#nL.Cube: Interview

[Ping]

The Best Saberists of All Time

#nL.Cube

Part 2: Interview

In part 1 of this article I gave an all too brief introduction of who Cube was and what he did. In this part we get to ask him some questions!

Ping:
Thank you Cube for taking your time to answer some questions for us. You have been one of the most successful players of all time, especially given the amount of sheer talent your competitors had. You were pretty much consistently #1 on the Polish ESL 1v1 ladder for a few years and were always placed top 5 in the International ESL 1v1 ladder for as long as you played. What made you so good? Or to be more exact: What would you say was the most important factor that contributed to your success?

Cube:
Thank you for interviewing me! In response to your question, I think I was simply lucky to have come across a group of excellent players such as Vosen, Slize, Vision, Averan, etc. at the beginning of my adventure with JKA. We quickly bonded and the camaraderie between us was so great we all just had a lot of fun playing with and against each other, which made me want to keep coming back to JKA servers every day. In fact, I’m still in touch and sometimes play games with many of them! The prowess of my teammates and the fact I had heaps of free time back then allowed me to improve my game significantly relatively quickly. Then my competitive nature kicked in. Encouraged by the initial success on the Polish competitive scene, I wouldn’t rest until I was at the very top in Europe as well.

Ping:
Did you ever spend a lot of time practicing outside of matches? If so, how did the practice sessions look like and who participated in them?

Cube:
As I said, I loved playing with my teammates and practiced regularly with them outside official matches – particularly in the 2v2 format. We also enjoyed having practice 2v2 matches against other teams and mixes.

Ping:
Were there matches against some players or teams that you remember specifically preparing for in advance?

Cube:
I was usually too impatient to prepare for particular matches by watching demos, so I would mostly practice my game against unknown opponents by simply challenging them to official matches. Of course, because the JKA top competitive scene was relatively small, I got to play with most players and teams multiple times and because of that I knew quite well what to expect from my opponents in most of cases. However, sometimes I had to prepare myself mentally for challenging situations, such as playing against incredibly passive opponents, or playing with a high ping, especially on US servers.

Ping:
While we are on the topic of matches: Do you have any particularly fond memories of specific matches that you played in? What were your favourite ones?

Cube:
It’s been nearly 10 years since my retirement from the JKA scene, so unfortunately I don’t vividly remember a lot of matches. Overall, I remember that playing CTF pickups was always the most enjoyable JKA experience because of its fast pace. When it comes to lightsaber battles, it was always exhilarating to play against aggressive teams in TFFA. Because nL preferred quite an aggressive playstyle as well, teams facing us would normally be on the defensive. Thus, it was always a pleasure to face outstanding teams such as oZone, Jedi Sentinels or *aiming in high-scoring matches. Regarding duels, I remember my only official match against Dark from oZone which was exciting not only because of the brilliance of my opponent, but also because it was really hyped and had a ridiculously large number of spectators. Besides that, I always liked playing against EvilWindu, as he one of the all-time greatest staffers.

Ping:
Are there any matches that you look back on with regret or a feeling of unease?

Cube:
I think I used to feel somewhat uneasy about not ever beating Dureal individually and aXiom with nL. In hindsight, however, he is arguably the best player of all time and axiom the best team of all time in JKA history, so credit where credit is due!

Ping:
Let us talk about something else. You have been one of the best staffers in the game and have always represented a style of playing that was based around attacking a lot, being aggressive and in the face of your opponent. What advice would you give to anyone who started out on the arduous path of mastering staff the way that you did?

Cube:
As banal as it may sound, just make sure that you actually have fun playing this way. My aggressive style wasn’t a choice; it came naturally to me as constantly attacking my opponents was the only enjoyable way of playing the game for me. I was lucky in the respect that I didn’t have to adapt my playstyle to particular opponents in most cases, including high-level matches, and that’s why playing with extremely passive opponents (e.g. doing butterflies all the time) always felt like a chore. Of course, everybody has their own preferences and needs to find their own style, so if you attempt to emulate a style of another player and you’re just not feeling it, you’ll eventually get frustrated. I’m afraid you can’t just fake it until you make it in this case.

