ESFI World

Australia's most famous gamer and South East Asia's most succesful Starcraft 2 player, Andrew 'mOOnGLaDe' Pender, has impressed with his performance so far at the Intel Extreme Masters in Hannover. Undoubtedly, he is a talented player, but was he ever expected to beat Jeffrey 'Sjow' Brusi, the European champion, and the GSL Team League star Hyun-Woo 'Squirtle' Park?

In an interview with ESFI World, Pender explains how he is extremely happy to have won three out of three games so far and how he is confident that he will make it into the playoffs. However, it hasn't been as easy as it seems for the Australian, as he explains how he had a bad start to the day.

"The first match [against Socke] started off a bit rocky and I lost my first game," said the FXOpen player. "I played rather badly...I was worried, but managed to scrape through with two wins in a row after that. I felt pretty confident going into my next game."

His second group stage match pitted him against Hyun-Woo 'Squirtle' Park, who was directly invited from South Korea to take part in the competition.  Park claimed notoriety when he defeated the whole fOu team on the opening day of the inaugural Global Starcraft 2 Team League (GSTL). However, he hasn't been able to produce the same caliber of games in Europe, and Pender's doubts from yesterday now seem unneccessary.

"I'm feeling super-happy to have beat him 2-0," said the Group B leader.

His third and final game (so far) came against the winner of the Intel Extreme Masters European Championship, Jeffrey 'SjoW' Brusi and provided Pender with his favourite match-up, Zerg vs Terran. Once the match had finished its course, Pender was able to hand SjoW his first loss of the stage and separate the two of them at the top of the table.

Again, Pender expressed his happiness to have won and attributed the win to increased confidence and the race composition, Zerg vs Terran.

In his final two matches he will face Fnatic's Jian Carlo 'Fenix' Alejo and former Warcraft 3 legend, Jae-Ho 'Moon' Jang. "[Fenix] plays a bit differently so it should be interesting games, but I think I'll do OK - it's still my best match up," said Pender. "Against Moon, its ZvZ, which is a little trickier, but I think I can beat him too. At this point I'm confident that I can make it to the playoffs."

For more coverage of the IEM 5 World Championships, visit the event page.

Photo: Readmore.de