Interview with VTFuture: Life of a Pro Gamer

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Richard "VTFuture" Almand for an interview about his life as a pro gamer. In this interview we discuss everything ranging from his activities outside of Starcraft 2 to his training methods and mentality. At the end of this interview you can find his Twitter account, the team site and coaching offers. Enjoy!


Introduction

 In this interview, Richard "VTFuture" Almand joins me to talk about being a pro gamer in the Starcraft 2 scene.

Masayume: 'Good evening and welcome Richard, thank you for joining us today. How are you?'

VTFuture: 'Hey, I'm good. Thanks for having me Frank.'

Masayume: 'So Richard, could you tell us a bit about yourself? Who is the man behind the name?'

VTFuture: 'Alright. So as Frank already mentioned, my name is Richard Almand. I am 24 years old and I'm actually from Kennesaw, Georgia, in the United States. I've been playing Starcraft since 2001 and became pretty competitive in 2005. I was always considered to be kind of a top gamer in the foreign community, and I started playing Starcraft 2 since the beta. I'm also a professional gamer right now for VT Gaming and my main race is Protoss.'

Masayume: 'We can consider you to be one of the veterans that was around when it all started to get off the ground, competition wise then. What actually brought you to Starcraft 2? Was it a natural transition from Starcraft: Brood War, or did you just pick it up?'

VTFuture: 'Well, actually after Brood War I wasn't really sure if I wanted to become a pro or not in Starcraft 2. But I have always been a very competitive person but I've never really had the chance to fully pursue that progaming dream. I was a pretty good Brood War player, but I just couldn't afford to invest enough time into it to really make it work. I could take games off of the top tier players, but never really regularly, I just didn't have the time.'

'I graduated college in May 2010 just before Starcraft 2 came out. I wasn't really playing Starcraft 2 too seriously in the Beta and in the first months after release, just being casual and joining the occasional tournament here and there. It was only when I started doing coaching and that started picking up, made me kinda realize I could go fulltime into Starcraft 2, and pursue that dream. So I took that risk, quit my full-time job in November last year to pursue this dream of mine. Shortly after that I joined up with VT Gaming and that further enhanced my skill level.'

Masayume: 'That is quite a dive you took there, but it sounds awesome. Sometimes you just have to take a risk to accomplish your goals. It seems to me that the NerdBaller © dream is now reality for you.'

VTFuture: 'Haha yeah. I always told myself when I am going to do this I am going all out.'

Masayume: 'And it paid off. Awesome! So I guess now that you coach people as well, that it is another motivation for you to stay on top of things and inspire not just your students but also yourself. Does the coaching have any benefit for your gameplay and mindset?'

VTFuture: 'Well, being a coach, you know... I have to be at the top level of my game, and constantly know what's going on in the scene. So it's kind of a motivator to stay on top of my game. Students don't want to get taught by someone that doesn't know what he is talking about. So it keeps my drive up in a sense. I absolutely enjoy coaching and it's a lot of fun for me as well as the students. But yeah, it has it's benefits for sure :).'


Masayume: 'well that's great to hear. It wouldn't be healthy if you'd dislike coaching. So what do you do besides Starcraft 2? Are you secretly a master Ping Pong player? Any announcements to make here?'


VTFuture: 'I may not talk about my secret Master Ping Pong carreer I'm afraid. I acutally was an athlete back in High School and in College, and was a pretty competitive runner so. If I wouldn't be doing Starcraft 2 I would probably try to be a professional runner. And from pushing myself to get good running results I kinda got to see what it takes to be good and how hard you have to fight to climb up that ladder. So that definitely helped shape my mindset to become good at Starcraft as well. Nothing really comes easy, you gotta put the work in.


But other then that, I like to do other games in my free time together with some friends. Halo Reach being one of them, and just hang out with friends, having a good time.





Gameplay

Masayume: 'Alright, it's time to fire some questions regarding gameplay. First of all, a new patch was released just a few days ago, with some minor changes to the game. How do you think these changes will impact the balance of the game, and how is the balance in general?'


VTFuture: 'Well...I wish Blizzard would not patch as often as they've been doing so far. Kinda give the community more time to come up with answers for shifts in the metagame and certain new playstyles and builds. Right now players are often forced to rethink all their builds and matchups and sometimes even start from scratch after a patch hits live. So with that being said, some of the patches where definitely needed, like the patch with the Reaper changes. But for the rest it is just frustrating for players to have to figure out all the timings and such over and over.'