Ping:
You were also known to have been a pretty solid CTF player and have played CTF a lot during your time. If at all, how would you say playing CTF has helped you become a better saberist? And do you think being a good saberist had any influence on your skill as a CTF player?

Cube:
As I mentioned before, CTF was the most enjoyable game mode for me. The most crucial element I learned from CTF that palpably improved my saber game was the ability to strafe jump properly. As back then there weren’t many saberists playing CTF or with any significant Q3 experience, the fact I was able to move much faster around the map than my opponents was a massive advantage. It definitely helped me flourish with my aggressive playstyle, particularly in TFFA.

One of the most notable problems with TFFA was that often one player on form or with a low ping would perpetually engage in a series of duels with the other team, and his teammates would play rather passively, mostly focusing on not dying. In CTF such a strategy would inevitably fail, as in most cases teams with excellent players in terms of individual skill, but not playing as a team, would lose to teams with worse players, but with greater team cohesion. Learning this definitely changed my mentality and taught me how important it is coordinate your actions with your teammates, which resulted in nL improving its comms and getting stronger in TFFA.

Ping:
You played at a time when many other great players, both Polish and international, were around. Was there anyone you particularly admired for their skill or their style of playing?

Cube:
I’ve mentioned some specific players I admired in my previous answers, such Dureal for his unmatched and consistent excellence and EvilWindu for being a fearsome staffer. One player that was often underrated was dev from *aiming – I admired him for his indefatigable aggression which would often yield him 30+ frags in TFFA and make me always look forward to matches against *aiming.

Ping:
Excluding yourself then, can you give us a short list of who you would deem to be the top 5 JKA players of your time?

Cube:
In no particular order: Dureal, EvilWindu, Minneyar, Dark and S3cht.

Ping:
It is an unfortunate fact that JKA is not very well suited for cross-continental play, seeing as ping affects the gameplay so very much and the ESL was never very accomodating to North American players, but from the little exposure that you had to the NA side of competitive JKA, what was your impression of the level of skill and style of playing that they exhibited? Were there any particular NA teams or players that you felt were easily equal to the Europeans?

Cube:
It was a shame JKA was never a proper e-sport and there were no LANs organised to allow for a real comparisons between NA and EU teams. Cross-continental matches were unfortunately quite often skewed by the unforgiving elo system. Moreover, having cross-continental rosters was also a massive advantage as it allowed teams to have at least one player with a decent ping on each server and thus use the passive strategy I mentioned. However, it was always interesting and challenging to play NA teams in ESL as many of them at their peak were easily equally as good or even better than the European top-tier.

NA players I had the pleasure to play with in a team, such as hisownfoot, were always fun to play with because on the one hand they were really banterous, which made for a great atmosphere in the team, but on the other hand they were also very composed during matches, which massively helped with team comms. As regards the differences in style, if I remember correctly the NA scene strongly favoured the single saber and had relatively few staffers. Curiously, this characteristic also applied to the British scene, while Eastern Europe was notorious for producing multiple skilled staffers. Perhaps it was an Anglo-Saxon thing!

Ping:
For a long time you played a decisive role in the administrative decisions of teams like noLimits or the Polish national team from 2006. What was your or your teams approach to fielding players for matches, recruiting new ones and so on? What would you say were the greatest challenges in managing a competitive team like noLimits?

Cube:
I think the key criteria I used in recruiting for my teams were the potential I felt the player had and his ability to synergise with the rest of the team, both during and beyond matches. As I mentioned before, my CTF experience made me see TFFA in a different light and to aspire to make my teams much better than just the sum of the skill of its individual members if that makes sense. However, while this conviction worked really well for nL, it didn’t do me any favours when it came to recruiting and fielding players for the Polish national team. As the scene was brimming with brilliant players from teams such as 333 and FoR, I was often forced to make very tough choices – usually favouring team play and making sure there are no frictions between the players – for which I was often criticised.

