Welcome To MYVYE.NET

Today to start a series of pre-insomnia43 interviews with a week to go we catch up with Peter "ptER" Mather, who is currently playing for one of the main contenders of the event, Fragmasters.

Hi Peter, to start could you introduce yourself to those who may need refreshing?

Ye sure, I am currently one of the leading members within the TEK9 news and admin crew, a national representative for the UK within Vita Nova and I am one of the SMG's within the team of FragMasters. 

You are currently playing under the Fragmasters tag as stated, and will be attending insomnia43 next week! How has the run up to the event been?

Exciting to be honest with you, the whole community knows by now that I am a big fan of the event and I truely do enjoy every moment that I am there. The actual team practise, at the risk of making excuses before the event, has actually been quite poor. We only just started last night as we had blazy in bosnia for a month alongside other members before that, I'm working this weekend so we're in total going to have 4 days of practise prior to the event.

What are your realistic goals for the event and how will you go about achieving these?

Hopefully we're going to come top three, if we had more practise who knows, there are a lot of decent teams attending including two invite teams that we'll need to overcome. Link are a very strong contender as well and I feel that with the practise we've given ourselfs we will struggle in every game against these opponents. On top of the teams attending, there are also quite a few high calibre mix teams such as otr which shouldn't be underestimated. Anyhow, top three would be nice.

You have recently had a string of top places finishes in the more recent prize cups even with a mix. Does that add pressure to perform well next week?

Not at all. At least for myself, doing well in recent cups doesn't add pressure, it fills you with confidence for future events and the fact that we finally have the team back together can only bring more success.

Who do you think will finish top6 overall?

I think it's a pretty easy conclusion to place TCM in the number one spot, and on paper Infused should follow closely behind. The third/fourth position is probably going to be a battle between ourselfs and Link although as previously mentioned there are several other mix teams that could rock the boat. In the 5th/6th spot I think we could see a whole variety of talent including but not limited to otr, VYE, <bb> and VitalGaming.

Who do you think will be the underdogs/dark horses at the event?

I always hate predicting these, especially at local events as there are always those that feel like they may get left out, but at the risk of annoying them I'm going to put my money on otr. They've got a mix of top players from TCM, H2K the old (and decent) iQPAD and a whole load more, if they have been practising they should be a force to be rekoned with on the day. Link could if the conditions are right push for the top spot, I wouldn't be surprised if they were in the final as they really are an underestimated side. Oh and don't forget DF, they may surprise a few of the lower end teams :)

Moving away from CoD4. You have expressed your love for the event earlier, Why is it that your such a big fan of iSeries?

I think a big factor in my devotion for this event is that it was my first ever LAN. It brought me into the world of eSports truely, introduced me to a whole load of people I still talk to years on and really took my hobby to the next level. The I-Series itself is often judged in a negative light, but for at least 98% of those that have actually been to the event hardly ever have a bad word for it, and those that do usually still keep going back for more. 

 What you have to take into account as well is that scale of the event. It's not you and 15 other teams in a cafe, it your an over 2,000 gamers in two massive halls all there to do the one thing, to game. The whole multiplay community side of the event is also good, 90% of people there arn't afriad to say hello, to mingle and to be friendly (excluding css community) and that really is a great thing. There isn't this aspect of eliteism that follows so many events, if you don't know people at european events it's pretty rare you'll sustain a long conversation with them.

Take for example our FM BBQ, it was a spur of the moment thing and now I think we've got half the COD4 section coming over for an evening of burnt burgers, sizzling sausages and a few cans of your preference, or in aaron's case a couple of breezers. There's so much more going, too much to type so I'll leave it there, it's just an amazing event to attend and for all those that havn't you really should come on down.

How do you think the new venue will impact future events?

It's hard to say really, in the majority of curcumstances it's going to improve a great deal of things about the event. The stage is a nice addition, it's the size of a small cinima! The two big halls should bring the community together and it's got excellent ventilation. I know the venue didn't quite reach capacity which is a shame, but we passed the 2k mark by quite a large margain so who knows, could I-Series become the new dreamhack in a few years time.?

How do you think the event can be improved?

Bigger prizepots, more eu teams getting of their rears and the recognition it deserves as a major lan, it's the biggest COD4 event this year for crying out load.

Do you think we will ever see the same calibre of teams attend again from the likes of i34 - i37?

I think we will, take a look at the iseries a year ago, we we're down to 16 teams. Now, after just a few months of promotion within the cod4 scene we've managed to raise the bar to 46 teams including the team that could be the best in Europe. If Adroits hadn't been organized so close to i43 (bad planning on seanza's part) we were looking at a much higher attendence. Give it till next year, if we manage to sustain the growth we'll be back to how we were at the beginning of the game. I think it's worth noting that the previous COD4 admin is now a salaried member of staff within Multiplay, so we'll have to see how this changes things for us, hopefully for the better.

Something that I am sure the COD Scene wants to know and with you being the UK Vita-Nova rep, Will Vita-Nova ever support the iseries again!

I'm not quite sure if you're aware or not but Graham, or as you may know him, Messioso, is the chief COD4 admin for the event. It's a major step in the right direction, GeoSnype was an amazing admin for many years and he's finally moved up to a higher position but now that Vita Nova have got their foot through the door so many things can change. I will always be pushing for the UK scene, as with I-Series on the front page it will always be getting my support. I think all it will take it for more European teams to get down to the event to take away that "local LAN" tag and place it back into the forefront, anyhow, time will tell.

Ok Peter, it has been great interviewing you and I thank you for your time, any finals words?

Can't wait to see everyone again next week at the event. Shoutout's to my team: soakR, minx, blazy and atomik and our amazing sponsors who are Sapphire, Bullguard, Zowie and Multiplay who support us with our every endeavour and our amazing manager Yakkk. Cheers for putting up with me through the interview Paul, see you next week.

Stay tuned for more interviews. I will be catching up with our own VYE Founders Joe Tuley and Mark Stimpson in the next coming week.