Latest / Start the game already! / [ENG] Magazine Ep. #11 April 2026

Transcript

[ENG] Magazine Ep. #11 April 2026 · Start the game already!

• 0:11
  We are back for another episode of the Image of Empires magazine
• 0:15
  and we've put together a nice program with lots of news to
• 0:18
  discuss. And boy, am I glad that I'm not
• 0:21
  alone in this podcast. Welcome back, Daniela.
• 0:24
  Hello. You've got different kinds of
• 0:31
  hellos. Good to have you back.
• 0:34
  I hope you had a fantastic time in your vacation.
• 0:36
  We missed you, but now you're back, so let's get back to work.
• 0:41
  Wow, that is. That is so sweet and also so
• 0:45
  cruel to say in one sentence. Jump, jump.
• 0:52
  OK. Just for our listeners, we did
• 0:56
  discuss the possibility of this episode being shorter than
• 1:02
  usual. Now let's see, Let's see how we
• 1:06
  can make that happen because we have a lot to talk about today.
• 1:10
  We have a lot to talk about, but there are some signs that this
• 1:13
  episode could be shorter. Because first of all, I am still
• 1:16
  a little jet lagged from my vacation in Japan.
• 1:20
  And also, I've been to Japan for the past three weeks, so I
• 1:23
  haven't seen a single game of Age of Empires 2, which means
• 1:26
  that I can't really talk about it that much.
• 1:29
  Instead, we'll be asking you lots of questions.
• 1:33
  Good. Yeah, so here's a list of what
• 1:36
  we want to discuss in this episode.
• 1:37
  We'll start off with a recap of Teen 90 Titans League.
• 1:41
  Then there's the replacement qualifier of Red Bull, Woolalo
• 1:44
  Londonium. And remember, all of this is
• 1:48
  going to be full of spoilers. So if you haven't seen these
• 1:51
  events or the results of these events, this podcast might not
• 1:54
  be for you. In addition, we've got some
• 1:57
  exciting announcements to talk about.
• 1:59
  Warlords 5 has been announced, The League and the Garrison 2
• 2:04
  have also been announced. And despite the new E Sport
• 2:07
  calendar not even being published yet.
• 2:10
  So the next year is already shaping up to be another
• 2:12
  excellent year for our scene. We'll follow up the news with a
• 2:16
  little interview that Daniela and I have just recorded before,
• 2:20
  this recording with Chuktaburger, who is a community
• 2:23
  member and creator in the Age of Empires 2 scene at night, but
• 2:27
  also a teacher during the day. And we've invited him to have a
• 2:30
  little chat about his work and an Age of Empires 2 and also his
• 2:34
  nomination for being the Teacher of the year in the United States
• 2:37
  of America. We'll end this episode with the
• 2:40
  tournament outlook for 2026. So as you said, chop, chop.
• 2:45
  Let's get to it then and start with the news.
• 2:51
  T-90 Titans League has concluded and we want to do a little recap
• 2:55
  for everyone who missed out on the highlights, just like me.
• 2:59
  So First off, big spoilers. Hera won the whole thing and in
• 3:04
  his final against Leary he won with a four to two victory.
• 3:08
  I have skipped through this final today during some off time
• 3:15
  at work. So by skipping through I mean I
• 3:17
  took like 5 minutes to see in between games and I realized
• 3:23
  something. Leary might just be my favorite
• 3:26
  player because he keeps games short.
• 3:29
  I really like that about him. Yeah, when it comes to Leary, to
• 3:34
  me, it really feels like he's a very down to earth, realistic
• 3:39
  person, which is one of which is both what I love and I hate
• 3:46
  about him as a player because I he can appreciate not dragging a
• 3:52
  game that you feel that it's over.
• 3:54
  He often recognizes his position.
• 3:57
  He's like, OK, who am I playing against?
• 4:00
  What is my position right now? What's his position?
• 4:03
  Is there a realistic chance to come back?
• 4:05
  Yes, no If yes, he's going to try for five more minutes.
• 4:09
  If no, he's going to call it today.
• 4:13
  But I also really like to see the determination and the, you
• 4:19
  know, power of fighting back to come into a game.
• 4:23
  I know a lot of people judge ACCM for him dragging the games,
• 4:28
  but ACCM is putting up some of the craziest comebacks that I've
• 4:32
  seen just because he manages somehow to not be fully defeated
• 4:39
  and then he builds back his force from nothing yet at a
• 4:44
  point where especially in the late game is just a a constant
• 4:48
  pressure, a constant micro, a constant spam of units.
• 4:52
  I find coming back into the game from that incredibly tough.
• 4:56
  And yeah, I I can appreciate a a short but sweet ending of the
• 5:02
  game, but I also really like a nice comeback story.
• 5:06
  Yes, so do I, but I don't like it when the comeback story takes
• 5:09
  2 hours of my time. And it's not a comeback.
• 5:12
  But what about when it's a comeback?
• 5:15
  Yeah, that's the most exciting moment ever.
• 5:18
  It is, but only the moment when the comeback actually happens,
• 5:22
  not the two hours in between them.
• 5:25
  I'm. I'm right where you are.
• 5:27
  I love that about ACCM. He is.
• 5:30
  There is a reason why we all attribute the fighting spirit
• 5:34
  with ACCM. But I think there is also beauty
• 5:39
  in being as cold hearted and maybe calculated as leery and
• 5:46
  just accepting that there is a 3% chance of coming back in this
• 5:50
  game against terror. And that chance is too slim for
• 5:54
  him to put the effort in it. And I think there is an A
• 5:59
  pleasing way of thinking in that.
• 6:01
  That reminds me of other E sports and I, I like that.
