I am definetly a worse player than HerO and potentialy he had way more chances against Stephano than I did. I didn't mind Stephano taunting on me, it's just one of his specific moves to mindgame his opponent. I knew I am an underdog in this match so I didn't have any pressure playing against him.

Having to face Stephano in the next round and winning must have felt really nice. You used to lose a lot to Stephano, how did you manage to overcome your nemesis this time ?

I played really well that day and I wanted to punish him for being greedy and not agressive at the beginning. The immortal push was the perfect counter to his build and I saw him losing to that not the first time. I felt really happy when I realised that I finally won against Stephano in a big tournament.

Statistically your PvZ seem to be your worst matchup, would you agree with that? And what's your take on each of your matchups

You're right, statisticly it is, but I think my worst match up is PvsP because of lack of knowledge. I used to now have knowledge about the matchup in PvsZ but I gained it by lots of practice and talking to zerg players about it. PvsT has always been my best matchup, even since SC:BW, I really liked the matchup overall. Now, since I learned PvsZ a little bit it's time to practice PvsP, but I think it's a hard match up to learn, because there's a lot of all in builds and the lack of scouting is the biggest issue in my opinion.

After taking a couple of second places (ESWC, Assembly) you finally recently won your first major event in Sweden, how did it feel winning Dreamhack?

So far, the best gaming feeling ever. Winning such a big event like Dreamhack felt amazing and I definitely would like to repeat that on the other events too.

You won Dreamhack and then qualified for TSL in dominating fashion. Do you expect to be able to keep up playing with this shape for a long time?

No, every champion has his bad days coming, sooner or later. I think it's because the huge pressure, everyone is expecting the champion to do extremly well in the tournament and the pressure makes it difficult to play 100%. I would love to continue my streak, but I don't think it's going to happen. It might be the wrong mindset but this is true, I guess :D.

In my opinion the best non-korean players are Stephano, Naniwa, HuK as well as you, and i think a lot of people would agree with me. How do you deal with this ? Does it add anymore pressure to you or do you just focus on winning.

I would switch HuK with ThorZaIN. It definetly adds more pressure but it also gives a lot of fan support, and thats what I care the most about. All the cheers I get from the fans, all the support makes me continue to improve and having fun by playing this game.

There are only so few non-korean players who can actually compete with them, what do you think is the reason for that and what should be done in order to change this ?

Well, the reason is obvious. Practice. The koreans have their own houses and there are a lot of better players because of that, AND because of that there is a better players to train with than in the rest of the world. In order to change that, the other players would would have to practice more, all of them so we could have better practice conditions. Also, the koreans take it more seriously I suppose, there's a lot of money on the line, and they would like to take it everytime.

Can you tell me your top 3 players per race, first without Koreans and then with?

It's a hard one. Zergs: Stephano, Dimaga, and a lot of other zergs who deserve to be on the 3rd place, no specifin one. Terrans: ThorZaIN, Kas, Lucifron. Protoss: NaNiwa, Sase, Titan.

Korean zergs: DRG, Symbol, Nestea. Korean Terrans: MKP, MVP, Bomber. Korean Protoss: Squirtle, Parting, MC.

Which player do you prefer to face in a tournament and why?

There's no specific player I like to face in tournaments. I would say overall terrans, since I feel really comfortable with this match up.

MorroW just left mouz, and Protosser joined, what is your take on Protosser and how important is teamspirit in Mouz ?

I haven't followed Protosser at all, I have no opinion on him so far, I would like to make one after some time with him in the same team.  The teamspirit for mouz is really great, it hasn't been like that like one year ago, but I made some stepps and told management about the importance of teamspirit and it has changed in a good way, a lot. Everyone is cheering for the players in a tournament and we help each other whenever someone of us has a problem with something.

What does the future hold for you and what projects do you have ? I heard you might go to Korea!

Well, in the future I would like to become a better player, and to do that as You said I am planning to go to Korea. I've planned to go there with my brother. We're trying to find the best place to stay in, so far we're sure we're able to stay in the GOMTV house and if we will not find any prohouse being open for us, we will stay there. We're thinking about end of July, no strict date yet, don't want to say anything which is not true or sure yet.

Thanks for doing this interview, would you like to give any shoutouts?

Shoutouts to you ToD for a great interview, greetings to my team mousesports and our sponsors (Razer, GEIL, INTEL, MEDION, Sansibar, CardCoaches and ThorTech) for supporting me. Thanks a lot for support by my fans, keep on cheering and I will keep on Fighting! :)

The impressions

A handful of the top StarCraft II were so kind to tell us their thoughts about MaNa and what they thought about the Polish mouz player.

ToD

MaNa is one of the most talented/modest/nice player I've got to meet since playing Starcraft II, I'm really happy he recently had a lot of successes and I hope in the future he will continue to do so.