'The new patch is kinda interesting, I have been messing around with archons a lot lately. The changes definitely make it a more interesting unit to use with the new range, being unslowable and such, so I am definitely gonna try to fit them in more in every matchup. I don't think the sentry change is a big deal. I wasn't really having problems with 4gate anyways, but you know, every second counts so I guess it can come in handy every now and then in the early game.'


Masayume: 'And what about the very top tier play, since it really tends to come down to these thin timings in the top tier matches. Will it potentially open up timing holes where players can just strike you down in that small new timing window?'


VTFuture: 'Absolutely. For example, even if the warpgate nerf seems very minor, it really changes a lot of builds and timings for me. I used to be able to hold my ground against Terran pressure when doing a 1gate into expansion build. But now that is suddenly extremely hard to hold off if you are fighting a good player.


So yeah it does kinda throw your timings off, and once smart players figure out these new timing windows it can definitely change things up a bit and get everyone to adapt their play again. Especially since players have already been experimenting a great deal lately, I can only imagine what ladder looks like right now with the new patch.'


Masayume: 'So true. What kind of playstyle do you prefer when playing Starcraft 2? What's the type of play that fits you best?'


VTFuture: 'Well, I have always been a very safe player, sometimes even a bit too safe. I've been trying to change that image a bit lately by throwing in a few more risky and aggresive plays, just to keep players guessing. Also trying out new builds that I feel good about. I feel safe players are typically better in the long run, but if I have to take a risk from time to time to make a build work wonderfully, then that's what I will do. Always keeping myself open for new styles and ideas.'


Masayume: 'That's an intelligent way to go about it. It is impossible to get to your level of play  without constantly questioning your own play, your style and the way you try to improve and implement new ideas. So how do you develop intuitive triggers and a feel for timings in Starcraft 2?'


VTFuture: 'There's really no substitute for experience. I mean every game you learn something you can do a little different. Even something simple like moving out after 5 warp-in cycles instead of 6, you know, things like that really just come from a vast amount of experience. It's all about trial and error. I base most of my timings off of what I scout. The key to being good at this game is being adaptable. You need to be able to change it up on the fly next to being able to play it safe if you want to stay at the top.'





Mentality

Masayume: 'What brought you to your current level when it comes to mentality?'


VTFuture: 'I want to be the best, you know, who doesn't. I know what kind of work it takes to even be considered to be one of the best. So I really don't mind putting in say, 8 to 12 hours of practice on a day. I also feel guilty when I'm not playing Starcraft. I know it's not normal, but I think many of the top players probably feel something similar if they haven't played for a few days. It's like skipping a day of working out at the gym, you usually feel quite lazy and dissapointed after that. It's kinda the same deal with Starcraft 2 for me.'


Masayume: 'Dedication and hard work, and a great deal of passion in other words! Do you think most of the players that want to become professionals out there haven't nailed the right way to improve and to learn yet?'


VTFuture: 'Yeah definitely. The people out there certainly need to find better ways to practice. Like when you hit a wall, you gotta figure why you hit that wall. Just laddering is not gonna make you better. Well, it gets you better up to a certain point, but then diminishing returns kick in and you really need to start focusing on specifics. Finding these small edges that can win you the game. This game is all about those small edges.


Masayume: 'Indeed, every second counts in this game. I also think that people wanting to go pro should really think it over well, because being a Starcraft 2 pro is probably more demanding then your normal 9 till 5 job. The time investment is just immense, and it won't guarantee that you make it through. Everyone at the top is constantly figuring out new things to prevent dropping down.


Masayume: 'So how do you deal with losses and hitting walls?'


VTFuture: 'A lot of players, especially aspiring players, when they decide to give this a shot, sometimes say that they have terrible weeks, or even terrible months. They will lose about 70 or 80% of their games during one of these periods and just quit. Top players really need to have a short memory, they shouldn't ever take the losses personally. It's hard sometimes but it is the only way to become a stable player. You just have to put any anger from a loss behind you and move on.

 A loss usually teaches you a valuable lesson too. If I feel that I am getting too emotional during my session, I usually take a 10 to 15 minute break to regain my composure and get back to training. On the rare occasion that I can't pull that off, I just take the rest of the day off to just unwind. And regarding hitting walls, it happens sometimes. You just have to reinvent your matchups, and sometimes just check out new ideas and builds from the pro's. Sometimes the ideas you come up with yourself just don't work, and you just need to take another direction to freshen up your mind.'

