Interview: “MorroW” Stefan Andersson

Morrow is a Swedish Terran. He finished second in the TSL ladder with an A rating.

The Professional Method.

It’s all about the mindset, Mr. Andersson.

Wake up. Coffee. School? Maybe. From there, the world to Stefan Andersson fades to the background as Terrans and Neo Tornadoes advance to the foreground. MorroW is wholly focused on the game of StarCraft.

“If I don’t play Brood War, I’m wasting time,” says the 17 year-old Swedish Terran. “If I just shit around all day with friends or watch TV, I don’t improve as a human being.”

As was made evident in his TeamLiqud StarLeague play, MorroW has not been wasting much time. He finished second in the TSL ladder with a 206-108 A record. The high finish garnered wide praise, his admittedly strategic, numerous and occasionally maligned dodges notwithstanding. On the average weekday, he plays up to 25 games in a day, hours on end, with a goal beyond simply winning. Day after day, Korean after Korean, MorroW’s ultimate prize remains a professional gaming career, most likely to be found in Korea proper. Andersson says he has had very few teachers (“Except Flash.”), relying first and foremost on a superior mindset to improve faster than his competition.

Game 1, Kolll vs. MorroW, TSL Qualifiers. Morrow attacks Kolll's third base.

“I have been [solely] dedicated to practice for a year now. For the first year or so, I didn’t practice a lot. I was a casual player and I improved quickly for the few games I played but now I must play a shitload to improve because the higher you get the harder it becomes to push yourself. To improve or play well at this game, I think it all comes down to mindset: Don’t be angry after you lose. Don’t take risks when you practice or cheese versus better players. The best way to improve is to play standard style over and over and not get angry after you get cheesed. Instead, learn to stop it. This was my method and still is. ”

After the famous Dutch Zerg, “Ret” Joseph de Kroon’s tumultuous and brief stay in Korea, no one would begrudge MorroW an apprehensive double-take at the prospects for a professional gaming career. Ret’s time in Korea was full of cold-shoulders, paranoid accusations and a constant feeling of loneliness.

“You aren’t comfortable where you are,” Ret told Fragster.de in a recent interview, “and it seems like the whole world is working against you to make sure you feel like shit.”

MorroW shrugs this off.

“Actually, all the Ret VODs [from Artosis at SCForAll.com] boosted my motivation to go there,” says the Terran, “because I have a better grip now. Before those VODs, I was like ‘Okay, Courage, errr – how hard is that?’ But now I see Ret almost winning it, so that boosts my confidence. If Ret was in the eSTRO team house the entire time instead of on Artosis’ couch then I think he would have won Courage. But this replay leak thing screwed that up. It was not Ret’s fault – if he was in eSTRO as he deserved then he would win Courage. So, Ret’s whole Korea thing encouraged me to be more excited to go there.”

Ret’s stay, heavy on discomfort and uncertainty and being “treated like a child”, encourages MorroW first and foremost because he’s concretely realized one thing: A foreigner can make it in Korea.

Game 1, Kolll vs. MorroW. MorroW has made it up the ramp and is advancing toward a 1-0 lead.

“Artosis is kind of my guide for this – he asks me what my goal is and he tells me how to get it. He doesn’t tell me what I should do but for my goal he thinks I must go to Korea. And then I say, if Artosis thinks so then I am all aboard because he knows best. He’s the Terran Oracle and he told me there is no spoon.”

Of course, there was already one notorious foreigner in the Korean progaming scene who had beat Ret to it. He remains in the country, inside the CJ Entus house. What of him and his perceived failures and successes? MorroW had no shortage of thoughts on the subject.

“I think he is the perfect example of how you improve slowly if you have the wrong mindset,” says MorroW. “[IdrA] gets angry when he loses, he doesn’t learn from his mistakes, he uses mind-play when he shouldn’t and doesn’t use it when he should. He doesn’t make sense in his builds or play. He’s been in Korea forever and he loses a game by canceling his Command Center. If he could learn to see the game like you should he would become good but right now I feel like he is very unstable and it is because of his mind-set.”

I am interviewing MorroW only hours after “IdrA” Greg Field’s TSL quarterfinals loss to NonY, the upset heard ’round the world. It’s on the mind of the entire Brood War community, Mondragon and Sen maybe being the sole exceptions.

Game 1, Kolll vs. MorroW. A Lurker counter-attack fails to stem the Marine advance.