• 6:04
  I, I think Leary is very calculated when it comes to how
• 6:10
  much, how worth it is for him to invest more into a game and to
• 6:16
  be that surgical about this. I kind of admire him for that.
• 6:21
  Yeah, I can. I can understand that.
• 6:24
  But anyway, the finals. So Hera 1/4 to two against
• 6:28
  Leary. I think it is well known and
• 6:31
  commonly regarded that Hera is number 1 and Leary is number 2
• 6:34
  in the in the world right now. So it's not a big surprise that
• 6:37
  these two faced off against each other, especially since they
• 6:41
  were placed on different sides of the bracket in the playoffs.
• 6:45
  So them two fighting against each other in the finals may not
• 6:49
  be a surprise, but I think there was a moment when Leary
• 6:55
  equalized to a standing of two against 2, 2 versus 2 in the
• 7:00
  finals when everything was possible.
• 7:03
  You said you were watching the game, So what was your emotional
• 7:07
  ride throughout the games? Did you always think that Hara's
• 7:10
  going to win, or did you see Leary actually having a chance?
• 7:14
  I did feel like Leary had a chance.
• 7:18
  Leary seems to be playing in a fantastic shape.
• 7:22
  He he came prepared basically. And I think before, before even
• 7:29
  going to the finals, it's very important to state that actually
• 7:35
  up until maybe semi finals or quarterfinals, let me open this
• 7:40
  really quick. I think well, first of all, he
• 7:43
  went 15 zero in the group stage. He went undefeated in a group
• 7:47
  stage and that's impressive. And even afterwards in the
• 7:52
  playoffs, let me see real quick, I wish I would have had this 30
• 8:02
  versus Lewis, 4/1. He lost the first game in the
• 8:06
  semi final versus Sebastian. Yeah.
• 8:10
  And then he faces Hera in a best of seven, manages to take it to
• 8:17
  game number six. And we just discussed earlier
• 8:21
  about the possibility of comeback calling the game short.
• 8:27
  You probably didn't watch Game 6, but I heavily encourage to go
• 8:33
  back and watch it whenever you feel like.
• 8:37
  When next time, when you're going to wake up jet lagged and
• 8:40
  don't know what to do with 30 minutes of your life, that's
• 8:43
  what you have to do. I saw a little bit of it.
• 8:46
  I saw like a bazillion infantry units fighting against each
• 8:50
  other. But that was in the league game.
• 8:52
  That was in the league game. Hera was dead.
• 8:56
  I think anyone else other than Hera would have called Gigi on
• 9:01
  that game, but Hera was completely dead in that game.
• 9:07
  And he he seemed like he's doing a lot of damage, but he didn't
• 9:15
  ended up doing anything with his mad times and his infantry
• 9:18
  because Leary had Vikings. So as soon as wheelbarrow kicked
• 9:23
  in, Leary was just out running the infantry here and there and
• 9:30
  Harold was not able to do any damage.
• 9:31
  And then Leary had a very eco Catholic kicked in way earlier
• 9:37
  and then he did a lot of damage to Harold.
• 9:39
  Harold was in a really, really bad spot.
• 9:42
  And I, I think everyone was like most of the people were, were
• 9:47
  convinced like that. That game was an absolute
• 9:51
  masterpiece of this game. I'm.
• 9:53
  I'm not. But how did he come back?
• 9:55
  Over selling it. Just his impeccable macro as he
• 9:59
  managed to cockroach on the sides.
• 10:02
  Expand his sequel somehow, limit the damage, try to try to do
• 10:06
  some more of his own, Yeah. That's so Hera, That's the Hera
• 10:13
  style. Just add TCS somewhere
• 10:15
  completely different and slowly claw your way back into the game
• 10:20
  if the enemy doesn't finish you fast enough.
• 10:24
  Also, if you're going to listen to the interview afterwards,
• 10:29
  Aaron was also saying that it was like I, I knew I was dead,
• 10:33
  but I knew I have a plane to catch in two hours.
• 10:36
  So I had to stay in that game because like if he wins that
• 10:38
  game and he goes to game seven, I have to I have to pull some
• 10:42
  ultimate crazy all in because I, I don't have time.
• 10:45
  I have to finish that game to go to the airport.
• 10:48
  Like I can't lose my plane. He he was flying to to Paris.
• 10:52
  They are now in a boot camp with the entire team Vitality that we
• 10:57
  might we might mention just before Red Bull.
• 11:00
  So yeah, he was on a tight schedule.
• 11:04
  He was like, OK, I I have to stay.
• 11:06
  I have to win this game. I'm not sure how big of a
• 11:08
  factory you know that that was, but.
• 11:12
  I'm not sure what to think of him booking a plane at that time
• 11:17
  when he knows when the final is going to take place.
• 11:21
  And then he he was like, I also realized that it was a very bad
• 11:24
  idea, especially because ACCM was in a third place match up
• 11:28
  before in the final. Oh my God, yeah.
• 11:35
  So OK. I mean, it goes to show Hera is
• 11:40
  amazing if he comes back against Leary in that kind of position.
• 11:45
  Now I'm really curious and I'm going to, I'm definitely going
• 11:47
  to rewatch that last game. It's also a bit frustrating if
• 11:55
  Leary gets into that kind of position.
• 11:57
  And I mean, Leary is known for being someone who's very
• 12:01
  aggressive and being able to close matches very quickly.
• 12:05
  And if even he does not manage to do that against Hera, then I
• 12:10
  don't know, it just tells me that this game is way too
• 12:12
  defensive. It needs to be more aggressive
• 12:14
  in some way. Yeah, I, I, I, I don't know how
• 12:22
  he manages to, to come back every time like that.
• 12:24
  I, I also think that hero has some sort of intimidating factor
• 12:31
  when it comes to to playing versus Leary.
