ToD: "I will never regret becoming progamer"

German version

How long have you already been planning to stop playing Warcraft 3 and why did you decide to quit?

Yoan 'ToD' Merlo: Well, for a long time I had been thinking about it but I was always hesitating. Now I decided that today would be the day to quit. There are so many reasons for it, I will try to name a few. First the lack of motivation had been here for quite some time. After playing the same game for many years it starts to become a little bit boring I guess. Then there is the lack of a patch which made the game become very repetitive. Another thing that has ruined my fun playing Warcraft 3 these days is the blademaster. Blizzard doesn't seem to care doing anything about it. Then there is the economical crisis that has slowed everything down, a lot of teams closed down and there are much less tournaments, so we are not paid as well as we used to be. I have to think about my future, and I want to start something new also. (smiles)

How was your time in WICKED eSports and what did you like and dislike there?

ToD: It was quite good overall, I liked that I got paid as promised, and being in a team with HoT. I disliked the lack of communication between players, especially the Russians whom I nearly never got to talk to.

You just talked about the economical crisis. On which way do they influence the future of Warcraft 3 and what do you expect of its future?

ToD: Well, as you saw a lot of teams closed down, due to getting less money from sponsors which is the main problem with the crisis. I don't know what to expect gaming wise from this to be honest, but I don't see things getting better anytime soon.

Will you still stay in South Korea and will you start playing another game soon?

ToD: I will stay at least a little bit longer here, and I won't play another videogame professionally again, I'm 90% sure of that!

So do you know what you're going to do in the future yet?

ToD: I have some ideas, but I prefer to keep them to myself for now. What I can tell you is what I have been doing recently and plan on accelerating with now that I have a lot of freetime. The first one is exercising, I have been working out tons, and taking proteins too. I've always had many dreams and always went after them, I realized one of them by becoming a professional gamer travelling the world and being paid to play the game I loved. Another one of my dream was to be a really good breakdancer, and another one to do martial arts. I'm currently building a stronger body, which I never got the chance to do before, spending many hours in front of my computer and who knows once the time is right I might just pick a martial art and really get into it.
Another thing is learning Korean, since I came here, I learnt how to read it a lot faster than before, and my vocabulary has evolved a lot but I'm still not very good at making sentences. I plan on studying more in the future to become fluent in it.

So I guess you'll leave the current NGL Season, too. Which other NGL players would you maybe think of who might go inactive soon, too?

ToD: I have no idea, perhaps none of them? I don't see the players who are not getting a salary playing for too much longer though, they need an income just like everybody.

What was your best time in Warcraft 3

ToD: Hands down, the time I first spent in Korea with the other 4K members : FoV, Grubby, Zeus, FuRy. I will never forget this part of my life I think.

And what was your best moment in your Warcraft 3 career?

ToD: There were so many nice moments, every event was so funny. All players I got to meet, people from all around the world, joked a lot, shared great games, and travelled with really good people. Playing tournaments in China in front of thousands of fans was amazing; winning WEG was a really good moment as well as Extreme Masters.

Are you sorry for anything in your Warcraft 3 career and what did you miss in it in your opinion?

ToD: Looking back at it, I will never regret becoming progamer, even if everything was not perfect I just got so much out of it. I'm sorry that me and some other players sometimes didn't get paid what we were owed by winning tournaments or salary wise. God knows how much these unpaid moneys affected our careers or even ended them for some of us.

If you could any match play again which would it be?


ToD: (laughs) Without hesitation the WCG grand final in Monza vs Sky, I always wanted to win WCG since the beginning of my career and this is the closest I got to it, but I got bashed in the grand final, I remember I cried for a long time after losing.

So thanks for the interview. If you want to say something to your fans you got the opputnity for it now.

ToD: Well thanks to everyone who has supported me through the years, I hope you enjoyed watching my games, sorry to anyone I badmannered, I didnt mean it! - ok, only sometimes. Good luck to everyone! Have a good one!