Interview: “Xeris” Duran Parsi

Evil

Duran Parsi is everywhere within the American StarCraft scene.

Xeris is so deeply embedded within the American scene that you can look in almost any direction and find that it relates to him somehow. It’s like a game of six degrees of separation, only it rarely takes six degrees.

Let’s look at, oh I don’t know, the legend of HovZ. HovZ is an infamous character banned from both the StarCraft and poker communities for his inhuman ability to become violent. Once upon a time, the Terran user HovZ took the TeamLiquid.net forum too seriously. His temper led to a Los Angeles fist fight with another forum-antagonist and fellow American player, Nextel. Nextel, despite his stellar StarCraft skill, is now best known for being on the receiving end of a forumer’s angst and wrath and fists. Guess what? Nextel is Duran Parsi’s best friend.

It would be harder to find a well-known (and well-traveled) American player that has not run into Xeris than to find one who has.

This well-connectedness is not without reason. Xeris coached the USA national team B from last place to first in the WGTour ladder and from the most inactive team to the most active. He’s crisscrossed North America for StarCraft, organized over ten LANs on the continent, co-founded the Collegiate Starleague, organized blockbuster tournaments like Nostalgia and For the Love of the Game, served as an administrator at WGTour and until recently led the prolific Team LighT. What does he have against being lazy?

While Xeris knows practically everyone in StarCraft life, it is also true that practically everyone in Duran’s life knows about StarCraft.

“It’s one of the first things I tell people,” says Xeris, laughing. “My dad has warmed up to it over the years, as long as it doesn’t interfere with school he says. It has taught me a great deal about business, organization, leadership and I’ve got to travel and make a lot of friends – so he’s cool with it.”

In late February, Xeris was contracted by Fnatic to build a top level StarCraft 2 team. He’s not too bad at the game himself, holding about a 1350 rating near the top of his Platinum division.

For the record, he thinks the game is very fun but he says, “like most people, I’m just really disappointed with the lack and difficulty of microing units.”

When talking to Xeris, it becomes clear that he is confident in the potential enormity of StarCraft 2.

“I have a lot of faith that at the end of the day, Blizzard will do right by us and keep StarCraft 2 vibrant and amazing. I think they’ve shown that with Brood War over the years. For example, they continually host events for Brood War – Blizzcons, WorldWide Invitationals and the Sandlot.

“For a game this old, the fact that they still show love and respect for the fans of the game by hosting events is really admirable. I have nothing but respect for Blizzard.”

His first big project for his new team is the actual construction of that team via the Fnatic Rookie Draft, a world cup-style tournament featuring familiar names like Kabal, Tarson, Oystein, Castro and Fenix.

KawaiiRice and Xeris

“I think in terms of skill, Fenix and Castro are by far the favorites,” says Xeris. “I think Yayba and Kabal would round out the top 4 in terms of how good they are. But there is a lot of talent here, so I’m actually really excited to see how the tournament pans out. I’m rooting for KawaiiRice though because I feel like he’s my little chinky brother.”

After the construction phase is complete, where does he plan on taking the team?

“Well, there is ESL stuff, Zotac Cups, I’ve heard TL is planning some SC2 events, BWCL is starting an SC2 league,” says the Protoss player. “And rumor has it that Dreamhack will have an SC2 tournament, so there is going to be quite a bit going on in the next 5 to 6 months that should keep me and the new team very busy.”

This new role comes as Xeris works as a teacher and tutor in a college prep course for underprivileged kids. He is also planning to soon attend graduate school to obtain a joint Law degree and PhD in International Relations so that he might pursue his passion of working on human rights issues in the Middle East.

If there is no rest for the wicked, Duran Parsi is downright evil.

Thanks to Xeris for taking the time for this interview. Here a few folks he wanted to shout out to: “Well I just want to say <3 to all my team LighT friends and family! And want to thank Fnatic for bringing me in and their sponsors MSI, SteelSeries, and BigFoot … I know how important sponsorship is for teams and eSports in general, so they deserve a lot of credit for making my job possible in the first place. Also the people that work at those companies are pretty cool too, I’ve met a few from Steelseries and they’re really supportive of eSports…”