• 12:34
  I I think they do have a history of finals where Leary is just
• 12:40
  facing him every time and he doesn't.
• 12:42
  Did did Leary ever win the next year tournament?
• 12:46
  Of course he won Red Bull. He won Red Bull.
• 12:48
  What Red Bull? Red Bull?
• 12:52
  I don't know 32. Yeah, yeah, I I join, I think I
• 12:55
  joined with Red Bull, the one that Tuttle on.
• 13:01
  So that's quite a reason why that was Red Bull 4.
• 13:04
  Tuttle was 5. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:06
  So like I again, I'm not for a long time.
• 13:09
  But I'm going to look this up. Now.
• 13:13
  This might be very embarrassing if he'd never won, but I
• 13:16
  haven't. Like somewhere deep in my mind,
• 13:19
  I have saved that Leary won a Red Bull and and I think in
• 13:23
  every other Red Bull he must have been placed second or
• 13:26
  something. So let's see, I'm going to look
• 13:30
  this up. But you keep talking while I'm
• 13:32
  looking this. Up, yeah.
• 13:33
  I I now that you're mentioning about Red Bull, I too briefly
• 13:38
  remember hearing about this before, but yeah.
• 13:43
  Aha, it was Red Bull Four in 2021 and he won against Hera in
• 13:50
  the final. Yeah.
• 13:52
  I that was back when they were both in Templestorm.
• 13:54
  I don't think, I think 2021 was when I actually installed the
• 13:59
  game and I was very happy playing my campaigns.
• 14:02
  I was not following competitive scene at all.
• 14:06
  I'm not. Blaming you?
• 14:08
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:12
  But anyway, ever since then, I think Leary is known for being
• 14:17
  the the ultimate #2 always being the runner up and never actually
• 14:21
  winning a tournament, but at the same time always getting into
• 14:24
  the final. Yeah, I mean, maybe this is the,
• 14:29
  this is the next one massive comeback.
• 14:34
  I would hope so. I think it's nice to see him in
• 14:38
  this final again. And also it's we got to state
• 14:41
  that Hera and Niri are they couldn't be more different when
• 14:45
  it comes to how they approach the game.
• 14:48
  Not when it comes to professionalism because I think
• 14:51
  they are both very professional. But Hera is a full time content
• 14:54
  creator. He lives and breathes Age of
• 14:56
  Empires 2, while Leary is more of the occasional pro player who
• 15:02
  also doesn't play ranked games and who is very focused in
• 15:06
  preparing for tournaments. But he does have a job and he
• 15:10
  has a different life as well. So him being this constantly on
• 15:19
  #2 in the global ranking is just a story in itself, I think, and
• 15:25
  sometimes more impressive to me than Hera being the number one.
• 15:29
  Yeah, it is quite impressive. It's pure talent with, you know,
• 15:33
  the the minimum amount of shaping basically it's I think
• 15:40
  it's a given that if he would put the same amount of work that
• 15:43
  Hera puts into his work and and dedication and all of that, I
• 15:48
  think he has very solid chances of passing him.
• 15:52
  But he's stated plenty of times that that's not what he enjoys.
• 15:58
  Like he likes the game, he's passionate about the game.
• 16:01
  But he said that he would be bored if he would like grind for
• 16:05
  13 hours one V sevens by extreme AI then crazy settings like Hera
• 16:12
  does for instance. Hera has countless, countless
• 16:16
  hours of hard work and content and dedication and everything.
• 16:21
  I'm not sure Leary's the type of player who would benefit from
• 16:25
  being that full time into the game.
• 16:28
  I might even, I think I would suspect him getting worse if he
• 16:32
  were to prepare for the game in a different way because he would
• 16:35
  have less fun with it and his maybe his showings would be
• 16:41
  worse. That that's what I would
• 16:43
  theorize, Yeah, I agree, but you never know.
• 16:48
  I think it's also important that he's at that boot camp with Team
• 16:54
  Vitality. This is not something I would
• 16:57
  have expected, to be honest, but it's a great thing to see and
• 17:00
  makes Hera and Leary all the more dangerous compared to the
• 17:03
  other players. But yeah, so back to TTL, it
• 17:10
  sounds like the final was a good final to watch.
• 17:12
  Yeah, for for sure. I recommend it whenever you have
• 17:16
  some some free time. If you, if you, the listeners,
• 17:21
  anyone that that missed it, even if you know the result, even if
• 17:24
  we spoiled you, even if you knew it already anyway, it's still
• 17:30
  it's it's still worth it. It.
• 17:32
  It was one of the best finals I've seen in a in a long time.
• 17:36
  In my opinion, even this result for two, it was a better final
• 17:42
  than Hara Viper best of nine going to all nine games KOTD.
• 17:48
  That OK, yeah, I'm. I'm going to rewatch the whole
• 17:51
  final. OK, good.
• 17:52
  Now you, you got me a little excited now.
• 17:55
  But you know, that also works because I've always had problems
• 18:00
  with TTL, because it's because the tournament is just too long
• 18:05
  for me. I get tired of watching the same
• 18:07
  maps, the same games over and over for weeks and months.
• 18:11
  Even so, I was never the biggest fan of TTLI, understand the
• 18:15
  concept and it's great for the community and for up and comers
• 18:18
  and so on. And it's just a personal thing.
• 18:21
  It that was usually my least favorite tournament of the whole
• 18:25
  year because I just get too tired of it.