For me the main challenge in managing nL was to have the core “A” team available to play in matches consistently as this was something that nL lacked for various reasons. Teams like oZone and aXiom were the best in the game not only because of their prowess, but also because they would always field the same three or four players which were able to “gel” well because of that. Conversely, there was definitely more rotation in nL, with me being the only constant feature on the line-up. It wasn’t a coincidence that nL reached its peak when S3cht became the second constant feature.

Ping:
Here is a simple question I got from JAA's Kain: What were your favourite JKA related moments of all time?

Cube:
Again, in no particular order: the release of both nL fragmovies made by Averan, landing cool shots in CTF, winning various team and individual competitions, and meeting many of my nL friends in real life.

Ping:
A question from JAA's Vision. If you could change one thing about JKA, about e.g. the way the sabering works or the game looks like, what would it be?

Cube:
It was a shame that JKA was only patched twice and then left alone to wither away, so one thing that springs to mind would be to fix the most patent and annoying bugs which JKA has. I’m not quite sure exactly how I would change the saber battles, but the end goal would be to balance the strengths of single, dual and staff sabers so that they have similar win rations against each other. The sabering system was definitely too random to make JKA a competitive game, but on the other hand it felt better than the one from JK2 and the randomness certainly made it quite charming.

Ping:
Here is another from Vision: Given the fact that you played at an extremely high level well into late 2007, competing successfully in both TDM and 1v1 matches, what made you eventually retire and stop playing the game?

Cube:
It was a combination of factors: I felt fully accomplished in the game and the drive just wasn’t there anymore; I wanted to dedicate more time to studying for my final exams; many of my friends whom I enjoyed playing with had left the game back then; I realised that JKA wasn’t as enjoyable as it had previously been for me; I wanted to compete in other games such as PES.

Ping:
And a closely related question: What lead to the eventual disbanding of the old noLimits?

Cube:
Pretty much the same factors as above but applied to multiple nL members. Especially the old guard kept getting increasingly less motivated to play after realising that we’ve won everything we could. We were also really united and many of us never wanted to play for any other teams, so the common sentiment was that it would be better to retire together as champions, rather than to tarnish our collective legacy.

Ping:
Did you have any influence on noLimits' revival in January 2008? How did you feel about the team being redone with completely new players?

Cube:
I didn’t have any influence on noLimits’ revival. If I remember correctly, S3cht or Slize initially encouraged me to make a comeback and then after I said no, if I were OK with them reviving the team without me and I gave them the green light as the team was as much theirs as mine. Of course, I trusted in their ability to recruit new players of the highest calibre and to return nL to its former glory. After wishing them good luck, I kept rooting for them and checking their results quite often.

Ping:
Are there any plans for a third comeback at all, with or without Cube as one of their players? Would you be willing to play JKA again if your team made a comeback?

Cube:
I did give JKA a try about a year ago and felt that JKA didn’t age well and was quite clunky. Moreover, many of my nL teammates either no longer play games or, as me, moved to other, more modern games. As such, I will definitely not be making a comeback. I don’t know of any plans to revive nL by other players either, but I seriously doubt it will ever be on the cards again given the current state of the game. I think it would only be potentially viable if JK4 was made.

Ping:
Here is a final question from Kain: How do you feel your JKA experience has affected your development as a person?

Cube:
Thinking about it, it might seem silly, but I did in fact gain a number of skills from playing JKA, such as leading and being part of a team, thinking on the fly, devising strategies and making decisions quickly. Moreover, generally speaking, my good results in competitive JKA boosted my confidence and interacting with international players allowed me to improve my English significantly and gain good cultural awareness.

Ping:
Any final words, shoutouts etc that you want to make?

Cube:
Thanks very much for interviewing me again and making me reminisce about the good ol’ JKA days! I would like to give shoutouts to Slize, Vosen, Vision, Averan, Immortal, Radzik, Virus, Beliar, Xeres, Earthquaker, Wiel, Wonder, Arch/Deith, S3cht, Knuspa, Basti, Arkanoid, hisownfoot and other players I formed teams with which I forgot to mention.

