Nerchio Before DH

Before Dreamhack Bucharest

Acer recently asked on Facebook who fans would like to see interviewed between  Artur "Acer | Nerchio" Bloch, Aleksandr ''Acer | Bly' Svusyuk and Rafal "Acer | ParanOid" Kontowicz before DreamHack Bucharest. The votes were counted and Acer | Nerchio was the most voted. Everyone is wondering about Acer | Nerchio and what his mental processes are like before DreamHack Bucharest. We caught up to Acer | Nerchio before the tournament and asked him a few questions.

How well are you expecting to do at Dreamhack Bucharest?
Lately I've been practicing more than ever but my skill level is not that satisfying or I am just expecting too much from myself. I would like to think that I can win but since it's Dreamhack, I will probably get top 8 and won't get further as every Dreamhack I attended I finished top 8. I guess it must be some curse ^^

Do you see anybody that can take you out of the tournament, meaning is there that one person you might be worried about? If so, why is that?
This tournament is not as stacked as all the others but I still think there are a lot of decent players like Acer's zergs or for example SortOf/Sage, that I had trouble playing against lately. I think I will have the biggest problem against zergs in this tournament.


You recently played NaNiwa in the HomeCraft showmatch and pretty much annihilated him, do you think he will have any kind of chance now in this DH?
Of course he will but I think NaNiwa has not on top of his shape for quite some time now, I mean he got twice into the top 8 of GSL, and that is not an easy task. Besides that he didn't do too well, probably because he has a style that works vs Koreans, which is not very surprising if we consider the time he spends in Korea, but it makes him play worse vs foreigners.

Will he have practiced to try and take his pride back from you?
Naniwa is a hard worker so he will practice very hard for sure and I respect him for that, I am not doing that good vs protoss right now so it's likely that he will be able to do that.


Your team mate Acer | Bly was part of the last Dreamhack, but now both of you are competing in Bucharest, do you hope not to have Acer | Bly in the same bracket as you?
Like probably everybody in the Starcraft2 scene, I don't really like team-kills so it would be sad if we met again but there is also Acer | ParanOid that I don't want to face and since they are likely to go far in the tournament it will be hard to dodge them.

This is also your team mate Acer | ParanOid's first time competing in a Dreamhack with you, how well do you think Paranoid will do?
I feel like not many people know Acer | ParanOid but he is a very strong zerg, I don't want to say he is lazy but sometimes he has a bad attitude towards the game and that stops him from crushing nerds left and right which he is surely capable of doing. I think he is a little bit like me though and he doesn't feel that much pressure to win. I will try to motivate him enough so he can win DH Bucharest so I am not going to stop him here and I will just take my win at WCS finals.


What do you think of the recent Stephano incident that left him out of this Dreamhack? Was it correct for EG to do what they did? Or was it too harsh?
I don't like to judge other people in public, so I am not going to say what I think about Stephano, but the decision from EG was a tough one for sure. They might be right to do so but I am not 100% sure if that was the correct decision. In the end it was only private joke between friends and even if, for me, it was in bad taste, he probably shouldn't be punished.


Your last few tweets these past 24hours have seemed very anti-protoss, why is that?
I am losing against protoss quite a lot and sometimes it feels like I did almost everything perfectly, but I am still losing games convincingly which on paper doesn't really make sense. I feel like there is too much space for protoss to control the outcome of the game with force-fields and later with vortex.

If you do win DreamHack Bucharest, will you take out Team Acer for a couple drinks for some celebration?
No, I am not really the kind of person that likes to celebrate, so if you want to drink, you have to go and party alone.

We will also be interviewing Acer | Nerchio after Dreamhack to see his reaction to what ever comes in the future.

(Photographs all courtesy of their respective owners)