• 18:27
  So I in the in the last few iterations, what I did was I
• 18:31
  just completely skipped, skipped the group stage and I would only
• 18:34
  watch the playoffs, but usually even those would be too much for
• 18:37
  me. So now with not having seen all
• 18:40
  of that, I'm pretty fresh to TTL and I can enjoy the finals and
• 18:47
  have not having seen TTL also got me really excited to watch a
• 18:51
  very short and intense tournament like Red Bull, which
• 18:54
  is coming up now. Yeah, I'm glad you brought this
• 18:57
  up because I remember talking a couple of months ago, even after
• 19:04
  Bronze league and I remember I said it for years I've stated
• 19:08
  that TTL and Warlords are my biggest, biggest annual favorite
• 19:16
  tournaments. Like I, I'm not counting, I
• 19:19
  don't know, hidden Cup in this like hidden cup is not something
• 19:23
  that of course of every year because for sure I, I would say
• 19:27
  that is one of my favorite tournaments.
• 19:29
  Like, I love the format and the idea behind that and and so on.
• 19:32
  And you said the same thing. Like it, it's too long for you.
• 19:35
  You get bored from watching and seeing all, all the the same
• 19:39
  maps. Well, I'm, I don't know, happy,
• 19:43
  sad to announce that I think I'm on your side after, after this
• 19:48
  edition. I don't know why.
• 19:49
  I don't know how I can feel so different about this edition
• 19:54
  compared to the other ones. Maybe because in the past we
• 19:57
  didn't have tournament back-to-back to back-to-back.
• 20:03
  So maybe now the scene is so saturated that three months of
• 20:09
  the same tournament, it gets a lot it gets.
• 20:13
  Too much it it, it brought me this year personally to a burnt
• 20:19
  out. Of course, being immediately
• 20:22
  after the Red Bull qualifiers had a huge a, a huge count into
• 20:29
  that a huge impact. But still, I, I, I, I don't know
• 20:34
  exactly what happened this year. It's it it I got so burnt out
• 20:39
  when I got to platinum that I barely followed it like I guess
• 20:43
  a lot from silver and gold. But when I hit platinum again,
• 20:48
  like you say, it's the same maps, it's the same.
• 20:51
  It got exhausting. Overall.
• 20:56
  My general opinion is that I I think I talked a bit about this
• 21:00
  on stream as well. I like the concept of the of a
• 21:04
  big league like this. It's T-90's big tournament, but
• 21:10
  I think a big, big league like this makes sense if there's not
• 21:15
  so many other tournaments throughout the year.
• 21:19
  The the focus is fully on that. Yeah, it's a lot.
• 21:23
  But then you kind of have a bit of time to to reset because what
• 21:27
  happened is it was a a big credible qualifier was this big
• 21:31
  T-90 league. Now show matches for another LAN
• 21:35
  started this week. Now in two days we have the main
• 21:39
  event of Red Bull warlords qualifier warlords main event,
• 21:46
  the land main event like you can't breathe.
• 21:50
  It's just on one hand for the you know, die hard AOE fans is
• 21:57
  like content daily. But even like that, it, it, it
• 22:02
  can get tiring. And from my perspective,
• 22:06
  honestly, I, I've seen that overall in the last month,
• 22:10
  except for 1090, because it was a his tournament.
• 22:12
  Of course, the viewership for every other streamer, caster
• 22:17
  player dropped a lot. That's I, I, I can't back up,
• 22:21
  you know, with a certain proof of this, but this was my general
• 22:26
  feeling. So there was a shift from the
• 22:30
  viewers who stuck with the tournament.
• 22:33
  They gradually shifted towards the host T-90.
• 22:36
  Yeah, maybe. But I do think that overall,
• 22:40
  even T-90 didn't hit his his peak, I guess with the previous
• 22:45
  season, which I'm not sure. Actually, I'm not sure if it was
• 22:49
  a comparison between it with the previous season or with maybe
• 22:54
  hidden cupboard. But of course it wouldn't make
• 22:56
  sense to to compare. I think it was with previous
• 22:59
  season. No hidden cup had way more than
• 23:01
  30 something. K.
• 23:03
  It does make sense because this is a long tournament and it's
• 23:06
  daily content and and so on. It doesn't even make sense to
• 23:11
  look at the, I don't know, peak it it makes more sense to look
• 23:15
  at the average. But yeah, I I do feel like
• 23:20
  overall it was just. But it must have been very
• 23:24
  tiring as a content creator. It it, it must have been, yeah.
• 23:28
  And but even as a viewer, for instance, I didn't guess all the
• 23:33
  sets. So I was very inconsistent with
• 23:35
  with TTL, Like I, I can say that, you know, my channel was
• 23:41
  not live with all the games, was not as dedicated.
• 23:43
  I was not consistent. So if I had less viewers here
• 23:47
  and there, it makes sense. I'm looking at, I don't know,
• 23:50
  Mem. For instance, whenever Mem
• 23:52
  casted, I think he had five, 600 viewers less than usual.
• 24:00
  So you think the explanation is that people are just getting
• 24:04
  tired because there's constantly throughout the whole year A
• 24:08
  tournament, one tournament after the other?
• 24:10
  It would be a good explanation if I dare so my say so myself
• 24:14
  because that is exactly how I feel.
• 24:17
  That is why I choose to have intentional breaks in my watch
• 24:23
  time and just not watch certain things and instead do other
• 24:28
  things and then come back to a tournament when I think it is.
• 24:31
  Now I have the mental capacity to be not just watching games
• 24:36
  because that I could do, but I want to be entertained.
• 24:39
  I want to be invested into the tournament.
• 24:40
  I want some storylines that I can follow or have some players
• 24:44
  that I can cheer for and if I see them the next day in a
• 24:48
  different tournament, once again, it's not as tragic if
• 24:52
  somebody fails or gets gets disqualified from a tournament
• 24:56
  or whatever, you know what I mean?
• 24:57
  I need those. I need a, a build up for a
• 25:01
  tournament for the suspense and I need some time, some downtime
• 25:04
  as well to allow for a next build up.