“The main point I’m trying to make here is if you are going to play StarCraft all day, you should enjoy it. Embrace the builds the the Toss throws at you instead of getting angry and saying it’s stupid. You need to get inspired when you get cheesed. Whenever you lose, there is an opportunity to learn but he doesn’t understand this. He just rages all the time and makes an ass out of himself. And I think that’s sad because he’s a good gamer.”

It is very frustrating to see watch someone with so much talent be so unstable.

“I don’t think he’s talented,” MorroW quickly responds. “Talent is mind-set. Take Mondragon or White-Ra. Although I think they are a little bit too old now to play so fast, they understand how to improve. Same with NonY, just look at him: one month and he plays super well. It’s because he knows how to analyze and improve and I think that is the more important talent in Brood War.”

MorroW was knocked out of the TSL in the qualifying stages by the favored “Kolll” Anton Emmerich, a 14 year-old German Zerg prodigy who famously beat IdrA 2-0 on his way to 4th place at the World Cyber Games 2009. With that on his mind, MorroW says he did not watch the match with the same favorite as everyone else.

“I expected IdrA to lose but I didn’t expect him to play so badly as he did and I didn’t expect NonY to all-in so much. I thought the game was going to be more mechanical and standard. I know how different the games were, more than other people who aren’t at a top level or don’t play tournaments. They might just say ‘Okay, really bad C- allin games’ which they were in mathematics but in mind-play NonY did brilliantly and IdrA as well. In game 1, they focused on mind play rather than mathematical play which turned in favor of NonY. I think it was a bad idea of IdrA’s to enter mind play against a gamer who has been inactive. The only benefit NonY could have versus IdrA would be the mind play part and IdrA chose to play under NonY’s circumstances. If IdrA had just played safe then maybe he could win with standard games but actually, I don’t think IdrA would outclass NonY in a standard game either.”

Actually, the predictions MorroW made at the start of the round of 16 have not turned out so well. In fact, he wagered that IdrA would win the entire tournament, defeating Kolll in the finals. According to him, Ret and White-Ra would take third and fourth places respectively. None of his initial semi-final predictions remain in the tournament: Kolll lost to Fenix in the round of 16, White-Ra lost to Jianfei in the round of 8, Ret fell to Sen in the same round and, of course, IdrA’s demise rounded out the quarter-finals. Hindsight is 20-20 but, to be fair, an awful lot changes from round to round.

Most recently, MorroW ran through an international field of 22 without dropping a single game and qualified for a spot in the round of 16 at the SwangSong Invitation Tournament, the ultimate prize being a StarCraft 2 beta key. Next on the road to beta, the Swedish Protoss Shauni and a field narrowed to 16 foreigners who MorroW himself describes as mostly “mid-level” except for GosI[Terran], the Mexican Terran Juan Carlos Tena Lopez, whom Morrow praises as “tier 1″.

Game 1, Kolll vs. MorroW. MorroW finally reaches Kolll's third. Within seconds, Kolll will leave the game. He'll regroup and take the series 3-1 and then lose the next round 3-1 against the Terran Fenix.

Winning a beta key would be an enormous head start toward his goal of professional StarCraft 2 play. The new game will bring new teams, wealthy sponsors and prestigious competition but MorroW thinks that the road to the top will still run through Korea.

“Koreans will have StarCraft 2 pro-houses and play a shitload every day. I think foreigners will have “proteams” like Mouz, ex-v10 and whatever and we will get more money but it will not be on the same serious level. We won’t get pro-houses outside Korea. I think Koreans will practice the most and foreigners who want to do well in StarCraft 2 must go to Korea to get the best practice.

“A year and a half ago, I thought there would be a lot of money in StarCraft 2 outside of Korea but now I think that, while the money will increase from Brood War, it will be 0 compared to PRO gamers. It’s a funny word in the foreign scene – I talk real money and I’m talking about Korea. I think I must go there but you never know.”

His grand ambition aside, MorroW has decided to take a deliberate and careful approach to learning StarCraft 2. He loves the feel of Terran and he hopes to play the human side but he will random for weeks, thoroughly learning the ins and outs of each race.

As the tournament money begins to materialize, as the Battle.net ladder creeps closer to reality and as StarCraft 2 becomes more than an apparition haunting the franchise’s most dedicated fan base, the Swedish outsider MorroW leaves me with one statement.

“MorroW will dominate everyone in StarCraft 2.”

I laugh.

“No. Really.”

The Terran Professional Method

Thanks to Stefan Andersson, MorroW himself, for having the patience to conduct this interview. Thanks to TeamLiquid and PokerStrategy.com for a great event in TSL that has brought MorroW into focus. Portrait credit: Fabian Perez.