With the dust settling on another thrilling ESOC tournament and perhaps one of the most surprising results since ESOC tournaments began, it is only natural that people start to wonder about the realities of preparing for and indeed winning such an event, the future of the top players in the AOE 3 scene and also whether they will be returning for future events. In the interview after the finals Lordraphael and H20 revealed; the tactics and strategies that lead up to such a big series, the amount of practice that they put in to make sure that they are on top of their game and the way the thought each match played out. (Oh and LordRaphael revealed just weather he does use that blow-dryer to warm his hands) So on that note, here is the transcript of the interview that took place after the grand finals. If you prefer you can download the word document - see below - that contains the same information (but probably slightly easier to read).
On one final note I would just like to thank all of the players, casters and site staff that put hours of time and effort into this tournament. A thanks goes to @MCJim
for allowing me to post this and giving me advice about the best way to compile it. Oh and congratulations also to LordRaphael for winning the tournament!MCJim wrote:notification
Interview Transcript
Interjection: “Welcome Raphal… I mean Raphael! How are you feeling?”
LordRaphael: “Pretty good I would say”
WickedCossack: “Yeah no kidding!”
WickedCossack: “First of all what was your prediction going into this game, I mean most people had H20 down to win”
LordRaphael: “Actually all I wanted was to win some games”
WickedCossack: “Win some games, yeah I thinks that’s most people’s expectation”
Interjection: “I was wondering because if you remember last tournament sadly you lost 5-0”
LordRaphael: “Yeah exactly”
Interjection: “And H20 as we’ve been saying on the stream is this character that really wants to do well but actually there was some pride on the line for you as well. This was a repeat of that finals and I’m guessing you really didn’t want to go 5-0 again”
LordRaphael: “Yeah exactly that was my main goal and everything else I saw just as a benefit. I wanted to win 2 or 3 games and then I would have been happy”
LordRaphael: “So it’s even better I guess”
Interjection: “Yeah, no. Congratulations on winning!”
Interjection presses wrong button
WickedCossack: “That was a well-played series throughout and I don’t think there were any games were you had a weak point”
WickedCossack: “And so I do want to ask about game one however because we saw an incredibly long time before you and H20 managed to settle on a matchup. It was almost – I felt like it was 20 minutes of you guys dancing around so can you care to explain why that was and what happened there?”
LordRaphael: “Well last tournament I picked a matchup pretty fast and it was an Aztec mirror on Siberia I believe and I kinda felt I threw that game away just by my civ choice and so I didn’t want to repeat the same mistake”
LordRaphael: “I wanted to have good civ matchups - actually I was surprised that he agreed to play India vs Dutch because in my opinion it’s favoured for Dutch. I was actually expecting to blind pick so I can’t complain I guess”
WickedCossack: “Yeah we kinda figured out that you were on the look out to avoid certain matchups that H20 might be trying to bait you in to or things he had practiced”
LordRaphael: “Obviously the Dutch-Russia I wanted to avoid because usually you are inclined to say it’s favoured for Russia”
LordRaphael: “But he picked it so fast and was so happy to play it and I knew he had practiced on Kamchatka so, yeah”
Interjection: “I wonder if H20 could have been more sneaky about it right like switch around a few times with other civs but not actually intending to play them. Just playing the bluff game and then land on Dutch and write some unhappy comment about it”
Laughing from Wicked Cossack
Interjection: “Do you think the speed he clicked In with Dutch made you not want to take it? Or would you never have taken that matchup? Because normally Russia is a good pick vs Dutch”
LordRaphael: “It was the speed and also I knew – I mean I always saw his lobby hosting a game on Kamchatka so knew he had practiced a lot on it so it was kinda obvious to me that I shouldn’t pick this matchup”
WickedCossack: “Yeah”
LordRaphael: “Usually I would be happy to plays Russia vs Dutch”
WickedCossack: “But how did you feel about some of the other matchups? Were they good ones for you because in two you picked Germany in anticipation that H20 would go Spain but instantly he went down to Portugal”
LordRaphael: “That was unfortunate I kinda thought it’s Klondike game two but then I was really surprised it’s in fact high plains. Although I actually thought he would pick Spain nonetheless because it’s actually one of the hardest hard counters for Germany”
LordRaphael: “I was kinda unsure if I should change again so I just rolled with Germany and got crushed”
WickedCossack: “Yeah that was your one game that didn’t go quite well”
WickedCossack: “So moving onto Indonesia man I was really hyped when you picked India – Oh ok so no I want to get to the bottom of this right, you are known for waiting in the lobbies for 10-15 minutes - Raphael laughs - before and in between every game. Why is this?"
Interjection: “What are you doing in that time? What are you thinking about?”
LordRaphael: “Honestly I’m really thinking hard about my civ choice. Usually I have 2 or 3 civs I want to play with. This time I talked with Veni and Diarouga a bit about my civ choices and actually I wanted to play with India because I had practiced that quite a bit. But Diarouga said Russia into Brit is fine so yeah I just went with Russia. Because in the end my build might have given H20 too much time and it might not have worked, I don’t know”
WickedCossack: “Yeah it sounds like you kinda got a lot of practice from the community leading up to this so how much practice were you doing in the week before?”