Masayume: "Yeah this is definitely one of the key abilities that any aspiring player should master early on. And what you said about losing teaching you valuable lessons is so true. I think players in general should start handling losses in a different way. Losing can be more valuable than winning sometimes. Losing does not main failing by any means. It might just be seeing something you haven't seen before and you just don't know how to adjust your build to it, things like that.  People should let go of that fear of losing or making mistakes, because everyone makes mistakes, even the best player in the world have good and bad days.

Players should really view laddering as just another tool to practice. No one starts out great. People like Micheal Jordan did not magically gain all their skills without having bad times where things didn't seem to go well at all. It takes a lot of perseverance and dedication.

Masayume: 'Does the fun factor play a big role for you as well?'

VTFuture: 'It plays a huge role of course, I mean if I didn't enjoy the game I wouldn't be playing it. It is also nice to use the fun aspect of the game to just unwind and let your mind process all the information from all the practice and laddering. Sometimes I even take a day off to just get back into the game fresh the day after. You see these aspiring players hitting the ladder for 10 to 12 hours every day and getting burned out. So it is definitely important for me to just have fun and do some crazy 2v2 or 3v3 games sometimes or something entirely different.'

Masayume: 'What advice would you give aspiring players out there wanting to reach the top?'

VTFuture: 'It's gonna be very hard for aspiring players to even scratch the top. Even the top players now that their time is limited and they have to constantly reinvent themselves to stay at the top. So you need to put in the time, train smart instead of training a lot, and take it day by day while having the motivation and drive to do this. You cannot go from Gold to Grandmasters in one day. You gotta start at the lower tier and climb your way up in small and well-planned increments. Not just hitting that ladder 16 hours a day but having a goal, a purpose for the day.




Training and analysis

Masayume: 'How much time to you devote to training on a daily basis?'

VTFuture: 'Well since I also coach, I sometimes have days where I both train and coach. So on days like that I generally try to get 6 to 8 hours of practice in custom games or on ladder after coaching. On days where I am free it's usually anywhere from 10 to 12 hours. I mostly use the ladder to test my standard play against all the random strategies that are out there or test new builds, so I have experience with the most random timings and such. This is always handy in tournaments so you rarely get caught with your pants down so to say.'

'I usually train specific scenarios with my teammates, just to hammer out specific triggers and timings. And also just to get good feedback from them and discuss from both race point of views. It is so important to have good players to train with and just focus on specific things and having someone else spot any weaknesses in your build or playstyle that you might overlook.'

'I also tend to take a day or 2 off per week, or to scale back my training to like 2 or 4 hours, just to relax a bit and take my mind off the game for a bit.'

Masayume: 'How often do you analyse during a training session? And do you take small breaks?'

VTFuture: 'I usually look at the replays if it's like a confusing loss that I don't really get. So I just jump into it and try to figure out why I lost and if my play is viable. Also if I have a rough day, I usually just stop for the day when I keep losing and take a break. Even when it's going well I like to take a 5 to 10 minute break after 2 or 3 hours of playing, also to rest my hands. That's also very important because you don't want any physical injuries to occur, like RSI or carpal tunnel.'

'People tend to just power through if they feel pain, but it's just not worth it, you risk having longterm physical problems later on. In tournaments when you are in the finals, yeah then suck it up as an exception, I definitely pay close attention to taking proper breaks. It's so important to take good care of yourself. '

Masayume: 'How do you adjust your play to new timings and builds?'

VTFuture: 'I try to play a lot of games on the ladder to kinda see these new timings and variations on builds. You might meet an enemy at a tournament that does a build that you have seen maybe once or twice on ladder, whereas if you didn't ladder a lot you might not know how to respond to it. I usually play my offraces on offrace accounts as well to get a better idea of the feel of the other races. This way I can get a better understanding from both sides and learn new tricks all the time and find the edge.

'The offrace account also gives you a proper MMR for your offraces. I won't be productive if I play my lower master level Terran on an account with Grandmaster MMR.'



In closure: Shout-outs!

Masayume: 'So where can we find you on the internet?'

VTFuture: 'My twitter is Future_SC, I try to post updates about events in my life, streaming moments and such, so it's a great way to follow me. You can also find me on www.gosucoaching.com, I am a coach on there so if you would like to take up a lesson with me, be sure to check it out. Then we also have my team site which is http://vtgaming.net. You can check me and my teammates out on there. Tournaments and such.

