DaHang: "I had to change my game to win"

fragster: You bootcamped in Germany. Who did you play with and how much practice did you get?

Tim 'DaHanG' Fogarty: I played a lot of different european players. I played Cooller a decent amount, stermy, strenx, k1llsen, burnedd and obviously Chance and Griffin aswell. So I played a lot of different playstyles and I think it really helped me. I played a lot during the week, probably 4-5 hours per day, maybe even 6-7 on some.

You managed to win the last Zotac-Cup and beat Cypher in the final, how do you feel about that match?

DaHanG: Everyone knows about the ping and the issues he had and I won't deny that that helps a ton, especially with a ping in the 80s. That's just so hard and I am surprised that he even played. But in the end it is out of my control and if he makes it to the final, I have to play him. I would have liked to play Cooller or someone on equal pings but that's just the way it went down. So I will say that the ping won the match and we will see how it goes down in our group.

What do you think about av3k's behaviour in the GData-Cup final that thousands of people were watching?

DaHanG: I don't really want to talk about av3k, but I do know that it was bad for spectators. He tried at the beginning of the map but then he stopped caring and I disagree with that decision. But what can we do besides saying that this was stupid of him, keeping in mind the people that wanted to see a good match?

Let's talk about the most recent interview with strenx. He wrote that you denied him to spec with the words "STFU private server", while you watched him play in previous games.

DaHanG: First of all I didn't read the interview, but I played stermy and strenx several times and we were all on the same server together spectating each other. Then I played Cooller on my own time and strenx wanted to spectate, but there was no reason for him to do this. He kept messaging me during the game and asking for the password while I was playing, so I told him to shut up and kept playing. Also keep in mind that while I played Cooller, Chance joined the server and Cooller asked him to leave and there was no problem there, so I don't understand what strenx's problem was. It was no big deal in the first place, this sort of thing happens all the time. I'm surprised this is relevant in any way.

He also mentioned that Quake is your life ...

DaHanG: Well first of all I am finally getting payed to play which helps my motivation, but I don't really care what he thinks. I mean, I have a life outside of quake and I play a lot, but think about WoW players who have hundreds of days of logged gametime per year while I have about 30 which is a lot but equals an average of 2h per day. Maybe it's still more than most people, but I don't really care.

You kind of had a breakthrough at quakecon 09 with Quake Live and people began to enjoy your aggressive style. Now to break through to the top you seem to have evolved your game to a more defensive one.

DaHanG: Well I want to be aggressive all the time but in Quake Live the rockets are so punishing, that if you go in and get destroyed by rockets, you just lose the whole map unless you hit a good rocket yourself. Also they have position on you and if you charge them, they have an easy shot. Look at rapha, he is a very defensive player in most people's eyes and he won most events of 2009. I think that this is the way you have to play Quake Live. I don't like that you have to play like that, which is why Quake 4 was my personal favorite.

In Quake 4 you really had to control the map, be aggressive and fight, while in Quake Live, at least on maps like ztn and dm13, you just have to be defensive if you want to win. I actually think Cypher plays defensive, too, despite what most people think. He plays smart and takes the situations but he's also defensive, av3k on the other hand plays aggressive. It's just my opinion that you have to be defensive to succeed in Quake Live and I'm not here to play for my personal style, I'm here to win.

One last question about your group. Who do you think will not advance to the playoffs?

DaHanG: I'd prolly say Griffin, fox and let's say... strenx.