How did YOLO Miracle come together? How did the idea come about, how did you recruit the players and how did you prepare for your first tournament appearance in NEL?
The team was created by me, and another player. We wanted to have a team to play with for practice, and for some kind of group to hang out with and play together. The team players most came from our friends, and some players from tournaments who had done well without teams.
问:YM战队是如何组建的?你当时为了第一届的NEL联赛做了些什么样的准备呢?
答:这个队伍是老夫和另一个人一起组建的。当时就是想组个队一起玩玩一起练练。所以队员一开始就是几个朋友,后来搞了些在比赛里打的很好但是没有队伍的人。
Where did the name come from?
We all voted for the team name, and the name YOLO Miracle came out of that. I think the name has worked out fine, and we like it very much.
问:这个队名哪儿来的呢?
答:投票的,现在看来挺好,大家都喜欢。
How does the team structure function? Do you have dedicated deckbuilders and testers?
Well we have our manager, and he gives us strict orders on what to do! Most of the time we are playing by ourselves, but sometimes we come together at my house to practice and test together.
问:这个队伍的结构是什么样呢?是你来决定谁去组建卡组谁去测试强度吗?
答:我们有个经理,一般听这人的命令行事。平时我们都各玩各的,抽空大家一起来我家练习。
You have one of the strongest player on the Chinese scene, Fuoliver, and Xiaosoul has been doing very well. Do you consider them the players who are leading the team?
Actually, I consider myself the one leading the team! I've been doing very well in tournaments and I've been playing Magic: The Gathering for fifteen years. I also have experience in the WoW TCG. I also played poker professionally until Hearthstone came out.
问:你们队伍拥有中国赛区最强选手之一的美男子,而且销魂表现也非常出色。你觉得他们是不是你们队的真大腿?
答:开玩笑,老夫才是真大腿好吗。老夫在联赛里表现酷炫而且老夫在各种卡牌游戏中身经百战,老夫打炉石之前可是职业扑克牌选手。
You went 4-0 in the group stages in NEL, but lost out in the playoffs. What happened between those two stages?
We had so many tournaments to play and were so busy at the time, and the players didn't have much time to practice together and talk to each other. That was kind of my problem because I didn't bring the team together. We thought the playoffs wouldn't be hard, but that was arrogant. We didn't understand our opponents fully.Everyone is on the same page - we can do much better.
问:你们队小组赛4-0全胜但是季后赛直接就滚粗了,这之间发生了什么事吗?
答:当时比赛比较多我们都比较忙,于是我们相互间的交流和训练都少了,没能把大家捏合在一起这锅我背了。本来我们以为季后赛也是随便打随便赢的,事实证明我们自信过头了,我们没有完全了解自己对手的实力,低估了他们。不过我们的队员都一致认为,我们可以打得更好。
After such a strong season, are you being approached with commercial opportunities and partnerships?
We are waiting for that. We were hoping to get some kind of endorsement but we haven't got any yet. One of our players left to go a team that pays, but I can't blame him for that. I myself got a deal with a team but didn't sign the contract yet - I am going to them next season.
问:你们这个赛季的战绩如此强势,有没有广告商赞助商来联系你们呢?
答:我们还真是在等赞助来着(你这老外快给我打打广告啊),我们希望能有个保障啊。有个队员这次去个能付他工资的战队,这老夫总不能怪他吧,想想我自己连个合约都没签过呢。下赛季我要搞搞这方面的事情,要专业一点。
So will YOLO Miracle come to an end when you move on?
We can still hang out, we are still friends. They are good players but they just don't have the chance. There are so many people in China trying to play and it's hard for good players to get noticed. I could name a thousand players that haven't won any tournaments but are good players...we are so much better than the WCA players. The players there are from the biggest teams, but they are not the best players. Thirteen players got invited and half of them are the best, but the other half are not but get invited because they are in a good team.
问:那么哪天如果你不玩了,YM战队也就散伙了咯?
答:这个么,我们都是朋友啊,该出来玩还是会出来玩。我们的队员打的都很好的就是机遇一般,在中国打得好 的选手很多但是想被人发现太难了。有茫茫多的人虽然没有赢得比赛但是水平都是很高的,至少我们这个队水平就完爆去某些参加WCA的选手,他们能去WCA只 是因为他们在知名战队而不是他们水平好。这次13个邀请名额,只有一半是高手,另一半只是知名战队的菜鸡。
There are lots of big brands like Vici and IEG getting involved in the Chinese Hearthstone scene right now. Is Hearthstone the new big game now, is everyone getting on the bandwagon?
I think so. I didn't expect it. I didn't really think we would have so many players right now that love it so much. In my experience, a card game wouldn't be the most popular game ever - people like playing Dota, LoL, Starcraft, something like that but people say card games are boring. But people love it! I think China has the most players. There are more than sixty teams in NEL but only the top six teams can play in the top division.
Hearthstone is not like the traditional eSports. The most important thing is that it won't be a problem if you are older, there are so many people over 30 playing Hearthstone like myself and that is a pretty old age for eSports.
问:话说现在VG啊iG啊这些国际知名电竞俱乐部都参与到了炉石圈来,这是不是可以说炉石已经是新的潮流了?
