New L4D2 Talent

I recently got together with the new Left 4 Dead 2 team and got the chance to get a interview with them to formally introduce them to the rest of the team.Here's what they had to say. Who does your roster consist of?

xgReeNx, Cooljerk, Visceral, Fanatic, Palmy

How did you guys meet?

Fanatic: I met xgReeNx and palmy when KiLLaToY started having tryouts for Sector 7. I met Cooljerk when Wetzel went crazy and we needed a new 4th Kristie brought Visceral onto the team when we had palmy move to backup.

Visceral: I met these guys by an invitation to join the s7 team from green. A few days later I was told that we had been sponsored by the team and so that's sort of where I came in as a starter I suppose.

xgReeNx: I met Visceral, Cooljerk, and Palmy through scrims and pub games in the Left 4 Dead 1 series. I later met Fanatic while he was trying out for our s7 team.

Cooljerk: My former team Derogate wasn't doing any good at the start of l4d2, so I was looking for something new. I heard s7 was replacing their 4th so I started scrimming with them every day and went from there.

Palmy: I played the first L4D game with Green quite a bit. Once Sector 7 was started up, I met fanatic. Halfway through the Alienware L4D2 tournament, one of our members mysteriously went inactive. Luckily, Cooljerk had just quit his previous team, so we were sure to pick him up. I recently got a new job which forced me to become less active on the team, so I chose to become a back-up player. Visceral took my spot as a starter.

What made you decide to form a team and compete?

Fanatic: KiLLaToY was like, YO 51 is making a team that we will practice with all the time. Add me to tryout I'm only picking up the most amazing players so here I am now tagged up yaknow.

xgReeNx: KiLLaToY told me about a team he was trying to form and that he and some of the members of Area 51 would help practice.

Palmy: Killatoy wanted to manage an L4D2 team and helped us put Sector 7 together. Once the previous Area 51 L4D2 team went inactive, we were picked up.

Do you guys have any past competitive experience?

Fanatic: Did some Wow 3v3 arena semi-competitively

Cooljerk: I've played MoH and all the CoD's leading up to Modern Warfare competitively.

xgReeNx: I have played on Counter Strike Source and SOCOM 2.

Visceral: My only competitive experience was from L4D1 where I was in almost all of the major tournaments that went on in there. I competed for many teams, 51 being one of them and won in one tournament where I was given a free copy of L4D2. Other than that, my competitive experience is limited to only this style of game play.

Palmy: I have competitive experience in TFC (started in 2001), and the Alienware L4D2 tournament.

What made you choose Area 51 over other gaming organizations?

Fanatic: We chose Area 51 because after placing 5th in Alienware we were looking for a good gaming sponsor to support us in our desires to compete in all the tournaments and LANs left 4 dead 2 has to offer. We mentioned this to KiLLaToY and he said he would talk to Jagman for us since his L4D squad was inactive. Sure enough, a few days later I found myself in Vent with Jag, Vert, and Ares telling them "a little about myself".

Visceral: I chose to be on the team because I was with Area 51 before and enjoyed my time there. I like the sponsor and appreciate the organization that this sponsor puts out. Organization is a big thing for me and I like when the people sponsoring me constantly supports my team and provides us with the things we need to compete. 51 for as long as I've known has done that and that's the most important thing to do when sponsoring any team.

Palmy: Area 51 has a good name in the L4D community, so it was a natural choice.

What would you say your team's strongest skill is?

Fanatic: I personally think my teams' greatest skill is learning from the mistakes we make. Every team makes mistakes now and then and I think we do a great job of taking them in stride and either eliminating them the next time around, or at least improving.

Visceral: From my personal point of view, I've always felt our Infected game play has been our strongest part of this game. We don't usually have to call much out on attacks and understand when and how to intercept most attacks. We do a good job of utilizing our Tanks to do as much damage as possible in all sorts of situations. Of course there will always be times with any team out there that our attacks get completely shut down, but I think rebounding from a terrible attack is more important than a normal successful attack. From playing L4D1 and now this I've learned that good overall team morale is the most important thing to have throughout the entire scrim/match.

Cooljerk: I think our overall chemistry is our strongest skill. We've played with each other for long enough to know our play styles and we work well playing off each other's strengths.

xgReeNx: I think our team's strongest skill is being relentless. Even when every attack isn't doing a whole lot of damage, we don't lose hope and keep at it and eventually it plays into our favor.

Palmy: Our strongest skill is probably determination and will. Grinding out scrim after scrim and going over strategies has helped get our team to where it is now.

Do you have any goals set?

Cooljerk: My goal has always been to be recognized as the best team this game has to offer.

xgReeNx: My goal is to keep practicing and getting better so that our team can win every tournament L4D2 has to offer.

Visceral: I have many goals set for playing here on this team, but I'll list just a few. My first and most important is to help take this team to win a championship of any sort. I personally have not had the opportunity to be crowned a champion in anything that really 'counted' as a big win on my part, so getting to that point would really be a great start for us. I'd also like to get our team to places outside our homes and play in LAN tournaments and other recognized events so that we can get to know each other a bit better and hopefully take this team beyond that of just any normal L4D2 team.

Fanatic: I absolutely believe that we can easily be the best team in L4D2. At this point there are only 1 or 2 teams that can challenge us and I think with some more experience and practice together we can bring 51 to the top of the L4D2 arena again by winning online tournaments and LANs under the 51 name!

Palmy: Place 1st in a tournament.

How would you react if you were transformed into a fish?

Cooljerk: wat

Fanatic: wtf?

xgReeNx: I would swim, then swim some more...then swim some more to pass the time.

Palmy: I'd swim upstream to spawn with all the hot female fish.