LordRaphael: “Well I started on Thursday I mean you must know it because most of the practice games have been with you!”
Laughs
WickedCossack: “Yeah I did help out”
LordRaphael: “I definitely practiced more than last tournament and that was my goal”
WickedCossack: “Well it’s certainly paid off for you”
WickedCossack: “Do you think - Was that peak Raphael there. Was that you in pristine condition?”
Interjection: “Yeah is there more Raphal to come? Laughs Are we gonna see a stronger Raphael, are you gonna play some more tournaments?”
LordRaphael: “First of all I will take a break from Age of Empires, probably until the next tournament. Yeah I’m a bit tired of Age of Empires. I think it was close to my peak and I think I grew stronger the longer the tourney went on, so yeah”
Interjection: “Yeah you did have some close series early on”
LordRaphael: “Yeah I think they really helped me because I think I had my best series against Irishfaithful and yeah it built up over time and I’m quite happy with my shape”
Interjection: “Yeah”
LordRaphael: “Maybe I tiny bit more but overall I’m pretty on top of my shape right now”
Interjection: “I mean you’re a guy that mainly plays Vanilla civs, you did hover over India and play Aztec today but would you say that Vanilla civs are more your comfort zone and if Raphael was to come back for future tournaments would you try to pick up some of the Asian civs maybe?”
LordRaphael: “Ummm, yes yes for sure. It always feels like you’re at a disadvantage when you’re narrowed down on European civs. I tried this time with India but overall I definitely feel that I need to learn more civs”
WickedCossack: “Yeah so yeah ummm I was really disappointed that you didn’t play India I was really looking forward to that. But you did pull out the Aztecs which is normally something we don’t see from you so why did you wait until the finals to play it. Why now?”
LordRaphael: “Well on Klondike there are no European civs you can pick which are strong on it except for maybe Russia but I had already picked that one and I knew he would mirror my Aztec and mirrors are kinda easy to play in general and I knew I would go for some kind of all-in I mean I was super all in.”
WickedCossack: “Yeah haha”
Laughs
LordRaphael: “And I also knew he was kinda tilted and I was pretty happy, so that always matters a lot in a mirror”
WickedCossack: “Yeah and we also saw ottomans vs Spain and I’m sure you saw H20 vs Mongo last time. What had you kind of taken from that game? – Oh hang on I think we’re gonna add H20 and get his thoughts on the series, I think he needed some time too cool down but we’re calling him now. Hopefully he’ll pick up”
WickedCossack: “Oh hang on, hey Ryan!”
The Diktator H20 enters the chat
H20: “Hey how’s it going?”
Interjection: “Welcome mister H20, how are you feeling? You looked pretty angry after that. I noticed you were going for a treasure in the last game and both your explorers died. At the same time you saw the foundation of the blockhouse go down by the looks of it but how are you feeling?"
H20: “Yeah Idk I kinda had fell out of the series after the Aztec mirror loss. When I went in a saw that he had sent double military shipments and I like got snared by that I knew that game was over”
H20: “Idk I guess it doesn’t really favour me right now and idk if just don’t enjoy the meta. I’m surprised that I managed to beat Mongo as well, I don’t really like Russia and Otto, umm you know it’s pretty well known. Idk I felt frustrated, I saw the foundation go down, had lost both elephants and was already kind of mentally out of it so when he did exactly what I thought he would do and came into my base with 10 Streletes and 5 Cossacks I was like humm. Even if I win this game I’ll just loose to Russia or Otto later when I can get counter-picked so I just ended it respectfully”
WickedCossack: “So um – well first thanks for coming on to talk to us after losing. I know that’s kinda rough but umm we asked Raphael about the first game and I kinda want to ask you about that as well where it took – it kinda took a while for both of you to find a match up you would agree on on that one and Raphael was saying he knew you were maybe trying to get certain match ups so did you end up getting a match up that you wanted? Actually what match ups had you been practicing? What did we miss out on? I wanted to see some strategies”
H20: “Yeah I think I have a strategy that wins Dutch mirrors, but I guess it doesn’t matter now because we won’t be playing for a while but I had a cool strategy for Dutch mirrors and I had a strategy that probably gave me 50:50 in a Russian mirror and I was kinda hoping after the way I beat Mongoo Raphael kinda wouldn’t take the bait but I sat on Dutch against Russia even though I wasn’t sure I could win it –laughs- and just hope that he didn’t take the bait and he didn’t. I should have taken it all the way to blind pick and hoped that we landed on the mirror honestly”
WickedCossack: Noises
H20: “I have never really played Dutch vs India that much except one game vs Mike a long time ago”
LordRaphael: “Yeah it’s in favour of Dutch haha”
H20: “Yeah it seemed to be that way when we were able to pop the CM out and just totally stabilize after that. You had better like 80 score. Like for no reason”
Laughs
H20: “I was like ok, well this is over”
WickedCossack: “So Raphael said he was gonna take a small break. After a tournament like this it’s kinda expected as there’s a lot of stress right. You’ve played a lot. You’ve practiced a lot. But Raphael said he’s gonna come back for the next tournament. Can we expect the same form you H20?”