• 25:08
  So This is why I skipped some phases of a tournament.
• 25:11
  Absolutely, absolutely. I think a lot of the listeners
• 25:15
  can can relate to that and you can understand that and I think
• 25:20
  it makes a lot of sense here. Yeah.
• 25:23
  So it's not a bad thing. I believe that we have one
• 25:26
  tournament after the other as long as and it probably means
• 25:30
  that each tournament will have lower average viewership.
• 25:36
  But as long as the sponsors don't mind that, I guess it's a
• 25:40
  win win scenario, right? Because everyone gets to see
• 25:43
  whatever content they choose to watch.
• 25:46
  Whereas if we had less tournaments, you would kind of
• 25:49
  feel obligated to watch every tournament because there's not
• 25:52
  that many going on. I don't know if it's healthy for
• 25:56
  the scene. I'm fine with it because I can
• 25:58
  pick and choose. But there were times when I felt
• 26:02
  bad when I was not watching a tournament because I felt like
• 26:05
  I'm a die hard Age of Empires 2 viewer and a fan of the game and
• 26:10
  I want to support the content creators and I have to watch
• 26:12
  every single match in tournament and those times are over.
• 26:16
  But it was kind of a lesson that I had to learn so I wouldn't
• 26:20
  suffer from FOMO. Yeah.
• 26:25
  OK, so All in all, I've watched the thank you video that T-90
• 26:31
  published and from what I've gathered there, he was very
• 26:36
  happy with the result of everything and he was happy with
• 26:39
  the tournament. So it should have been a great
• 26:42
  success. Success, I believe.
• 26:44
  Yeah, for from his perspective and and overall, I do think that
• 26:48
  this event is very good for the scene and for the players as it
• 26:53
  is. And yeah, I'm I bet he he he was
• 26:58
  happy overall. I think, I think he deserves to
• 27:02
  be happy anyway because he did put a lot of effort, a lot of
• 27:06
  work into this. This at the end of the day, this
• 27:09
  was months worth of games and content and a lot of dedication
• 27:15
  from from his side as well. So it's nice to see it coming,
• 27:21
  coming together. So I did invest some time in
• 27:26
  looking up some interesting stats about the tournament.
• 27:29
  So for example, when it comes to civilizations, in both Gold and
• 27:34
  Platinum league, the Chinese have a 100% win rate and I
• 27:39
  believe in Platinum league they have been played like 9 times
• 27:43
  and in Gold league like 6 or 7 times.
• 27:45
  So a couple of games and having a perfect win rate in both these
• 27:50
  leagues is very astonishing to me.
• 27:53
  Was there a map in the map pool that was just perfect for the
• 27:56
  Chinese and they had an instant win Or what is the reason behind
• 28:00
  that? I think Chinese have been top
• 28:04
  win rate since the dawn of time since I joined the scene.
• 28:09
  Yeah, but not 100%. This seems like they were
• 28:12
  overpowered and not figured out. For instance, Hera has 100% win
• 28:19
  rate with Chinese in tournaments.
• 28:20
  Overall, Hera hasn't lost its degree with Chinese in
• 28:24
  tournaments. In like every tournament.
• 28:27
  Well, I, I'm talking from the stats that a viewer made.
• 28:32
  I I think we talked about that before.
• 28:36
  Yeah, at some point there was there was someone from his
• 28:40
  community that did some tats video.
• 28:44
  I think the the video was called Is Hera just unbeatable on
• 28:49
  YouTube? Or something.
• 28:50
  And he mentions there, yeah, that he has 100% winrated with
• 28:54
  Chinese. And then there was the meme with
• 28:56
  the his words are Hindustanis and Nomad maps.
• 29:00
  So he picked Hindustani, some numbered on his in a setting,
• 29:05
  his Viper, I think. Yeah.
• 29:07
  And he lost. Yeah, OK.
• 29:11
  Yeah. I mean, we all know that Chinese
• 29:13
  are an excellent civilization, but they were always considered
• 29:17
  to be the best civilization on, well, Arabia and Arabia style
• 29:22
  maps and on maps that are usually hybrid maps where you
• 29:25
  start with your town centre next to fish so you can instantly
• 29:28
  gather the fish and you have no idle time.
• 29:31
  But in TTL, with that diverse map pool, I I still believe it's
• 29:37
  very surprising that the Chinese have 100% win rate, so I figured
• 29:41
  I'd mention that. When you said, but before you
• 29:45
  said, but in TTL with that many, you know, maps, the diverse map
• 29:52
  pool, I when you just said, oh, OK, so just on open maps and on
• 29:58
  maps where you start with the TC on on water or on on fish.
• 30:03
  I wanted to interrupt you and say so the majority of TTL maps.
• 30:08
  So OK, I'm hearing some criticism towards the Maple.
• 30:11
  No, no, no, no, no. Apps were poorly chosen.
• 30:13
  Absolutely not. I love them and most of them
• 30:15
  were hybrid maps. I love hybrid maps.
• 30:17
  I think a lot of people have had issues that T-90 usually brings
• 30:24
  too many hybrid maps, but hybrid maps are the most entertaining.
• 30:27
  That's where you see the skill because you have to split your
• 30:30
  attention in 30 parts. And to me that that that's where
• 30:36
  you see truly their skill in every single aspect of the game.
• 30:42
  And that's what's entertaining to me, to present to my viewers
• 30:47
  and to my community. Yeah, I mean, hybrid maps are
• 30:51
  the only kind of maps that have different kind of metas and
• 30:56
  usually T-90 with his hybrid maps in the his tournaments,
• 30:59
  each of the hybrid map has a different twist.