答:目测是。不过我还真是没想到来着。我没料到会有这么多人会喜欢这个游戏。以我以前的经验来说,卡牌游 戏一般不会非常热门,大家还是喜欢玩dota和LOL星际这种游戏,因为大家觉得卡牌游戏比较枯燥,不过这次大家都喜欢炉石呢。我目测一下中国应该是有最 家的,在NEL联赛里一共有60个战队,不过像我们这么屌的,只有6个。
炉石和其它电竞不太一样,年纪大点不是问题,像我这种超过30岁了打打炉石还是挺好的。
At present, it's hard for Western fans and sites to follow the Chinese Hearthstone scene due to the language barrier. Do you think integrating Western teams into the Chinese scene, like Team Liquid in NEL, is a good way of breaking down these barriers? How do you think they will do in NEL?
China has so many good players but the West doesn't really know them and can't watch their streams - streaming is really a pain for us! The internet is so bad so Chinese players can't get online to stream on Twitch. With Team Liquid joining we will definitely get more attention.
Liquid, they don't know our players, they couldn't recognise us. That's a problem for them. They can't really get research on us, but I still think they will do great.
问:由于语言不通,现在西方的玩家们很难去关注中国炉石玩家,你觉得这次像liquid战队来参加NEL联赛是改进这一点的方法吗?你能不能预测一下liquid这次战绩?
答:中国其实有很多优秀选手不过西方人都不知道而且也看不到他们直播。因为我们这儿的网太卡了,根本没法上twitch直播,不过liquid来参赛肯定是能提高我们的关注度啦。
至于liquid的战绩,他们根本不认识我们的选手,所以也区分不出。这绝对是个问题因为他们无法调查我们,不过我还是觉得他们战绩会挺好的。
China had big tournaments this year, WEC and WCA, but they were mostly promotional tournaments for the organisers' brands. Obviously those involved a lot of money there, but is the same amount of money being invested in players and teams?
They didn't spend much before, but after WEC and WCA the teams are spending more on it. Players are getting paid more as the business is growing. Players are being paid so much more than they were even three or four months ago, and that will make people want to play professionally more. YOLO Miracle still doesn't pay, and that's a problem for us! The bigger teams are paying players well, and more if they are streaming.
问:中国今年有WEC和WCA这2个大型比赛,不过主要还是靠主办方的名气。毫无疑问他们是投了很多钱了,不过是不是也有很多钱会投资给选手和战队呢?
答:以前不多,不过在这2个大赛之后,战队的开销都大了,选手们拿到的钱也多了,相比之前甚至达到了一个月顶三四个月的效果,这直接会让大家想把这当做职业来做。不过我们的战队还是没钱,这个问题很严重啊!那些大战队都会给选手不少钱,而且如果选手开直播的话还能拿更多。
In Europe and America there are online events almost every week, and offline events almost once a month. How big is the tournament scene in China right now?
The problem in China is quite complicated. There are so many people and companies wanting to organise events, and we have so many players that events are just inviting the players that they like - they don't really have a system to invite the best players. The tournament scene is fine, we have big open tournaments and that's a way for new players to play in tournaments but it's so hard to win those with over 500 players. We have a lot of websites trying to do tournaments, and they always have hundreds of players as well. We also have ECL as well as NEL running seasons with smaller player pools.
I thinkLiBowas one of the worst Chinese players at WCA, he's not even close to one of the best. Some of the others are really good though! I didn't play in the Blizzcon qualifiers, only 32 players were invited and to get invited you had to get right at the top of the ladder and people were cheating to get to get to the top of ladder. We had about thirty people banned for cheating on ladder. I didn't even bother trying.
问:在美帝和欧洲,每周都有线上赛,每月都有线下赛。中国呢?
答:中国比较复杂啊。很多公司办比赛只想邀请他们想看到的人来参赛,而不是邀请打得最好的人来参赛。
比赛环境其实还可以,我们有个大型的公开赛,不过要从500个选手中赢得最后的胜利还是很难的(我就赢了2次!),有些网站也在努力办些比赛,也有不少人打的。我们还有ECL的比赛,不过参加的人比较少。
我觉得这次WCA邀请的李博就是个菜鸡,他根本达不到邀请资格好吗(我这是给李博攒人品你们根本不懂),当然其他一些选手水平还是不错的(其他选手的人品已被败光)!这次暴雪嘉年华的资格赛我也没参加,因为只有32个名额,想要获得这个名额就要在脏梯刷个好名次出来,他们互相对刷,结果有30个人被禁赛了吧,老子完全不屑于和他们同流合污好吗。
What's the weirdest thing you've seen Chinese players try and make work in tournaments?
Well, the open Golden Hearthstone tournaments are played under different rules. You bring one deck, and can change your deck between games in a BO3 - so obviously that leads to a lot of weird changes! After the first game you can see decks completely change. I used to play Goldshire Footman in the first tournaments, back when we didn't have Naxx cards, and it helped against faster decks.
问:能不能谈谈你在比赛中遇到过最奇特的事情啊?
答:嗯,那个黄金公开赛。规则比较特别,你选择一 个职业打bo3,每打一局都能调整卡组,所以每打完一局,都会发生很多奇妙的调整。经常你会发现第一局和第二局用的卡组完全不一样。我打这个比赛的时候还 用过一次年轻的弗丁,那时Naxx新开还没出,年轻的弗丁防快攻也是一把好手呢。
对于本次采访,董大师的回应:
这是嘉年华以前的采访,他当时说要嘉年华前放出,结果他放出来晚了。。。 还有让我点评中国的四位参赛选手。。。我的点评情况基本和他们最终排名差不多,我能算预言家吗? 至于。。。。那个。。。。就是个人看法,不代表客观情况,因为我的看法可以是片面的,也可以是主观的,但是是的,是我的看法。