Ping:
Thanks again!

Thus ends part 2 of this two-part article. If you have not, be sure to check out part 1 here!

Click here to view the article

[BruceJohnJenner]

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever made a list of the relative duel success ratios between single, staff, and duel?

[Ping]

Nope

[afi]

Great interview and article.
 

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever made a list of the relative duel success ratios between single, staff, and duel?

As an example...There were only a couple really good dual saber players (probably not more than 5 over the years) so the average win ratio would be probably pretty low, even though there were some dual players that won pretty much everything at some point. And obviously you couldn't get the success ratio of all players anyway. You could get twenty top-players and get their relative success ratio but that doesn't mean that it would be the same ratio on all skill levels, cause some sabers are easier to learn and/or to master than others. Dual sabers for example are really hard to master. And how good you are against a certain saber-type also depends heavily on your own playing style. Also there are more single players than staff players and only a small amount plays duals.

 

It could be like this though (at least in the higher levels): staff > dual, dual > single, staff ~ single

On lower skill levels probably staff > dual, single > dual, single > staff

 

It also depends on the time period. For example in the very beginning staff players dominated everything until single players figured out how to counter them.

[Ping]

Even if compiling all the data in a meaningful way were feasible (which it isn't, as @ showed), the only conclusion you would get would be something about saber-type balance, which I find to be less interesting of a topic than the success of individual players over time.

[HellRaiser]

Amazing interview, great job Masta.

 

IMO Cube was the best player of all time, terrifying player.

[Onysfx]

As a staff dueler myself, I've always played defensively. Perhaps it's time I played more offensively.

[Grab]

wonder miszcz.

[Yberion]

Great interview.

[Bacon]

I love these talks and meetings. "best saberists of all time" when all time isn't really all time, but current.
Nobody remembers any of the former players in JKA anymore.

[afi]

But cube didn't play since 2008...?

[Ping]

@ I didn't quite understand the post either, but it could be taken either way. Take a look:

 

One reading is this: He is being snarky and sarcastic with the first sentence, and wants to point out in the second sentence that we are wrong to call player x the best player of all time because x is not playing anymore, and that whoever is the best player of all time is supposed to be still active as a player. The third sentence could then be taken to support the second one by saying that player x is irrelevant because he is not playing anymore, implicitly saying that nobody who is irrelevant could be the best player of all time.

 

The second reading is this: He is being genuine with the first sentence, expressing his praise for the article, and wants to point out in the second sentence that those people who nowadays talk of the best players of all time (i.e. the unwashed crowd) are mistaken, since they only ever talk of the best current players and not the best players overall. The third sentence would then support the second one by saying that those who nowadays talk of the best players in this mistaken way can only do so because they forget all about the great players of the past and this article serves as a reminder.

 

The two readings are diametrically opposed in their meaning but they both fit the text extremely well. However, since the first reading is one that would ascribe to him a view that is both mistaken, incoherent and not well thought out (although it would fit perfectly well with the overall practice of anonymously posting on the internet), and since we are supposed to be as charitable as possible, so we should accept the second reading. Therefore: thanks a lot for reading and I am happy to hear you enjoyed the article @@Bacon. I'm working on others and hope to publish them soon.

[afi]

My interpretation judging from the second and third sentence was actually that he thinks that cube is a newish player

[Ping]

Oh yeah I see how that is a possible reading as well. But it would ascribe to him a view that is even more factually incorrect than the first (uncharitable) reading I proposed and would also mean that he didn't even bother reading any of the articles before posting, i.e. that both his view and his behavior were gravely flawed (something which, again, is common on the webs, so it's not unlikely that this is true in this case).

[fau]

Very interesting read. Haven't played JKA myself, but I remember Cube's nickname being in the news a lot. Thanks for the article and the interview, I hope there will be more :-)

[wonder]

wonder miszcz.