• 31:02
  And it's it's always kind of interesting to see whether the
• 31:07
  players figure out how to use the twist or whether they ignore
• 31:10
  it. So to me, it makes a lot of
• 31:13
  sense that he has hybrid maps. Yeah.
• 31:14
  But then it also does make sense that the Chinese have such a
• 31:17
  good win rate and were popular to be played.
• 31:20
  But then again, if you know, if I was a player, I would look at
• 31:23
  these kind of statistics and if I saw that Chinese would have
• 31:27
  100% win rate, I would either always ban them or always pick
• 31:32
  them first if I have first pick. Yeah, but if you're someone like
• 31:36
  Lyri that doesn't have the DLC, and if four out of five bands go
• 31:42
  on the new sieve, then. Wait four, did we have a 4th?
• 31:47
  Well the they have been banning Inca like crazy as well because
• 31:51
  of the champi. Oh yeah, Inca, of course.
• 31:53
  But it's not a new sieve, but it was so heavily modified in that
• 31:57
  regard. Yeah, so this is another
• 32:00
  statistic I looked up because I was curious about it.
• 32:03
  The three new sieves and the ink have hardly ever been played.
• 32:07
  There's like two or three games per civilization in both gold
• 32:14
  and Platinum League, So and and when they were played, the win
• 32:18
  rate wasn't very impressive. So what's your take on that, the
• 32:24
  champion Nerve? Did that change anything or have
• 32:27
  they still been banned? They have still been banned by
• 32:31
  Leary. Because he doesn't have the DLC.
• 32:34
  Yeah, and now Champi were not an issue anymore.
• 32:41
  So we didn't see the news is in in this because in the beginning
• 32:45
  they were just straight up banned because they were
• 32:46
  overpowered early on and afterwards they were so bad that
• 32:51
  people were just not giving a damn about them.
• 32:55
  There are a couple of Sibs that have been picked regardless
• 33:00
  because they can have other other focuses because for
• 33:05
  instance, until now, all the new Sibs were strictly focused on
• 33:11
  the champion Rush. That was overpowered.
• 33:14
  That was annoying to play against.
• 33:15
  That was just a absolute cancer. So what happened is that now
• 33:21
  when you see someone playing 2P, you know 90% they're going to
• 33:27
  try to pull an FC and go black with Archers.
• 33:30
  Black with Archers with the poison damage can still be
• 33:34
  extremely dangerous early on and one game to showcase that if you
• 33:42
  guys are interested, Hart versus Leary on slopes.
• 33:47
  The the amount of damage to this took early on is insane.
• 33:51
  It didn't matter, he just needed a castle up.
• 33:54
  Was that before or after the change?
• 33:57
  Because I think they had a bug right where they the discount
• 34:01
  for them. I think they get back some
• 34:04
  resources after they die and that was twice as much as it
• 34:07
  should have been. Was that game before or after
• 34:10
  that? I think it was after that, I'm
• 34:14
  not 100% sure. I, I'm inclined to say that it
• 34:17
  was after that because it was right in the playoffs.
• 34:19
  So I I think the nerf came before the playoffs started.
• 34:24
  Yeah, I think so too. Yeah.
• 34:27
  OK so the new civilizations were not able to show to be showcased
• 34:33
  that much in the tournament but I guess that's fine.
• 34:36
  I also noticed when it comes to maps that slopes and high tides
• 34:39
  have been the most played maps in both leagues again and Tulu I
• 34:45
  don't even know what that map is but that has not been played a
• 34:48
  lot. Yeah, that was played by the
• 34:50
  clowns. It's a registered map or you
• 34:53
  said like in the middle surrounded by fortified
• 34:57
  Palisades with like a fortified tower.
• 35:00
  So it's usually just a fast castle in to boom with some like
• 35:05
  have and monks and such. But you have to chop through the
• 35:12
  inner circle of wood lines to get to the outer area where you
• 35:17
  have stone on some hills. So yeah, it it was OK.
• 35:23
  But you are right. I haven't seen it that much.
• 35:26
  But it was suddenly getting much map to to watch.
• 35:30
  Like I would rather watch more games of that than the 300th
• 35:36
  game on slopes. Slopes is just Arabia at times.
• 35:40
  Like it turned out the season decides didn't matter that much.
• 35:43
  That's how I felt like, really. Yeah, that's how I felt.
• 35:46
  Like what? Usually it was always, there was
• 35:49
  also always the excitement on who goes on what side and will
• 35:52
  they, how fast will they scout, whether one person is taking
• 35:55
  fish there. And that was a big thing and
• 35:59
  that was also very exciting, which is why I like the map.
• 36:02
  Yeah, that's how I felt in the previous seasons.
• 36:05
  However, again, it's not the the feeling that I got after this
• 36:10
  season. It felt like everyone kind of
• 36:12
  got away with the sides anyway. If they wanted to sometimes that
• 36:19
  he you wouldn't see players being too focused on going there
• 36:22
  and scouting or on rushing those sides.
• 36:26
  I don't. Know.
• 36:27
  I figured it would be even more aggressive than before because
• 36:31
  infantry is more viable now than it was in the past, so people
• 36:35
  would be. Maybe people got scared and they
• 36:38
  didn't utilize the outsides as much because of the infantry.
• 36:42
  Is that a possibility? Maybe.
• 36:46
  Interesting how the meta changes the map then.
• 36:48
  Yeah, OK, so another fun fact about the statistics when it
• 36:55
  comes to players. You've already mentioned Diary's
• 36:57
  incredible run in the group stage, going 15 O, and as far as
• 37:02
  I know he's now the only player in the whole history of TTL who
• 37:06
  achieved this win streak, which is very impressive.
