For our next installment of Inside Lounge, we bring you our currently most confident team in Zenon Esports and they have every right to be confident as they have been defeated only once in seven weeks of Division 1 play. So here’s your opportunity to not only learn something about them, but maybe also from them as well.
Hello guys of Zenon Esports, first of all, can you please all start with introducing yourself to the readers and tell a bit about yourselves?
Nikurasu: Hi, I'm Niku, I play everything but Anubarak. All of my teammates are nice people if you get to know them, so don’t mind them being silenced.
QopenHagen: I'm QopenHagen, and people always ask why I'm called that. Quick answer is that I'm half danish and my last name is Hagen. I'm the solo laner, as well as the brain of Zenon - and muscles and looks of course. At first I played support but we had a roster change and we had to settle with the noob support that is Skynox and I took over the solo lane.
Skynox: SkynoxLFT, obviously not LFT anymore (unless you are better than my actual teammates), baguette main support daily carrying Zenon for free. I came here to replace Qopen as a support cause he sadly can't do it. I'm also Montana's only friend.
ZENChelvin: Hello, I'm Chelvin, proud captain of these idiots who call themselves 'good at the game. I play the assassin role for the team aka overwatch only. Why I started the team you ask? Well, I wanted to show Heroes Lounge what DOMINATION looks like and trash on everyone who think they got a chance versus us.
Montana: Greetings HotS fanboys. I’m Montana, main shot caller and drafter for my team - Zenon E-sport. I consider myself top 3 tank EU but I totally suck on other roles. For example I hate support role and that was one of the main reasons HL people never liked me. I’m probably the guy with the most silences in HotS history. Even when I played on FNSeifer and didn’t type much, that account got silenced as well. Don’t get it wrong. I don’t consider myself toxic, lets just say I’m very sarcastic and chat active. Nobody ever called me toxic on voice. There are people who don’t get silenced but nobody likes them(like KnowMe) and then there is Montana.
As it is the first season for you as Zenon Esports as well as the first season for some of your players, how has your experience with Heroes Lounge been so far?
QopenHagen: Two words, gg ez.
ZENChelvin: I like the concept of Heroes Lounge a lot, giving amateur teams a chance to show what they got. But yeah, like Qopen already said, the competition is a bit lower than what I hoped it would be.
Nikurasu: I like the sloth memes from Heroes Lounge.
Skynox: Joining Chelvin there, I really like the idea to let anyone be able to compete in some kind of tournaments.
ZENChelvin: Since Blizzard doesn't really put their effort that much into the Heroes of the Storm scene, it's nice that this community exists.
Montana: Ez pz, just a better version of TL, something I use it as a warm up tool to get ready, to pretty much get in shape and perform well vs leftovers in ESL go4. If we can do that good in BO1s against them just after 2 months of practice, I wonder how much will we be capable of doing when we get serious in the next OD.
I believe none of us revealed their true potential yet, so there is still a lot to discover. We are just getting started.
That's a good point your bringing up, so far you have held true to your team description, which simply is 'smash'. What's the main reason for your amazing success so far this season?
Skynox: Me coming to their team obviously. Since I'm here, it's 2/0 2/0 in under 11 minutes.
Nikurasu: Lucky RNG bringing us success of course.
Skynox: Niku is the main reason our games go longer than 5 minutes.
Nikurasu: Need to unlock the talents somehow.
ZENChelvin: A big reason being is that when I created this team in the first place, I just picked up high ranked players with good mechanical skill. So that was already a big plus, we just needed good drafts and calls.
Montana: Main reason for our success would be mechanics I would say. Everybody knows what their job is and how to do it. There are still a lot of mistakes everyone of us is doing but that’s something we are working on. Although that’s not something other lounge teams would be capable to use as a winning tool against us, because luckily most amateur HotS teams don’t really know how to do that, so we often don’t get punished for mistakes we make. But unluckily that’s something that often made us look bad in better players eyes.
Just for the record: Your goal for this season would be?
ZENChelvin: Take the trophy and show the teams what we are worth at our best.
So you're pretty convinced you're going to hoist some highest quality plastic trophies at the end?
Skynox: 100%, the trophy is mine!
ZENChelvin: Unless our weakness Deathknight is gonna ram us into walls again, I think we should win the whole thing, yeah.
Skynox: I take trophy and leave the team.
ZENChelvin: White flags up boys! IT'S OVER!
If I am not mistaken, you have not participated in Open Division this season, is competing there in your plans for the future?
ZENChelvin: Yes for sure.
Skynox: I participated in Open Division but it was quite a mess, so yeah, let's say I never did.
