London, RedBull Sphere November 26th - 28th |
COVERAGE | |
INTERVIEW: dramiS, maxter, bukster, vengeur, Effortless, ZenAku, wolfpl, nosfa, RAISY, cnz, rapha, GaRpY, HELL, sib, |
Shane "rapha" Hendrixson | |||||
Twitter, Twitch, Discord | |||||
Team Liquid | |||||
BIO: Hendrixson is most well known for his strong positioning, calm disposition, and ability to foresee his opponents' course of action minutes into the future, which Hendrixson attributes to his earlier years of playing basketball, saying it helped him develop the "ability to see the play unfold before it even happens and being aware of everything around you. |
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- wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapha_(gamer) | |||||
Hello QUAD Father! Welcome to The QUAKE PUB located on the borders of the Realms serving beer, rum, tequila and slime. How are you doing? Preparations for the first LAN in two years already in full swing? |
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I'm doing alright, thanks for asking. I've slowly been ramping up my practice as we're getting closer to the LAN, was spending a bit more time reviewing than playing for a bit but now the real grind starts now that we're in the final week. |
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You mentioned in your stream that you are going to the EU prior to the event, will this be where the main portion of bootcamping and preparation take place? |
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Yea I'll be at the Team Liquid Alienware facility in EU, fully focused on preparing for the event. The biggest factor will just be putting in some extra time to try and train mental endurance for the amount of potential matches in a day for the event. |
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How tough was it to keep your composure and concentration given the events of the past two years? |
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Sometimes it's been really really tough but I just tried burying myself in the game and using it as a way to release my anger and pain into something positive and tried using it for focusing on getting the most out of my play as I could, I wanted to put on performances she would of have been proud of. |
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Even though you are overall winner of Quake Pro League and proud holder of a BELT, the last tournament ended up a little prematurely. I would like to return a bit to QuakeCon 2021 and ask you about your feelings from the tournament. Was Av3k playing out of his mind at that tournament, or you did not feel your game that day? |
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Due to circumstances out of my control I had some difficulties keeping me from playing my A+ game at all times during Qcon 2021. That's not to say that every game was like that, there's a few where everything felt great and you could really see me playing at my best. I was impressed with Av3k's shape I just wish I could have put up the fight I'm normally capable of on the final map Exile. |
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IRONFIST will bring you to a situation, where you are fighting to reclaim “your crown.” Does this feeling give you some extra motivation? Especially if this will be LAN and everybody will have an equal playing field, and there will be no warping nudgers to mess up with rockets and movement. We also have to bear in mind that you dominated the last LAN in Katowice. |
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Haha I'm not sure if I can ever repeat what I did at Katowice by going undefeated, that was the first time in my entire career that I was able to do so at a big International LAN, otherwise I've always lost a few maps here and there. It is a different feeling indeed trying to reclaim the top so to speak, just really looking forward to playing on LAN again just like everyone else. |
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Do you think that break in the Quake Pro League is what should become somehow regular within the next Seasons? It seems to me that it somehow gets the community more involved with all the high prize money tournaments and even LAN by Myztro Gaming. Not to mention, that players have some time to relax. |
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I would have been fine if QPL had started up really soon after the finals of Season 2 again but it's not all a bad thing that there's been a break. I could feel myself after those finals getting burnt out. I've been going all out at the game for almost 2 years straight with really no breaks and everything else that's happened in my life so I just tried to make the most of it and be able to step away from the game here and there and get my head in the right place before Season 3 starts and feel refreshed again. And as for the smaller tourneys, they're always welcome. Even though I typically don't play in too many things outside of QPL competition, I think it's great for it to be there. Especially for the tier 2 scene. These players need an atmosphere to play under pressure to get them prepared for it when attempting Challengers. There's such a difference in playing well in practice and trying to bring that to fruition when the pressure is on. There's no substitute for emulating it so it's important to be exposed to that as much as possible for aspiring up and comers. |
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I found your opinion about 360Hz monitors and limitations you are facing while using them real interesting. Have you heard about the same issues from other players? |
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I've heard of it from a few other players but not everyone in terms of struggling with the new light panel technology and causing headaches. Once I started using a blue light filter app it helped a lot. 360hz is honestly the closest feeling to a really good CRT monitor I've felt in a long long time. I'm glad LCD's have finally caught up, it was really rough with a few tourneys in the early days that had 60hz and 90ms response time, and that's what you had to use since that's what the tourney sponsor provided lol. |
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Haha, It took them just 10 on so years, but thanks god, we are there with display technology.
Here is the full quote: “How did you manage to improve your aim so much in QC which is required way more in this version of quake then in previous ones. What it took to fill this little gap that was existing in QL and was clearly seen by others. I didn't want it to sound mean but when for example rapha fought evil in Quakecon everyone was saying and me including that its perfect matchup because its aim vs brain and its pure pleasure to watch.” |
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I think the my aim improving is because of a few different factors. Playing so much sacrifice and 2v2 earlier on in QC really helped build up my combat skills within QC itself, and I think the biggest difference was when I switched from Razer Abyssus V2 to Zowie EC2-A at the beginning of 2018. Also over time monitor technology has gotten better, we played on mostly 240hz most of QC's lifespan. Only a few tournaments in the first year were on 144hz. And now we even have 360hz technology and the game has just kept getting smoother. So I think with a combination of all of that and me not using mouse accel has helped my aim overall compared to Quakelive. I loved mouse accel, it really helped with my movement and rocket aim. But I think the uptick in my hitscan aim has been worth dropping it. My rockets have suffered a bit but they're still at a professional level and this is probably the most balanced my aim has ever been. |
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Thank you for accepting my invitation to The QUAKE PUB, and all the best in London! Good Luck. |
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Thanks for the interview :) |