FPSChallenge Budapest LAN 2022 - Interview: whadez (+ULTRA)

1. Hello whadez, first of all I’d like to thank you for taking part in this interview. Could you introduce yourself to the people who don't know you?

Hello ZEHIRRR, my name is Richárd mostly known as whadez, I'm the founder and developer of FPSChallenge.eu, I've been playing COD4 for many years now, and since the the CyberGamer website closed, my plans have been to revive the community, and offer a place for all of our oldschool game fans to be apart of our community.

2. Currently you are playing for team +ULTRA, could you tell us your story? How long has your team been playing together in this formation and how did you find each others?

After the Zagreb LAN me and G4box were looking for team opportunities, we were invited to join the french trio consisting of zABZRWx, HYPERION, and NeD, and we just couldn't say no to that. We've been playing together for almost two months now, I was mixing with NeD couple of times many years ago, and always wanted to team up with this beast.

3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your team?

For strenghts I'd say our insane comebacks, in practice we came back numerous times from very poor score, also I feel like with this lineup we have a lot of ideas on what to do against certain teams and how to counter them. Weakness is definitely our lack of practice, due to unfortunate circumstances we couldn't prep as much as we wanted to.

4. Unfortunately you had to miss out the last Zagreb LAN in April, but now everyone pays special attention to you and your team. Are you excited about the LAN? Have you used to go to LAN events before? How much LAN experience do you and your team have from offline events?

Zagreb LAN was pretty unlucky for us, G4box went with PEPFQ and placed highly, unfortunately one of our teammates couldn't attend and our team folded before the event, this is the reason why I didn't attend it. I've been on couple of LANs before, I even organized two previous ICLs (43 & 51) and I'm really looking forward to this event, although I won't be administrating it too much. :D Speaking on behalf of my teammates and my friends, G4box has a lot of LAN experience in other games aswell, not just in COD4 particularly, and the frenchies have placed highly on a lot of events aswell.

5. We have seen some promising pictures from the Budapest LAN venue. How do you appreciate this esport bar? Are you waiting for you to be there?

LAN venue is pretty nice, it's always a pleasure to host an event in Infinity Esports Bar, there were never an issue we couldn't solve with the tech guys in quick session, so I'm definitely looking forward it! They offer nice drinks, place to sit and watch games, and of course a streaming area for all the viewers watching from home!

6. What are your expectations about your team’s performance? What kind of final result would you be satisfied?

Only acceptable outcome is taking the trophy home, our online performance hasn't been very consistent but we will definitely play better offline as the tension goes higher and we will be more focused than ever.

7. More than 16 teams will participate in this LAN, what do you think about the teams?

I'm really glad we managed to have this amount of teams in 2022 June, it's insane for me to see 17 teams on a LAN event, I can only hope that we will be able to keep this count of even double it someday.

8. How would you rate the Groups in general? What do you think especially about your own Group? (Group A)

Groups for us doesn't really matter, I don't mind playing anyone same as my teammates, I think it's well balanced, perfectly fine for us.

9. Which teams you consider as the biggest threat (rival) for you?

Hard to say because there are a lot of decent teams, we are not afraid of anyone, but I'd say the TOP3 teams from Zagreb LAN (APES; qwertz; DENIED).

10. What's your predictions for TOP3 of this LAN event?

Obviously the best outcome would be us first, but if I don't think about us then it's 1. APES, 2. Unknown, 3. DENIED/qwertz for me.

11. What do you think, which team will surprise the opponents? Who is your secret favorite, who is underestimated by the other teams, but you know they will perform really well?

Definitely qLimAxzU's team, their team consists of really decent oldschool players, and they must not be underestimated.

12. Thank you for taking part in this interview. Is there anything you'd like to add?

Thank you very much for having me, I'd like to say thank you for all of those who put faith in FPSChallenge, it's been a pleasure to see over +20.000 matches played in almost two years, we have proved that there is demand for games like CoD1, CoD2, and CoD4 even in 2022, will be nice meeting you all in person once again aswell!