• 37:10
  Yeah, props to him. But then I've heard about Nikhov
• 37:14
  and his situation. Apparently he was very sick, or
• 37:17
  he is still very sick, I don't know.
• 37:19
  And he couldn't participate in the tournament, so he was
• 37:22
  completely removed from his group.
• 37:23
  But do you know about what happened exactly?
• 37:27
  And can you explain to me what decisions have been made for his
• 37:31
  position in the tournament? Yeah, so he, he had a pretty
• 37:35
  serious health issue. From my understanding he was
• 37:39
  related to his appendix that that person had to be removed.
• 37:44
  So he even he had surgery kind of stopping him to continue with
• 37:52
  the group stages. Now this affected the 4th and
• 37:55
  5th round if I'm not mistaken. If I remember correctly he had
• 38:00
  already played three of the rounds prior to that.
• 38:04
  But of course, you can't just leave those games to count or
• 38:09
  afterwards you can't just give 3 zeros.
• 38:12
  So the following opponents, because that would have the
• 38:17
  affect of course other players. So all of his results, all all
• 38:25
  of the games that had Nickov in them were absolutely nulled so
• 38:30
  that that group just had overall less points.
• 38:35
  I get it OK, but that does make sense from a fair play.
• 38:39
  Of course, of course, yeah. I, I, I guess it's the only
• 38:43
  thing you can do then. Oh that's so sad for Nikov
• 38:46
  though, poor guy. Poor thing I it's sad and it's
• 38:50
  painful and well, we wish him all the best.
• 38:53
  I I hope he's feeling well or better already.
• 38:57
  But do you know what that means for the next season?
• 39:00
  Is he relegated now? I think he's relegated, yeah.
• 39:04
  Oh, that sucks in so many ways. Yeah, I, I I'm not.
• 39:08
  I'm not 100% sure though. OK, might not be the case.
• 39:11
  I guess we'll see in a year, yeah.
• 39:15
  OK. Anything else you want to
• 39:16
  mention about TTL? Not that I not from the top of
• 39:22
  my head, I noted a couple of things, but you mostly had all
• 39:26
  of them prepared. Yeah, I think this was about it.
• 39:31
  Again, like Congrats to T-90 for an awesome season for another
• 39:36
  successful one. I, I, I think overall this is
• 39:39
  very good for the players. I think overall players are
• 39:42
  happy with another league being introduced and giving the
• 39:45
  opportunity to more players to have a bit of the spotlight.
• 39:50
  You know, I think it's, it's good.
• 39:53
  It's good. It's both good and bad for this
• 39:55
  in that we have so many tournaments, it's so saturated.
• 39:57
  But overall I, I don't think we can complain, I, I think.
• 40:02
  It's. AO is in a good state still.
• 40:05
  Yeah. All right, moving on with the
• 40:07
  news. The Red Bull Wollolo Londinium
• 40:11
  replacement. This is due to visa issues
• 40:15
  because Winchester was unable to attend, would be unable to
• 40:19
  attend the main event in London. So a replacement qualifier was
• 40:23
  being played to determine who would get his spot.
• 40:26
  There were four players considered who have lost in the
• 40:29
  last round of the Last Chance qualifier.
• 40:32
  They've been asked to participate, but since Vivi
• 40:34
  seems to have been unable to get a visa on such short notice.
• 40:38
  In the end, the replacement matches were played between the
• 40:42
  Viper Barrels and Lewis. Viper beat both Barrels and
• 40:47
  Lewis three to two, which seems incredibly close, and therefore
• 40:51
  found his way back to the Red Bull main event.
• 40:54
  No Red Bull without Viper, after all.
• 40:59
  Rigged. Yeah, so three to two against
• 41:03
  both Lewis and Burroughs sounds like incredibly tight matches.
• 41:09
  Did you, did you watch the matches?
• 41:11
  Can you tell me something about them?
• 41:13
  Oh. My God, that day was a complete.
• 41:17
  Shit show what? So basically there were, I heard
• 41:26
  some rumours that Vinchester might not be able to get the
• 41:31
  visa, but it wasn't anything confirmed until I actually saw
• 41:35
  that with along with everyone else the the announcement in the
• 41:40
  discord. So the announcement was
• 41:43
  basically something like, OK, Vinchester is not going to be
• 41:46
  able to attend because of visa issues.
• 41:51
  Lewis Barros and Viper are going to be facing each other because,
• 41:57
  well, it's too late for Vivi to obtain a visa had he won the the
• 42:02
  qualifier. So yeah, these three are going
• 42:05
  to face in a round Robin period. That was it.
• 42:09
  No extra info, No extra. And again, like what I'm about
• 42:14
  to say and to continue and go into details with, it's to to
• 42:18
  put an emphasis on how big this tournament is and how hype it is
• 42:24
  for the players, for the viewers.
• 42:26
  It's everyone's favorite tournament.
• 42:28
  It's it's a big amount of money put into the price for and
• 42:32
  everything. But again, I I cannot not
• 42:36
  criticize the production and the fact that it's just A1 min one
• 42:40
  admin handling all of these issues that might occur.
• 42:44
  It is. It must be so hard for him, like
• 42:48
  I'm not. Because like, he's a.
• 42:49
  One man job needing to handle all of this.
• 42:52
  But in my opinion, I think Red Bull should put more into
• 42:57
  production and organization. That's like from the start there
• 43:01
  wasn't any clear format, any whatever you just said qualifier
• 43:09
  settings. OK, so.
• 43:12
  After a couple of casters. Asked like, you know, what's the
• 43:15
  format like? How many games is it?
• 43:17
  Like if it's the qualifier settings, what is best of five?
• 43:20
  We were reply that no, it's play all five, round Robin, play all
• 43:24
  five. OK, that's all we knew.