Masayume: 'Do you have any shout-outs before we close it off?'

VTFuture: 'Yeah absolutely, I would like to thank all my fans and supporters first and foremost, they are the ones that keep me going. I would also like to give a big shout-out to my team, VT gaming. It's a great organisation with a great team of players at their side. That's about it!'

Masayume: 'Well Richard, thank you so much for your time. I think that the community can get a great deal of information out of this article. Or at least that's the goal. I wish you the best of luck in all your endeavours and hopefully you will get some promising results at MLG Columbus!

VTFuture: "Yeah that's the plan, to hopefully take home my first big tournament win there. Thanks for the interview!'



Additional notes

I hope you enjoyed this interview, both VTFuture and I have invested a great deal of time into this interview to make sure it covers some important topics and really explains what the life of a pro gamer looks like and what it takes to be one. I focus mostly on the mentality aspect of pro-gaming. I feel that motivation and knowing yourself is a topic that is often overlooked or simply ignored because it's about working on yourself as a person and adjusting your behaviour. This is the general trend that you will find in all my work.
Please do give me constructive feedback if you feel like you are missing something or want to have more topics covered in future interviews and I will try my best to include all of it in the next interview. I would also appreciate any positive criticism so I can improve my interview style and make it a nicer read for everyone.

Thank you for taking the time to read this interview, see you next time!

-If you like this article, feel free to use the FaceBook and Twitter share buttons on this blogsite. We want more people to know about the growing E-sport world! 

-You can follow me on Twitter under the name 'MasayumeAiur', this way you will receive  updates about the Starcraft 2 scene, my blog, and follow many of the big names in the scene.

Tournaments, teams and getting noticed

Sponsors in the world of E-sports, 1 pillar of balance

As of late, tournaments have been popping up just about everywhere when it comes to the Starcraft 2 E-sport scene. The most recent one here is of course the IPL (IGN Pro League). This has its good and bad sides to it. It is great to have so many high quality tournaments around, with a very high production quality. The downside is that we as viewers simply don't have time to watch every single tournament out there.

But it is still mostly good news, as this means there are enough sponsors and generous individuals around to finance all these tournaments and provide some high quality streamed content for the community, and a ground for the community to prove themselves on as capable players. The relation between sponsors, the players and the community is so crucial if we as enthusiasts want the Starcraft 2 scene to grow out of proportion and become the next big thing.

You can even make a living out of being active in the E-sport scene in the current days, which is something that has long been considered as "downright impossible". Having an enthusiastic community and a great player pool, together with some great sponsors go hand in hand to make all the tournaments, streams, teams and LAN events possible.

So you think you can be a pro gamer?

Many players out there often wonder how they can become a member of a sponsored team. Most of the time, these players will start sending emails to well-known teams in which they state that they can play really well and wonder if they can join the team. 99.9% of them get rejected. The root of the problem being that only 0.1% of the players doing this actually have the statistics and a reputation to back up their claims.

There are definitely some basic rules that you should follow if you ever want to become a privileged player, and they all involve hard work, a tough skin and a whole lot of performance and motivation. Let's go over the basics before I start to elaborate on the different teams and what they offer, versus how to get in one.

I - The mentality
This is specifically true for players of a younger age, but also holds true when it comes to older players. First, before you even start daydreaming about being the next "Grubby" or "Nada", you  need to sit down and take a long, hard look at your own behaviour and mentality. You could even be a natural talent, but it does not matter if you cannot cope with dissapointment or bad days, or have a tendency to be extremely impatient. Be honest with yourself and write down everything you think might sabotage or get in your way at some point.

It is the most crucial step in the whole process, but is easily the most overlooked one. I have seen so many players get sabotaged by their own flaws in their mentality. Even some of the better-known players still suffer too much from rage for example, and it literally holds them back from being the best they can be. I wrote a big article solely about mentality a while ago, so if you want to get into the head of a true pro and understand how to deal with certain events and problems, you can check it out here. Of course the main factor that fuels your motivation to keep going is having fun with it as well! So by all means, enjoy!

II - Efficient training methods, quality vs quantity balance.
Everyone knows him, the guy that wants to become pro so bad. He ladders almost 24/7 to get to the top, yet he never seems to get any better. He is the guy with 5000 1v1 games played, and 4900 of them being in the same division of the same league. Never moving past the barrier. His train of thought: 'Playing en masse gives me the most experience so I will eventually improve and become a better player. Every top player trains a lot!'

