Carolina Core is a franchise that I, like most of the community, had given very little credit to after the draft. While Jason Lake had threatened to prove me wrong early on in the season, Mark Dolven proved to be the General Manager that would show us collectively, what for. Hanging out in California for the remainder of Region One's first Season, I had a chance to catch up to the very busy General Manager of Carolina, and ask him a few questions that have been on my mind recently. With the way I had picked on him after the draft, I was surprised that he would give me the time of day, luckily for me, Dolven is an adult and a professional, and this is the CGS, not a BYOC tournament.

Starting from the beginning, what was your direct draft strategy? Did any other choices dictate any of your choices in the later rounds?

Looking back at the Draft, I definitely had the most unique position out of everyone, with the 6th and 7th pick, It was pretty easy to predict what the first five people were going to choose. A lot because Dave [Geffon] and Jason [Lake] had to pick their Counter-Strike: Source teams, and a lot of the other people had to make certain decisions to make their franchises what they needed to be. So it was easy to choose my direction from the beginning, and then when Brian [Flander] drafted PGR one and two, it made the rest of the General managers kind of scramble, which also helped me out because by the time it got back to me, many of the players that I wanted were still on the board, when I didn’t expect them to be. I never thought that I could get Rex and Mystik, I thought that Dead or Alive female was going to go very early in the draft, and the whole time I had the intention of drafting FIFA and Counter-Strike: Source last. Number One because I didn’t know how FIFA would play out in the scoring system, Number Two because while I wanted Pandemic, but I knew that whatever Source team I drafted, I could manage the proper way to get the most out of them, so it didn’t matter which team I got.

You’ve taken nothing but criticism after the draft, now that you’re in the finals, what do you think about it all looking back?

I was not necessarily stressed as much I was… concerned. A lot of people didn’t get drafted that definitely deserved to be in this league. I felt the burden because, Yeah, I could have changed my draft pick so that they did get in the league, at the same time I had to stick my guns and make the decisions of what I wanted to make, independent of what I wanted everyone else to feel like. Looking back at the draft I actually looked at the draft order the other night, I couldn’t have made out much better in the draft. There was a maybe one or two selections that I could have changed very very slightly to have a better team, but at the end of the day we’re in the finals, so I must have made some decent decisions and things have worked out pretty well.

Looking at the matchups coming into the finals, you’re not that far off. Carolina and Chicago have maybe one that blows the other out of the water, otherwise you’re almost neck and neck on everything, how do you feel about that?

I think that the finals are definitely the most evenly matched franchises in the league, not because we’re the top two in the league, but on paper, we don’t necessarily each have our own dominant force, one could argue about their PGR team is extremely dominant, but at the same time we have the second best PGR team in my eyes. The first two matches we played were 6-3 and the last one, yeah, they did blow us out of the water, but the franchise match was already over at that point, so I kind of do discount that result a little bit. In their defense, Black Mamba has definitely escalated himself to the second best Dead or Alive male, arguably WITH Master, so, couple that with the fact that he and OffbeatNinja are training partners in the normal season, they definitely know each other than say if OffbeatNinja was playing Master, when they know each other’s styles but they don’t train every day. So each of the two franchises strengths are countered instantly by probably the second best player in that game.

Carolina is the only franchise that has its own private playing room. Do you think that having a private space for your entire franchise and a solid, reliable internet connection benefited your franchise as a whole in anyway?

I think that the practice room that we setup for the players definitely benefited them a lot. Especially for the Counter-Strike: Source team, having the ability to wake up and death match, go to bed when you’re done playing, not have to schedule you’re practice, dealing with the other teams, hearing your communication during your scrims, but it also helped bring the whole franchise together as a whole, because that room has definitely doubled as a recreational spot, where they play a lot of other games together like Super Smash Brothers, the Source players were playing Dead or Alive, Phantom just learned how to play Counter-Strike: Source over the past three weeks because he had access to a computer. It helped everyone grow together, at the same time; I was surprised none of the other General Managers did something similar. Not giving your athletes the best tools available to maximize their potential is not necessarily a bright idea, and I definitely wasn’t going to trust that the CGS was going to provide the best conditions. They gave us some amazing practice rooms, but if you want to make sure that you’re getting ideal conditions you just have to do it yourself.

Was that put together out of your CGS budget or your own pocket?

The practice room was put together through a lot of favors from vendors in the area. Peekay knew a lot of good people through his previous relationships, and I knew some people. Yeah, there was some cost to it, but most of those pieces are loners from people who were supporting the Core, and we will be giving it back at the end of the month.