SM.Poor_Billy Interview

I got the chance to catch up with is Tim "Poor_Billy" Page from Spin Move about his team, their performance at IPL5's ShootMania tournament in Vegas, and his thoughts on IPL6. 1.       Can you introduce yourself and your team (Spin Move) to those who might not know where you guys came from? What are your roles in game? Hi, I'm Poor_Billy, I play for team Spin Move along with Nutri-Grain and vince. As for our backgrounds, Nutri-Grain and I both come from Half-Life where we played on the same team for several years. Vince's background is in Counter-Strike 1.6. We don't really have specific roles that we play on the team, I would consider us all well rounded players. We each have our strengths though; vince has a great laser, I'm more comfortable with rockets, and Nutri-Grain is just good at shooting people, he doesn't care what weapon he has.

  2.       Your team recently came back from IPL5.  You competed in group play, and went 0-3 (Lost to Colwn 2-0, Epsilon and SK Gaming 2-1). What did you take away from the losses? IPL5 was our teams first LAN and it definitely was a good learning experience. Going 0-3 in our group just inspired us to put more time and effort into the game. Once we got home from IPL5 we decided to make a roster change and replaced one of our members with vince and we've never been stronger. We're definitely confident heading into IPL6.

  3.       European teams took both 1st and 2nd (North American teams took 3rd and 4th).  How big, if any, is the gap between North American and European teams?  What are the major differences between the two regions? The Europeans were definitely ahead of North America during IPL5 but I think that gap has vanished. The only difference I see between the regions is that Europe has more teams, which may give them a higher variety of play styles to practice against.

  4.       What do you see happening to this gap (if there is one)? There are roughly four times more competitive teams in Europe, will this gap expand or decrease over time? What can be done to stay competitive with the Europeans? I don't think there is a gap at all. We will see at IPL6 how the two regions compare, but I think a lot people will be surprised with how the North American teams do against Europe.

  5.       How is your team preparing for IPL6? As you guys have had the same roster for quite some time now, are you changing anything up in your practice style or schedule? What do you think you need to work on the most? We've been preparing for a while now and we plan on continuing to do so right up until the event. There isn't anything specific we have to work on, we feel confident with where we are right now in our game. It's just about staying focused and keeping up with our practice schedule.

  6.       Which teams do you see qualifying for IPL6? So far we have 4 team qualified for IPL6 from NA. Curse, SK, Spin Move, and DM. If I had to pick the remaining six teams I'd guess MME, Aero, LK, vVv, Insanity, and Fragdolls. There are fewer spots in Europe for a lot more teams, so it's harder to predict who will make it. 4Kings and PyroGen already have spots and I can see Colwn, Fnatic, Dignitas, and RNX making it through as well.

  7. Any shout outs? Shout out to shootmaniacompetitive.com and follow my team on twitter: @spinmovegaming @Poor_Billy @alextaylorsmith @THEvince

If you haven't already signed up for the ShootMania open beta, make sure you do that as soon as humanly possible at www.shootmania.com! Download link here!

As always, follow me on twitter, and subscribe to our YouTube and Twitch.tv channels for more ShootMania goodness!

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com