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Counter-Strike: Interview with 4K's Hotshot

By: Mark Cheben - Published June 02, 2006 at 3:47 PM EDT - Writer Archive
Mark "jESUIT" Cheben had a chance to speak with Ed "Hotshot" Harborne, 4K's CS Manager, about his team's past, present, and future.


WEG Masters was kind of disappointing for you guys. What did the team learn coming out of it and how has it affected the team’s out look on the game and each other?

Well we learnt that a lot of unexpected things can happen, that’s probably the number one outcome. The team itself is stable, id be lying if I said there was no problems with what went down but hey there was. Everyone here's an adult and we sorted it out, everyone got to air their views and the dust settled. As far as the game goes, hell WEG masters was a rollercoaster. With a non English speaking stand in, and really 0 prep and a lack of strategies we took CG to overtime, and took a map from wNv not bad going.

We realised Jonas was going to join SK, it was pretty much on the cards and so we got down to thinking about how to deal with that. Not had much luck with pickups in the past so we decided to go down a different path this time.

How have you coped with the loss of such a central player for Four Kings?

Sure, I mean any team would be gutted at losing a player like Jonas. He’s a strong fragger, with good motivation and a high level of commitment. Out of game he’s a real nice guy to deal with on a professional and personal basis and myself and the rest of the team had some great times for Jonas. His move to SK made a lot of sense for him personally and professionally, and everyone wished him the best when he let us know officially.

As for losing a central player, we've had some outstanding results in EC. Probably our first back to back online wins in like 8 decades. This game is an evolution of style, tactics and personnel. If you can't roll with those punches you're in the wrong game.

When looking for stand-ins for ESWC UK what were you looking for and why did you select AdY and Kuppi? Were you interested in recruiting both players?

Well we went down a new path like I said, sure it's easy to go with the tried and "tested" names in the industry, but where does the new blood come in? No one’s getting any younger so we looked to home and thought of Adam. Because of Thomas's exams Kuppi filled in for us which was outstanding of him at short notice. As for recruiting both players it wasn't really a factor we looked at, when we were looking for stand-ins that was what we were looking for at that time.

What does the recruitment of a UK player mean for 4K and the UK scene? A lot of brits give 4K a hard time for being so international, is it deserved and will they comeback around with AdY on the team?

Well, it's important to remember where you're born and bred. Essentially, 4K is a UK team and we based ourselves around that and added the international "flavour" later. After a while we realized our focus was becoming more and more international. and to honestly say it's worked out really well would be me being a bit economical with the truth.

The UK fan base has always given us a hard time as a result but it wasn't the reason behind us taking Adam into 4K. This isn't a Pop Idol kind of situation where we're looking to appease people. Adam is unproven, but he’s young hungry and has bags of talent and right now is soaking up advice and info from the other guys in the team. That can only be a good thing; to shape and mould a new talent with the amount of experience in this team will be quite exciting

Do you see 4K picking up any more UK talent in the future or is the lineup quite stable?

Is a 4K lineup stable? Man I must get asked this every time and I say Yes, and hell my head gets chopped off most of the time. It's as stable as any lineup can be really :) As for the UK talent part, lets cross that bridge when we come to it.

Yea I didn’t want to ask it but I had to, haha.

wanker :P

I’m putting that in there fyi.

LOL

Next event for your team is Dreamhack, I assume, what are you guys doing to prepare for it, anything special?

Same old, same old. We’ll be releasing event specific details, boot camp info etc. on our official site at http://www.four-kings.com along with exclusive event build up material.

I've always seen 4K on the edge of being an amazing team, and unfortunately, like at WEG Masters, things happen that side track the team. I realize you get this question a lot but what will it take 4K to finally break into the top three teams in the world and is this the year and lineup for 4K?

When which ever gypsy that cursed us keels over and dies, we're good to go. Or, I track that sucker down and stab her.

Ahhaa.

I'd love to give you a serious answer but hell.........that's the best I can come up with.

Sometimes those are the best answers, any last words/adverts/shoutouts/etc.?

Big thank you to everyone who makes 4K run on a day to day basis, the things you guys don’t get to see. The companies behind 4K that make it all happen financially and product wise, Intel, Soft-Trading, Shuttle and those yet to come. Roll on the summer. Peace

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