Visceral: I'd probably swim to the Pacific Ocean and find a lady fish that I could totally take out to the Fish Under the Sea Dance. There I would hopefully get my first 'fish' kiss and then wake up and realize it was only a dream!

Does the leadership role change when you step into the game or does one person call all the shots?

xgReeNx: Everyone basically becomes the leader. Nobody in particular calls. We all for the most part think alike and have the same ideas. It's usually whoever calls something out first is who we listen to.

Cooljerk: All of us contribute ideas and strats during the game.

Visceral: I think the leadership role definitely plays a big part in teams and is also the key to any organization in how teams put their A game out. For us it's more like a group of players who know what to expect from each other and will offer any tips and advice as we play each campaign. Every map requires something a little different from every player on the team and everyone will suggest what he/her prefers for the given situation in any given moment. Team input and coordination is important because the typical caller/leader may not always have the best solution for every situation in a match.

Fanatic: When we get in game, everyone contributes. There's no one man in charge and no one person to blame for anything. I understand that my teammates know the game extremely well and I trust each of them to play the best they can. When we are playing in scrims/matches we throw our ideas out whenever we have them and count on our teammates to tell us if we have the right idea.

Palmy: We're a pretty democratic team. While most teams have a single caller who tells the others what to do, we tend to consider any suggestions that any member gives.

Who in your opinion has the biggest ego on the team?

Fanatic: x gee reen x

Cooljerk: ^

xgReeNx: I ONLY JOKE AROUND WOW. But really... me

Visceral: I'm definitely going to have to agree with the guys on this one. Green can tend to spout off from time to time, but we love her all the same. ^_^

Palmy: Cooljerk. That kid won't shut up about how awesome he is.

What do you enjoy doing when you aren't focusing on Left 4 Dead?

xgReeNx: I don't have a life outside of Left 4 Dead...besides reading books my nana gives me. I like to read, yes I can READ, watch CSI, watching UFC, and standing up pretending I'm the tank.

Fanatic: When I'm not playing Left 4 Dead 2, I like to play basketball, watch Seinfeld, go out with my friends, and eat Taco Bell.

Cooljerk: When I'm not gaming, I'm listening to music or reading.

Visceral: On occasion I like to play other Indie games like Beat Hazard or Booster Trooper. Outside the PC world I don't do too much other than hang out with my friends if there are any events going on. I work and go to college, so I don't usually have a lot of free time on my hands. I take what I can get, but it makes me happy in the end.

Palmy: I've been playing guitar for 9 years now and enjoy recording material for my metal band. I'm also a huge Washington Capitals fan, so I catch every game I can. Oh, and I cook. If I'm not doing those, I'm either playing some other PC game, working, or hanging out with friends.

What is your favorite L4D/2 Infected and Survivor?

Fanatic: In terms of coolness, the jockey is of course the best... For a serious game, the charger of course is a beast. Ellis is the best survivor.

Cooljerk: My favorite survivor is Nick, and for infected the charger is best.

Visceral: My favorite Infected is and always will be the Hunter. As much as I hate the fact that Valve completely removed wall bouncing animations and made him gain 20 pounds, he will seem to always be my favorite SI. My favorite survivor this time around is Coach for his hilarious voices and his love of all sorts of Southern style foods.

xgReeNx: I love the Jockey because you can be a ninja and separate them from the rest of the group as long as they're distracted. I'd have to say Rochelle is the best survivor because she's a beast.

If I were to look in your refrigerator, what would I find?

Cooljerk: All the items you need for a sammich.

Fanatic: 1 chiekn finger

xgReeNx: You would find hamburger helper that I made the previous night.

Palmy: A Brita water pitcher, beer, soda, lunch meat, cheese, various vegetables. Eggs, milk. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Visceral: Lots of low fat Milk, olives, cheese, bacon, mustard, ketchup, 12 pack of Barqs Root Beer, leftover BBQ hot dogs, Sunny Delight, 1 bottle of Hypnotik, 6 pack of Dos Equis, cream cheese, bag of blue-berry flavored bagels, 2 packages of butter, lemonade and some other assorted condiments that I may have forgot.

Anything you would like to add or any shoutouts?

Fanatic: Just that I'm excited to be playing for 51 and I hope to continue to do so far into the future. Shoutout to Cooljerk for getting midgame poopies. Srs shoutout to KiLLaToY for bringing the team together =D. Shoutout to Hoz for picking the hardest Navy program possible. GJ.

Cooljerk: Shoutout to Hookyhook my old team leader, the best caller in L4D2. Shout out to blitz for sticking with me all these years.

Visceral: Shoutout of course to my gal/big supporter MiscreantK. Shoutout to my old L4D1 team Che, Tech, and Company, (killatoy somewhere in there) and all my friends who have supported me throughout the past year and a half! Shoutout to the guy who changed his name.

Palmy: Nah. If you're good with me, you already know it.

xgReeNx: Le Frank (blight), Pets (blight), Sloe (Eximius), KiLLaToY, Mayhem (team TP), ViRaL, Vyxx, Subliminal, dom, Rosy, Tech, Helen, MiscreantK, Peaches, brick, smudge, Zanzabar (ninjaboomer), Krusher, fuerte, FoxyMoxy, Hookyhook, chew, boomboom and last but not least PUFFERY (cricket sounds)...... Shoutout to my team making me troll pubbies and people who deserve it. I would like to add that our team gets pre-game poopies before matches. We make sure we have enough time to get that out of our systems before an important game. SHOUTOUT TO FOOL FOR PUTTING UP WITH ME FOR THIS INTERVIEW.

Once again please welcome the new Left 4 Dead 2 team to the organization, and we all hope you guys the best of luck in the future. Bring us home something to be proud of and go get em!

Note: Only one blonde was hurt (mentally) during the making of this interview.

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