ReaL

MaNa is preety kind of personarity always smiling and joking. He is also one of the few non-Korean pros who actually tries to speak Korean, which is great!

Dragon

He has a very clean and good micro/macro, a very great foreign player. I think that he can make some impact at GSL and any other Korean SC2 league if he stays in Korea for a while.

Bly

MaNa is a very talented player, bla-bla-bla :D. Those forcefields with 2-3-4 immo push vs zerg, are deadly... brrrrrrrrr!

Adelscott

MaNa has been a top EU Protoss for a long time. Even though he was studying he stil managed to perform consistently. His young age does not stop him from being a very patient and intelligent player.

These qualities allow him to adapt to the style of his opponents, just like he did against Dimaga in Dreamhack Summer 2012 finals.

Harstem

MaNa has been of the most consistent european players over the last 2 years. Even while he was studying he performed extremely well on offline and online events.

On top of his extremely high skill level he is also one of the most respected and most liked pro-gamers in the scene. MaNa is relatively young and this serves as an inspiration for younger gamers who want to be as good as him.

DApollo

I have always seen massive talent within MaNa, he has been in the RTS scene way before SC2 came out, he was competiting with top level players since he was around 12-14 years old.

Now he is 19 years old and just about to take his first full time year in Starcraft2 playing the same quanity as every other pro. A very exciting prospect for SC2!! :)

TotalBiscuit

MaNa has been in the European scene as long as there has been a European scene. He is one of those players that has never suffered a slump, always puts out great and consistent performances and never shows any sign that he can be shaken or tilted.

His tournament performance has been exceptional with an absurd number of Top 3 finishes. Now for the scary part, he did all of that as a PART TIME player. Now he's going full time, be afraid, be very afraid.

RotterdaM

MaNa has been one of the best Protoss players for a long time. His final vs Naama feels like ages ago but everyone will remember those games, nobody expected those two to make it to the final but they did and the show was fantastic.

That definitely wasnt his only final as he made to several others, which almost impressed me, the moment you didn't count on MaNa to go superfar he would surprise everyone again and make a final once more. I also think MaNa is really superfun to watch, a true joy for every Protoss player, and above all that, he's a super nice guy. Go MaNa!

Dimaga

He is really strong player and I always respect him for his humanity and just for being good man ;)

Socke

MaNa always beats me in important events, so I hope he goes inactive or breaks his arms soon. Had MaNa not existed, I would have won like double prizemoney so far, so I'm absolutely serious here.

Kaoru

I know MaNa since he started on Starcraft 1, he was a talented kid on sc1 and on sc2 MaNa is one of most friendly guys I've met at SC2 tournaments, I'm really supportive when we talk about him.
He is always doing his best but he couldn't win any major event because of his PvZ, and that was quite frustrating for him.

During the Dreamhack he did very well  and beat some great known players, especially in PvZ.

At the moment he is the best player in mousesports. I'm really excited to see how he will devellop with a full-time year of Gaming.

NoName

MaNa is definitely one of my favorite players to watch in tournaments, he has a certain style about him and is one of the nicest people to talk to. Even when he was facing a rough patch he always took it with a smile and kept fighting and working hard.

As for for the fact that he won DreamHack, it was a call to form for him. I hope we can see him grow even more this year and play to his strengths in each tournament that he attends. Wish him the best for the future!

WhiteRa

I remember MaNa since sc1, we met several times and since he is very young, he has a big potential ahead of him. Now he's playing SC2, his timing is great, he has a very good micro and a lot of free time for practice, if he goes to Korea I think he can show good results at GSL!

MrBitter

MaNa is one of the most consistently strong foreigners in the scene. I was so proud when he won DreamHack. Everyone has known how good he is for a long time, but that kind of victory at a major LAN really legitimizes him as a player.

Couple that with the fact that he's just so damn nice - you'll literally never meet anyone that doesn't like the kid - and you've got a very special player. Someone who's talented, hard working, intelligent and kind can be a true spokesman for e-sports.

DieStar

MaNa is very talented player from Poland, he is very young so future is his if he wants to. He will be full time pro gamer this year so I think his skill will grow up so much and he will be top protoss in the world.

He can play vs every style and this is very good for him because after some games he knows how to react against oponent. After DH Summer 2012 I think he will win more offline events.

TaKe

MaNa is probably the strongest microplayer we have in Europe and he improved so much 2011 that he is without a doubt one of the best protoss players in the world.

If he can start to practice like hell since he finnished school and practice with koreans he can beat anyone anytime and i m really happy that he will play at my HomeStoryCup and I hope he can do well and beat some koreans :P He is still young and is willing to play alot to improve and can be a real champion. I am happy whenever i have the chance to meet him and have some chat with him. Make sure you always have this guy in mind!

Photos are taken from Teamliquid.net