esports

A Different Wavelength: Q&A With Snute

Training Grounds competitor Jens "Snute" Aasgaard marches to the beat of a different drummer.

By redbull.com

5 min readPublished on 02/15/2017 · 10:34 PM UTC

The 22-year old Norwegian, selected as one of the competitors for Red Bull Training Grounds Orlando, has been known to pull an all-nighter creating music just as he does practicing StarCraft. We caught up with Snute, currently playing as the Zerg for Team Liquid, to find out what makes him tick.

You’ve had a very good in 2013 so far in SC2. What do you think has been the biggest key to your success?

I feel like my results have been shaky so far in 2013, but I've managed to get some good results. Many Zerg players seemed to struggle with the transition to Heart of the Swarm and for a long time I struggled more than most, but I've managed to recover and my shape is now equal, if not better than in Wings of Liberty. As for my key to success, my inject and creep spread skill is really weak compared to my peers, but I use a very punchy and macro-heavy aggressive style. For the most part it's all about massive and crisp droning, optimized builds and often times huge army timings while trying to stay safe in the process. I have a lot of experience with the game, so that helps a lot, too. Just sheer practice.

You recently went to the final round of the HomeStory Cup in Germany, where you came in second after a close seven game series. How has that boosted your confidence?

I had a lot of confidence from my WCS America run, but I also messed up at a DreamHack right before the event so I didn't know what to expect. I had rarely, if ever, beaten TaeJa in practice and my ZvT results had been rather weak. So it meant a lot to me to achieve a result like that.

These days, you live in Korea and train at the Team Liquid house. How much more rigorous is this training environment than your life in Norway?

I play quite a lot more in the teamhouse than I did at home. I practiced a lot at home too, but the quality of practice wasn't as good. Playing on the Korea server helps you learn and understand the flow of the game a lot faster. There's just more of everything here. More practice time, more free time, more focus, less concerns and a higher level overall.

We understand you like to make music in your free time, and even studied music before becoming a pro gamer. Does that creativity translate to your StarCraft II gameplay at all?

I don't really do it anymore now that I'm in Korea, I don't know if I'm particularly creative. Occasionally I'd have moments of genius, sit down and finish a tune overnight in 14 hours with no food or sleep, just in complete focus. But for the most part it wasn't easy to come up with something good. Music and SC2 are both played out within a frame with a beginning, an end, highs and lows, movements and dynamics--but I'm not sure if any of my creativity has translated over. You can draw lots of parallels between skillsets in music and SC2 - in both arts, there are lots of things you can do - but there are also rules and restrictions and optimal ways of doing things. Some things work, and some things don't. You can be creative, but you also have to deal with a frame and technical stuff.

You can think of it like this: You can say what you want about simple pop music but it's more popular and 'effective' than most indie bands with complex tunes. The same can be said for SC2.

No matter how genius a strategy might be in someone's head, it is likely to lose straight up to something simple.

You always want to follow the most effective approach when it comes to winning in SC2. When I made music I often tried to put too many elements into one place and it rarely turned out well.

This is one of the reasons why I'm using a simplified approach when it comes to SC2. I know very well what it means to be creative, but I also acknowledge that most of the creative things you can do in SC2 also rely a lot on your opponent's mistakes and might not be worth the attention on average. Creativity is great, but if you don't have the skill to actually play it out properly without missing your notes or skipping a beat then it's better not to try until you have the other things down. I can do something creative, but it's not something you'll necessarily see in every game.

You seem to really love roaches. Is there any particular reason why they’re your favorite unit?

Haha. I wasn't aware of this love. Perhaps. The Roach is very good to use is because of the way my style plays out. It's very safe and tanky and you can incorporate them into big timings later. Multiple times I've won over opponents that considered roaches to be a gimmick. But to me, mass roach in ZvZ for example can be used when I want to prove to my opponents that my macro was better. Very rarely do you actually need an overly complex or graceful finisher with lots of swarmhosts and infestors in order to prove your victory.

We understand your birthday falls on the day of the Red Bull Training Grounds finals – think you’ll have any special reasons to celebrate?

The last time I've been to the U.S., I met some amazing people and my impression is that everyone are very open and welcoming. I think no matter what happens at the event I'll be in good company but I'm not going to count out that there might be special reasons to celebrate.

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