Coalition Report: Apex_Fitzer Interview
What do you get when you mix a powerful shotgun with an Irish accent? A man whose team is $4,000 richer! Recently I had the pleasure of doing a brief interview with Fitzer from the European team apeX. apeX, one of the top European teams, spread their quest for dominance as they took out the US team LOX in the recent GOW SE: Last Stand tournament.
As a continuance of episode three of “The Coalition Report”, we find out from Fitzer a little bit of his background mixed in with how his team won the final GOW.SE match.
A Brief Background:
Fitzer
-Age: 19
-Location: Dublin, Ireland
-Twitter: @apex_fitzer
-Favorite Weapon: Boomshot
-Favorite Gears 3 Map: Rustlung
-Biggest Strength as a Player: Consistency
-Former Competitive Teams: Advocate, Royalty and Infused
-Member of apeX for a year and a half
When did you start playing Gears of War?
Fitzer: I started to play Gears of War a year after its release.
What’s your favorite thing about the game?
Fitzer: The competition is my favourite thing about the game. Even though there is not much at the moment, there is still some competition which keeps the game enjoyable.
What drew you in to the competitive community?
Fitzer: I started off on GB [Game Battles]. Playing the top teams on GB was good because we always gave them a good game and had the motivation to play them again and beat them. We eventually became the best team on GB and there was no competition left on the site. We heard about a site called the gowforum, which was a place for all EU’s top teams to play against each other so we knew we had to make a move over to that scene.
What do you think apeX has that other teams don’t?
Fitzer: apeX has the knowledge and skill that other teams don’t. We know how to improve and how to stay at the top.
What’s the Gears scene like in Europe compared to the US?
Fitzer: The Gears scene in the EU is very poor compared to the US scene, in terms of teams and attitude. We have the potential to have great LAN attendances, but it just never happens. Also EU don’t have the “play the best, learn from the best” attitude, they have the “We dont want to get beat in a scrim” attitude. The US is the opposite and love to play the top teams.
You’ve had a couple of team member changes since Hype 2. What was the cause of the change?
Fitzer: We just felt the team wasn’t working out each time. Recently we’ve had 2 players quit GOW competitively, Reece and Stabeezy. You know when a team’s not working out, even if you are really good friends, but you want to succeed. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Now about the match:
You got off to a great start with a 4-1 on Checkout. At this point were you guys confident you would win? Or do you try to keep a level head?
Fitzer: We were confident before the game even started. We knew we could win. You got to have confidence playing the top teams. A 4-1 on Checkout just pumped us up even more than we were beforehand.
Were there any big obstacles for you guys to overcome during the match?
Fitzer: To keep a level head when we were losing during maps and after we lost 2 maps. It’s all about staying calm and keeping your teammates pumped. Don’t let them put their heads down.
This was such a back and forth battle–you would win a map, they would win a map–what do you think was the turning point in the game that led apeX to victory?
Fitzer: Going into Clocktower (last map), we knew it was a fairly shotgun based map. We are extremely strong with the shotgun. If teams play up top, which most teams do, and if they matched us up top, we would win. And also, Reaxion taking the 3v1 first round was also a massive boost to kick start us off.
Do you have a US rival you would like to play again in a tournament in the future?
Fitzer: We don’t have any US rivals to be honest since we don’t ever get to play any of them due to the lag issue.
Are you excited about the announcement of Gears Judgment? What, if any changes, would you hope to make to the game?
Fitzer: I haven’t watched a single video about this game yet, but the only change I would love to see is that there is no stopping power. The Retro Lancer and the Sawed Off isn’t really a big issue because they won’t/shouldn’t ever be in competitive play.
We hope to see more big things from apeX and the European Gears community soon. A big thanks to Fitzer for his time. You can connect with him by watching is live stream twitch.tv/fitzerr_ or tweet him @apex_fitzer.
This is Britt signing off. As you know, GCON will always bring you the latest and greatest news in the Gears community. Oh, and one more thing, Britt happenz and it just happened to you!