ShoX — (Credit: WAR for the majority of the questions) . We’re over the half way line with our Introducing: series of articles where we aim to bring you a mildly amusing look into the ePsyche of some of i46′s most prolific players and provide you with a window into their (often disturbing) world. I caught up with numlocked from Infused (no one wanted another dunc rant, right?) and attempted to wrangle some drama out of him.

Finally, I get to interview an Englishman. How’s life at Infused these days?

Life’s good. Everything’s really chilled and we’re all working towards the same goal (winning lan, obviously), which is a major improvement on how we used to be – everything was far too tense and we weren’t getting the results we wanted to get

Keep reading…

It’s always tough to draw too many conclusions about PCWs but it seems like you had a pretty tough time of things after JoeyC stepped down and Mike exited through the gift shop. Have the changes destabilised the team enough to impact your chance at bringing home the bacon at i46?

Definitely. I’ve stepped down on my role as maincaller as it wasn’t helping anyone anymore. everyone was too accustomed to doing what I said and were struggling to think for themselves, so this was really just a kick up our backside. without a maincaller, or rather having darn just call pushes, everyone needs to be on their toes throughout the entire game and it’s making for less mistakes, which is always nice. I think it’s improved our chances at LAN.

Who’re you bringing to i46?

 Björn “bybben” Anderson
 Tony “cookye” Hänninen
 Duncan “dunc” Wraight
 Seb “numlocked” Barton
 Alex “Hat” Melia
 Rauli “Darn” Savela

With a few respectable Prem/Division 1 players in attendance are you worried about falling in the group stages to a freak performance?  You must be dreading meeting someone like Qn early on, aren’t you?

Not really, no. I’m sure lan nerves will kick in for a lot of these teams, and they’ll struggle, especially under the spotlight in a game like that. I’ve also heard that boomeh isn’t going to lan, so I’m a lot less afraid of Qn. than I was originally. My biggest concern is the Americans – I’ve done 0 research and I don’t know what to expect.

Rumors are aplenty for post-i46 folds, have Infused made any plans? Is anyone displaying a early desire to take a back seat?

No one’s mentioned anything yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if people lose a little interest after i46, as with after any summer event there’s a lot less to look forward to in the tf2 world and what we as a team do after LAN depends on how we do there. I’m sure no one will want to continue playing if we get knocked out in the groups. We’ll probably take a little break like TCM will be, though. Playing 4/5 days a week instead of our usual 3 day schedule is both tiring and boring.

Fancy a quick game of word association?

:D Sure.

Epsilon..
> Stefan
Darn..
> Drink
Penis
> no.
America
> b4nny
Extremer
> Peasant

How do you think you will personally get on going up against b4nny?

I’m not worried about up going vs him. I only worry about the other team’s demoman for the first few seconds on a mid fight, then it’s all about the scouts. I’m awful at mid anyway, so I’m expecting to get rolled by him. I feel like I thrive on lan, so I’m looking forward to playing those players I’ve heard so much about more than being worried about them

Let’s have your i46 top 3.

Epsilon
Infused
TCM

Any shoutouts?

Shoutout to Infused, our sponsors, and the usual mumble circlejerk and see everyone at LAN.