Interview with CLG.NA Chauster about Regionals matchups and strategies

I had the opportunity to have a chat with CLG.NA's support player, Steve 'Chauster' Chau. He is one of the worlds most famous theorycrafters and one of the most outspoken players in the competitive scene. He has been with CLG.NA throughout his professional LoL career playing many roles for the team. 

 

NA Regionals were last week. Coming into the event, what were your expectations?

Chauster: I expected to finish top 3. I was feeling pretty confident coming into the tournament because I feel like the North American scene is among the weakest in the competitive scene right now and we had improved a good amount.

 

How did it compare to past events such as MLG and IPL?

Chauster: The venue was pretty amazing. The design and the ambience made it feel like it was a huge event, which for League of Legends players it was. Riot also treated all the players well and provided a night of fun at the arcade so we were all taken care of.

 

You beat Legion in your first round 2-1 pulling out a mass TP strategy in games 1 and 2. What was the reasoning behind this?

Chauster: Most people think it is stupid to show your strategies in the first round of the tournament. However, since the NA regionals were single elimination we could not afford to lose in the first round, so we used our strategy we crafted in Korea. The strategy is pretty simple and revolves around split pushing. After laning phase the team with the teleports just have to group up and push 1 or 2 lanes while the promote minion secretly pushes another lane.

This produces pressure on all 3 lanes. Teams will have to send at least one person to each lane to deal with the threat or lose free objectives. They will have to respond, and when that happens, my team can at any point collapse on one single point (a tower or Baron) and force an objective. You rinse and repeat this over and over and eventually you just win the game from securing free objectives

 

Coming into the games vs Team Dignitas, were you confident in a win? How did you think the games were going to play out?

Chauster: I was not confident because historically my team has a problem playing against Dignitas. Their playstyle somewhat counters ours and as a result we have a tougher time facing them. I thought the series was going to be close and go 2-1 to either team.

 

After losing 2-0 to Dignitas, what was going through your mind after that 76 minute game?

Chauster: I didn't really think about too many things other than the fact that if we lost the game versus Curse the next day we would be in deep shit. I know that if Dignitas played the game correctly, we would have had no chance to come back into the game. However, Dignitas threw the game and let us get a baron and gave us complete control of the game. However, we tossed the game back into the hands of Dignitas with horrible decision making and ultimately did not deserve to win.

 

What went wrong in those matches?

Chauster: The first game every lane did well except top lane, and it snowballed very hard. Originally we picked Vladmir to outscale Irelia and it is pretty much an impossibility to lose lane with jungle Shen pressure. Voyboy managed to lose lane with this and we did not have an exhaust to deal with the fed Irelia. This made team fights very hard even though we outcomped them so heavily and we just lost the game.

Second game they caught us off guard with their poke comp and we did not have a hard initiate. As a result they played it out well in the beginning but ended up giving us a chance to win the game. The biggest mistake I remember is Doublelift getting too greedy and dying in Dignitas' base when the inhibitors were up. We could have taken 2 inhibitors and snowballed the game to the end but we failed when he died randomly.

 

How did you feel knowing you would be facing Curse in the third place match with so much history between them and yourselves?

Chauster: I felt pretty confident because we know how Saint plays and we know that our team does very well against Curse's set of players. We were given enough information from the previous rounds of the tournament to also not run into anything unexpected so we were able to predict and prepare for most outcomes.

 

After winning against Curse 2-0 to secure your spot in the S2 final next month, what emotions were you going through?

Chauster: I was relieved that we did not have to go home losers. CLG has been losing popularity in recent months because of our stint in Korea and a loss at Regionals would have sealed our fate as a mediocre team that has fallen from grace. Now we are still known as one of the top teams in NA and have another chance to redeem ourselves.

 

If you could go back and give yourself/teammates advise coming into the regionals, what would it be?

Chauster: Suck your pride up and only play champions you know you can play. Don't waste time playing things outside of your comfort zone, chances are you will never be good enough doing it anyways.

 

You are now going to live in a gaming house with CLG.NA and CLG.EU to prepare for the S2 finals, will you be exclusivly scrimming each other, or do you plan to scrim other teams too?

Chauster: We plan on scrimming other teams too. Scrimming exclusively against one team has a lot of downsides.

 

Can we expect more crazy strategies being prepared in this time?

Chauster: Perhaps. We will see come S2 Finals.

 

What are your predictions for the S2 Finals?

Chauster: I don't really have many predictions because there are too many teams and any team can beat another team on any given day at the finals.

What’s the future like for CLG.NA after S2 finals are done with?

Chauster: After S2 finals are done with we will have to sit down and talk about our plans for S3. We need to solidify our roster and recruit subs in case any of us can't make events or starts underperforming. I am sure everyone will go home after S2 finals are done also for a small vacation.

 

Any shoutouts?

Chauster: Shoutout to CLG sponsors Razer, own3d, and XMG. You can follow me at my non-twitter at facebook/LoLChauster or come into my channel on IRC @ #chauster. Also ♥ Maggie