Early exit
One could hardly identify it was the same Grubby playing in the first three days in the running PGL Season IV in Chengdu, China, cruising to successive victories over former mTw pair Hyeong Ju 'Check' Lee and Dae Hui 'FoV' Cho in the opening day, followed by a series of defeats to Xiaofeng 'Sky' Li, Lin 'Wulin' Wu, Mykhaylo 'HoT' Novopashyn and Dmitriy 'Happy' Kostin, resulting an early exit in group stage. “I was very angry at myself. I didn't know why I was playing so bad, but I was playing very bad,” He told Tatazu.com. “You can’t really tell it was simply because of this or that. I was playing bad overall. It took me a day or two, but I have to accept this outcome. My PGL has come to an end, so I have to prepare for the next tournament now.”

Slender preparation
The 22-year-old enjoyed a fruitful spell in late 2008, scoring gold at ESL Benelux Finals, World Cyber Games 2008 and Extreme Masters Global Challenge Seoul, but was not confident as he headed into his first tournament in 2009 due to thin preparation compared to his competitors, Russia Undead player Happy for instance, who had been training for it since the end of World Cyber Games 2008. “I wasn’t really confident of PGL and wasn’t expecting a lot. Though it doesn’t mean I don’t care, I am not really surprise at this result,” He continued. “I took a break after my last tourney to deal with my private stuff around a week and spent holiday with my family so I didn’t practice enough and that’s why I didn’t feel confident.”

New maps yet to be tested
Compared to various tournaments which use traditional maps, Lost Temple, Turtle Rock, Gnoll Wood and Secret Valley etc., PGL has long been innovative with regard to map pool in the past and this season is not an exception with the likes of Death Trap, Melting Valley, Road to Stratholme and Tidewater Glades. Whether they introduce balance issue among races remains to be seen, said Grubby when he was asked for the reason he lost to Happy as the majority considered the Orc player had the upper hand in this matchup. “First of all, I don’t think I have more chance, especially when playing against players like Happy. Do you really believe he is thinking Orc is stronger in game? He doesn’t care. He beat Like, he beat me and I believe he is going to beat more. Anyway I don’t think balance is a big problem,”

“Second, this tournament introduces lots of new maps, and no one knows how is the balance on these maps, for example Death Trap. There are not enough games played on this map to prove it is better for Orc or Undead. I think we should leave the debate of balance behind this time, since I don’t know these new maps well, and probably the other players, too.”