There is some truth in his way of thinking. Practice does make better. But it has to be targeted practice, time invested into specific areas. Instead of just playing games and trying to just remember mistakes and not make them again, which might improve your play a bit, you should set your goal of the day in advance. Top players play an extensive amount of games, but they play them with a purpose.
The purpose can be something like: I have experimented with this new build, it worked pretty well in a custom game environment against my training partners. Now I want to go on ladder with it to test and adjust it versus all kind of strategies and different playstyles of others to finetune the flow and get a good feel for how I can squeeze out the most while relying on the thinnest timings possible.

You can also focus on mastering builds, comparing your benchmarks with pro players to see where you are at. Analyse your replays, which is SO IMPORTANT I cannot stress this enough. Most people cannot even think about taking a break during a ladder session to watch that game where they just lost horribly. But if you actually do it and write down absolutely every detail of that game, analyse it, write down everything you need to improve upon and then resume laddering, you WILL improve extremely fast.

Now you might say that it's boring or takes away from your practice time. The thing is, if you are not at the top yet, there are a lot of things you still need to work on. Better to start working on getting into good habits early. You don't want to have to change all your bad habits later on because it's a whole lot harder to get rid of them.
Once your play becomes really solid and balanced, you can shift it more towards actual play to improve on the nuances of the game. You no longer need to think about 101 things because 98 of them are on auto-pilot, freeing up your focus to use it on other things like keeping your macro top notch for 25 mins+ without getting exhausted.

III - Get involved with the community!
This is probably the most important one of all. Getting to know your way around in the community often leads to having great benefits later on. Wouldn't you love to be one of the earlybirds who knows when a spot opens up in a team, a new tournament is in the making or a new show is coming up. Use your twitter to get all the latest updates so you never miss out on anything.  One day it might just pay off when you are the first one to respond to something, or have a connection with someone.

If you are in fact a solid player, it also never hurts to just look up the websites of all the teams you can think of. Add them all to your favorites to keep tabs on what's new. Even read up on the team mission statements, and the sponsors behind the teams. Every bit of knowledge can help you at some point. This bring me to the final point.

Never miss a thing again!

IV - Team recruitment, talent scouts and tournaments.
A lot of the teams out there have their own way to recruit new players. Some of them have a talent scout that checks for any noteworthy player. They contact the players once sufficient data is gathered and have a brief interview to find out if the player fits the team, in terms of skill and mentality, but also personality.

Other teams organise tournaments of their own, where people can compete to win. Teams can just filter out the bad players and then make a selection out of the players that are left standing. It is an effective way of finding new talent. If you have every single team on your favorites list, you can often be one of the first to sign up if an opportunity like this arises.

Then you have teams that like to recruit based on performance overall. Haven't won any semi-significant tournaments? Well sorry but you are not the player we are looking for. These teams often either contact you after you start winning some tournaments and establish a name for yourself. Or they give you the opportunity to contact them and tell them why you think they should get you on the team.
Now if you read any of the above, you might do the smart thing and actually get to know everything about a team, their sponsors, their mission and all that good jazz. You have some good tournament results, you show them your interest and deep knowledge about the team, and that you are a down-to-earth person. Before you know it you are the new face of the team!


One of the pillars that Esports stands on

Without sponsors, a great community and a great game to support it all, there would be no awesome Starcraft 2 E-sport scene. We can only be thankful for the people that continue to invest into the scene, be it by drawing new companies into it and arrange for good deals in exchange for sponsorship. A good example being tournament organizers offering booths at LAN events for brands like Steelseries, where their gaming gear can get promoted and even sold.
Or the enthusiastic community leaders that invest much of their free time into promoting the game, writing articles and creating all this awesome streamed and nonstreamed content. It is the combination of these things that forms one of the strong pillars that the Starcraft 2 scene now stands on. I have no doubt that this trend will continue after seeing such an influx of new content and concerted efforts in the past 12 months. This is the golden year for E-sport. I have to close this off in a cheesy fashion: 'Hell, it's about time'

P.S. A youtube channel will be coming up soon where you can find interviews and replay commentaries so stay tuned!

-If you like this article, feel free to use the FaceBook and Twitter share buttons on this blogsite. We want more people to know about the growing E-sport world! 

-You can follow me on Twitter under the name 'MasayumeAiur', this way you will receive  updates about the Starcraft 2 scene, my blog, and follow many of the big names in the scene.