ZENChelvin: We didn't have a stable team back when Open Division was happening. So we decided to skip it and prepare for the next one. We're pretty confident we can reach playoffs, maybe more. We'll have to see if the competition has gotten better next OD, it's hard to say.
Montana: This is the first time I'm willing to put my name out there without worrying about looking stupid because of my teammates.
I can already tell that team chemistry is a big part of your success so far.
ZENChelvin: Yeah we just hate each other equally, that's what our strength is.
That is a tried and true strategy
ZENChelvin: Thank you sir x). Except for Niku of course, everyone likes Niku.
QopenHagen: Montana is a bit nervous and afraid you could say, he is afraid that he will be beaten up at gamescom with his spaghetti arms.
ZENChelvin: No beard, that's all you had Montana, now you are just a midget.
QopenHagen: Yes, he doesn't even have a beard anymore. Just an old man - without beard.
Skynox: Can't follow APM anymore.
Montana: You see what I need to deal with here?
Well anyhow, did you bring some experience from other MOBAs or did you just start with playing HotS?
Skynox: I started with League of Legends where I played for less than 15 seconds in the tutorial, never liked MOBAs but I always trusted Blizzard and Heroes became my first MOBA and main game to play.
Montana: I only play HotS because of Skynox. Without Skynox, there is no HotS.
Skynox: Montana is THE man - even without a beard.
QopenHagen: I have played original DotA and Heroes of Newerth professionally on offline events before I switched to hots where I hope to make 20€ at ESL go4 Cups.
Montana: But seriously now, I started with WC3 and played a lot of custom MOBAs including original DotA. Games like WC3 and SC2 is in my opinion a lot better base to be successful at a MOBA, because MOBAs become so much easier then, especially MOBAs such as HotS. All you rely on is your reaction time and map awareness. Of course I have to worry about a few other things since I'm the shot caller and drafter.
ZENChelvin: I played League of Legends for about 5 years I think. Not sure why I peaked, was always around Diamond but couldn't bear the game anymore. The game didn't change that much either in my opinion. 30-40 minute games everytime was too much of a pain as well. I tried some DotA 2 but that wasn't really my game either. I got into Heroes of the Storm when the 2.0 update launched and couldn't stop playing from that point on.
Alright, as you are obviously on the top end of the Heroes Lounge skill level, what advice would you give to a Division 5 player to get better in a hurry?
Montana: Be less Skynox and more Montana.
QopenHagen: True.
ZENChelvin: All advice I can give really is: Just play the game, A LOT! Also watching HGC/pro players stream could help you out on game sense and such, but that's about it. Just play the game.
Skynox: WATCH MINIMAP, SOAK LANES, WORSHIP MONTANA! Three rules! And don't play support in soloqueue, it's the worst experience ever.
Montana: Most important thing - stay open minded and don’t be afraid to experiment. In both HotS and [something else I had to edit out].
Nikurasu: As a Div 5 player, you get better by playing the video game and pressing buttons. On a serious note, I would recommend starting off by picking heroes you enjoy playing and just spam them as much as possible in their best situations. If you have fun, you will be willing to play more and thus improve.
So to conclude this, any shoutouts you want to give or some other famous last words?
Skynox: Shout out to Heroes Lounge, to my team, to my sponsor MontanaGaming, which make great PCs that make you feel powerful during teamfights and shout out to myself for providing so many heals.
ZENChelvin: Shoutout to everyone that always watches our games, to Heroes Lounge for the great opportunity. Shoutouts to all the subs we used during the season, thanks for helping us out. And to my godlike team of course.
Montana: Shoutouts to my little montanies fans, I promise you T-shirts and after we win OD, I believe Blizzard will finally make a special new tank hero and it's gonna be Montana from IRL. Big shoutouts to my whole discord meme channel and everybody there included, especially Ex-Nexus Games player playboicarti aka six, always there to play late night team league, trolling around. And stay out of being toxic and become confident instead. Don't make the same mistake I've done when I started HotS.
QopenHagen: Shoutout to my team of course for letting me carry them on solo. And shoutout to my fangirls cheering on my FNCseifer smurf.
Nikurasu: Shoutouts to my team for carrying me and being good button pressers and also shoutout to Heroes Lounge for the community.
This concludes our interview with Zenon Esports. Thanks to Zenon Esports for taking time to answer some questions, and to all of you readers supporting the Heroes Lounge blog. I hope to see you all again for our next Inside Lounge interview. Should you have any suggestions or criticism, you would like to share with us, you can always find us at the Heroes Lounge discord.
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