H20: “Err probably not. A lot of things have been ramping up in my life and even so I’ll take a break for the next a least – I usually just take a break from time to time”
Interjection: “That does seem to be what you do. You play one tournament on and one tournament off. Which is completely fair enough when you’re busy right”
H20: “This time I did double up. Idk I mean I did play well previously in the finals so it’s kinda sad but it’s good that someone was able to beat me”
Laughs
H20: “And the person to do it would be Raphael, he’s quite a strong player”
WickedCossack: “Exactly, it’s quite nice we get a bit of changing of the guard. We can’t have you winning every tournament right?”
H20: “Haha exactly”
WickedCossack: “Raphael played really really well this tournament and that was a well-deserved victory and I really enjoyed watching the first 5 games. The last game maybe not the best one but the first 5 games I thought they were really interesting and I really enjoyed casting them so thanks to you two guys for putting on a show there”
Interjection: “Yeah”
H20: “Absolutely! Always fun”
Interjection: “This was actually one of the most nerve racking grand finals I’ve casted”
WickedCossack: “Me too!”
Interjection: “I mean I’ve done a few now but it felt like clicking – when we first started introducing you and when we first began I felt really nervous. Wicked Cossack said that was. Did you guys feel nervous about it? I know you’ve both been practicing for this so how were the nerves?"
LordRaphael: “I’m always super nervous"
Laughs
Interjection: “Go ahead Ryan”
LordRaphael: “But it gets weaker over time obviously. If you win a game it helps a lot”
Interjection: “Yeah”
H20: “Winning a game helps a lot for sure”
Interjection: “That first game really does – I think a lot of people report how that first game is such a boost. I’m wondering though Raphael, people have been saying that you get cold hands. Do you really use the blow-drier - Intense laughing – I really wanted to ask”
LordRaphael: “Yes, yes”
Interjection: “And were the nerves really kicking in on the temperature of your hands in that first game? I think that is a question I would like to ask”
LordRaphael: “What please could you repeat that again?”
Interjection: “Do you think that because you were nervous in game one that didn’t help your hands?”
Laughs
LordRaphael: “No actually I turned up the heat in my room so I had warm hands. But obviously you’re nervous and your hands are shaky and I did make a few miss-clicks but overall it was fine”
LordRaphael: “The first game I win it happened a lot so I didn’t feel so bad losing the German vs Port which is almost an impossible match-up on this map so yeah”
Interjection: “Alright, thank you very much for joining us both. I think I’ve run out of questions unless Mister Cossack has anything to add”
WickedCossack: “I think that’s a good time to finish up so thanks to you both Raphael and H20 for coming on to talk to us post game. Really appreciate that”
LordRaphael: “Thank you bye”
H20: “Thank you and congratulations”
Interjection: “Congratulations”
LordRaphael: “Yeah thanks!”
Interjection: “Alright. Thank you very much for watching everybody. That was the grand finals of the ESOC Autumn championships for 2016. I think I have already said this but I wanted to say about our new Facebook page. There will be some links in the chat. But yes this tournament has been brought to you by ESO-Commnity.net. All donations received do go toward funding future prize pools and allow us to do this more often but err I think there have been some problems with the displaying of the donations I’m not sure what happened but they had been coming in thick and fast. I’m really appreciative of anybody who did drop us ant money for the future tournaments. But I think it was broken somehow so I do apologise for anyone who did not have their name appear on stream. It will all be accounted for”. There will I imagine be a summary of everything that happened today on the main page so do check us out on ESO-Commnity.net. Do bookmark our site. We host the largest Age of Empires 3 forum on the internet but I think that has been it from me and Wicked Cossack today. My name has been Interjection I have a YouTube channel and I’ll post that in the chat below and this if you missed any of it will be going up on the ESOC YouTube channel. Mister Wicked Cossack anything to add?"
WickedCossack: “Umm Thanks for watching is all I have to say. That was a really enjoyable series and it’s made more enjoyable just by the community and how many people we have watching and how many people we have interacting. I mean we have loads of Raphael/H20/ESOC lobbies hosted and it’s just nice that we can get so many people that are hyped about Age of Empires 3 still. It’s a great game so thank you all for watching”
Interjection: “Thank you very much for watching everybody. We will be back next time but the tournament is over for now and yeah I think we’ll put some bible thumps in the chat. But it was a good time and until next time – Goodbye everybody!”
With thanks to our finalists: LordRaphael and H20. Our casters: Interjection and Wicked Cossack. MCJIM for allowing to create this and lending advice and of course the Age of Empires 3 community! – Compiled by Thomasgreen6
My AoE3 
My AoE3 
