Saturday, 28 April 2001 - Insanity


<Insanity> Introduce yourselves a bit to those who don't know you.
<c4> We are a Russian topclan named High Explosion Team aka C4. Our clan consists of 3 divisions. The first division consists of members like Zlo, LeXeR, D1zlord and Sid. The second is Factor, Rat, Dantist, Deadman. The last and final division is only playing for fun or it's players come from other cities. That division consists of Burn, Pharaon, Daddy, Doc and Para aka Pow3r.

<Insanity> Could you tell us a bit about your history in first person shooters?
<c4> All of us have been playing FPS games since the day DOOM2 was released but it wasn't serious for anyone of us.
Games are fun but nothing can compare to real life with girls and beer =).

<Insanity> What is c4's history as a clan?
<c4> Our clan was founded by a bunch of friends who came from different clans and who had a lot of fun spending our time in computer gaming centres (INet Cafes). News of Razer CPL and other q3-events reaching Russia inspired us to unite into a professional gaming team.
The professional c4 team was formed from 5 skilled q2 players, D1zlord, Factor, Burn, Zlo and Deadman the summer 2000. Teams of this kind are sponsored by gaming centres.
<c4> There are some problems though: our sponsors give us computers to practice on but they can't finance their sponsored teams for global competition such as CPL events. Anyway, at this time the best player in St. Petersburg was Pele [PK] while Zlo was a close second. We had more practice with some of the best players in Russia but Pele [PK] still won all the tournaments. We improved however, and when PELE [PK] met anyone from c4 in tournaments he usually lost.
<c4> Some time later Lt.LeXeR joined our clan. He was not as good as Zlo when he joined up but with each new training his skill increased tremendously. But still all our tries to win over PK & Formoza failed since their members turned our tactics on us when it was time for the tournaments. Zlo & LeXeR won 70% of their games with Pele on trainings but still lost to him with each new tournament.
<c4> PKCup became our revenge: first c4-d1zlord defeated 4z.Pow3r & PELE [PK] on ztn3dm1 but lost to Pele on q3tourney2 and dm6tmp. Then LeXeR won over PELE [PK] on dm13 and dm6tmp and later on surprised everyone by winning over PELE the in final. It was a bad tournament for Zlo, who lost to Korresh [PK], since he in all previous ones always got second or third.
<c4> In the 2on2 tournament c4 struck down european champions 4z in the final of the tournament. 4z were crushed over the course of two maps. First on q3dm6tmp with 77 to 39 and then on ztn3dm1 with 93 to 28. The future will show if what we achieved was luck or not

<Insanity> How would you describe each other?
<c4> ZLo plays with a strategic style. Lexer plays more agressive than others because he has very good aiming (maybe the best in Russia at this moment). Dizlord has nice railgun skill.
Dizlord is the second player after Polosatiy who can win vs Pele on q3tourney4. So Pele scored out this map with him on all tournaments. Sid's skill is somewhere between Zlo's and LeXeR's. He is our most perspective/tactical player.

<Insanity> Any chances we will see any of you in future Q3 events outside of Russia?
<c4> We hope that our team can visit EuroCPL and Eurocup but Zlo and LeXer must work hard if they want to win the CPL Qualification at the HaMillion Gaming Center. We also need sponsors that pay our trip.
(Note. LeXer got himself an autoberth for the CPL Holland event in May, so he will be attending this event)

<Insanity> Any chances of you getting sponsors? And if so, with who?
<c4> We are currently trying to get sponsors. Maybe we can get some large company such as Coca-Cola or a computer company to sponsor us. All of them want much more advertising from us than we can do though. We are still negotiating. So we don't have a real sponsor for now =(. Anyone out there that wants to be our sponsor? =)

<Insanity> Does c4 play 4on4 or is it only 2on2?
<c4> Yes... of course we do =).

<Insanity> With whom do you practice? 4on4, 2on2 and 1on1.
<c4> We train 4on4 with our second division or clan RC. They play rather good, for running targets =). On a more serious level we train with PK. 1on1 we play with everyone. The members in our first division play with all russian quake stars but haven't done so against any foreigners so far.

<Insanity> Will we ever see 4on4 between russian topclans? All there seems to be is 2on2 and 1on1.
<c4> You will see that as soon as a real professional league is created. We have tried in the past but it has never worked out =(. Right now we have only 4 real teams in Russia 4z, c4, PK and sF (shaitain's Force) and getting them to fight is difficult.

<Insanity> Since noone knew of c4 as a skilled clan before the PK cup in St. Petersburg I'm curious what clans you would consider to be top 10 in russia.
<c4> The first 5 would be c58, 4z, c4, PK and sF. The remaining 5 would go to BlackDragon(Belarus), MASK(Ukraine), RedDevils, ARD and Formoza

<Insanity> Will there be any 4on4 q3-events in Russia soon?
<c4> If the right persons in Moscow contact the organizers of EuroCup it might happen. The main reason for our absence in EuroCup is the difficulty for clans from different cities to fight each other. So those persons in Moscow must organize a large Q3 Russian Teamplay Cup on LAN which will show us who the best clans are.

<Insanity> Who would you place top 10 in Europe and in the world?
<c4> Europe: Polosatiy, LeXeR (hehe), Lakerman, Stelam, Blue, Pele, Prozac, Doomer, Kane and Treble.
The world: Fatality, Czm, Zero4, Polosatiy, LeXeR, Lakerman, Python, Prozac, c3 and Pele

<Insanity> Anything you want to add?
<c4> It was a pleasure to speak with you man. c4 also wants to thank HaMillion Gaming Center for its help and developing ESport in Russia. This is our first step to achieve some real world reputation and we hope we won't prove people wrong by losing. Cya=)


<Insanity> Thanks for the interview guys.