• 43:26
  We knew that the sets are going to be released 1 by 1 and game
• 43:31
  number one set #1 borrows versus the Viper.
• 43:37
  OK, everyone starts guessing, thinking that it's the games
• 43:43
  that matter and that wasn't like no one said what's the OK, it's
• 43:49
  round Robin, what's the tear breaker, you know, between them.
• 43:53
  So that set ended 32 for Viper. As soon as it was a very good
• 43:59
  set, very close one, I was super hyped up to see good quality
• 44:04
  games. And at the end of that said,
• 44:07
  when people saw that it's so close, people started to put
• 44:10
  questions like wait a second, what are the tie break rules
• 44:13
  like what happens if all of them GO-32 against each other?
• 44:17
  What happens? And we realize that we don't
• 44:20
  actually have any info regarding all of this, but didn't we have
• 44:24
  the same exact? Problem with the Red Bull
• 44:27
  qualifiers before we did Jesus. One could only hope that the
• 44:34
  history doesn't repeat itself and.
• 44:38
  People you know learn from. Prior situations, but yeah, we
• 44:43
  were in that situation. People kind of start asking
• 44:48
  questions and the organizer says it's sets actually doesn't
• 44:54
  matter. And then games.
• 44:59
  So we were like, interesting. In the meantime, the second set
• 45:03
  was released and the second set was Viper versus Lewis.
• 45:07
  So now imagine. We're all.
• 45:09
  Like OK, but if Viper wins this, there's no point for the next
• 45:13
  set so. Of course, if you win 2 sets,
• 45:17
  yeah, of course. Everyone just straight up assume
• 45:21
  Viper can't win this because otherwise like who releases the
• 45:25
  games like this? You know like you have three
• 45:29
  sets, like no one is going to be interesting to watch to watch
• 45:32
  the last set. So those weren't live sets?
• 45:38
  Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:38
  OK. Yeah, they they did.
• 45:40
  Just mention in the announcement before that these games were all
• 45:44
  already played. Recording games are going to be
• 45:47
  released on Saturday, but why didn't they then just release?
• 45:52
  The Lewis barrel sets second wouldn't.
• 45:56
  That. Make sense?
• 45:57
  OK, so. Again, let me.
• 46:00
  Continue from my perspective. Like we were all I'm I we're
• 46:03
  convinced that Viper is not winning this because it doesn't
• 46:07
  make sense for them to release that the second I get of.
• 46:11
  Course they could have. Just released the barrels.
• 46:12
  Lewis and the games are super close.
• 46:17
  It's 22, we're going to a decider, it's the last game, and
• 46:22
  then I see Lewis picking humans. Against.
• 46:25
  Harrison and he's a ramp pushing and I'm thinking, oh, I've got
• 46:29
  to leave. Lewis wins with a ramp push.
• 46:31
  I'm going to lose my mind. This is so entertaining when I I
• 46:34
  see. Everything.
• 46:35
  Feeling Viper defending and then you're stuck with humans against
• 46:39
  Harrison in the late game and I'm like Oh no, what the hell.
• 46:43
  So I'm opening the discord on the side and Viper is clearly in
• 46:48
  a winning position and everyone kind of starts rioting like what
• 46:52
  the hell guys like why did you really stand like this like why
• 46:55
  wasn't the other side with this prior to this?
• 46:58
  And it's just like, relax guys. It, it will all make sense.
• 47:03
  And I'm like, I, I can't wait for all of this to make sense
• 47:09
  because it. Really.
• 47:09
  Doesn't right now. So anyway, game finish Viper. 1.
• 47:13
  Congrats Viper, you're going to London.
• 47:16
  Now we have Louis versus Burrows.
• 47:19
  What's happening? So the third set was released
• 47:23
  the the recorded games that is, and I'm going to read you the
• 47:29
  announcement from the there was a spoiler attached to it.
• 47:34
  The players did not finish their playoff five set the player they
• 47:38
  played a best of five instead due to finding out that they
• 47:43
  both saw survivor rendering their games pointless.
• 47:47
  The players were not. Supposed to.
• 47:49
  Share this information with each other but somehow found out
• 47:54
  somehow. How did that happen?
• 47:57
  Oh no. Oh my God, I died laughing.
• 48:01
  I was. Like, OK, guys, it's OK.
• 48:03
  I I'm not going to cast. I I didn't catch that said.
• 48:06
  It didn't make any sense. I didn't see any of the games,
• 48:11
  but apparently they played four games actually, until they they
• 48:15
  realized or realized somehow. Oh my.
• 48:20
  God, that is so bad. Can't believe this is the way
• 48:27
  Viper got to. Be in the main event anyway.
• 48:30
  Yeah, so this is how. That that went OK, so Christina
• 48:36
  was. Right it.
• 48:37
  Does make sense, but it also is very poorly organized shit.
• 48:44
  Anyway. So that's.
• 48:45
  How Viper got? Into Red Bull after all.
• 48:49
  Honestly, Viper. 'S success is all you know, he
• 48:57
  he, he takes all the credit. Games were good, he played well,
• 49:02
  games were quite close though. Both of them went to five games
• 49:06
  against both bars and Lewis and again at least 2 are players
• 49:09
  that didn't make it into the main event.
• 49:12
  From I I will say my thoughts from a couple of players
• 49:16
  perspective. I was watching Lewis's stream
• 49:18
  earlier and to hear his perspective, the way he sees
• 49:23
  things made me feel bad for him because he was like, imagine
• 49:29
  guys, there's this the biggest tournament from the scene
• 49:33
  happening in your country and you're one game away two times
• 49:40
  in a row to make to make it like, I don't know when I heard
• 49:44
  it if if you put it that way again, He was one game away from
• 49:47
  Viper. He was one game away from NBL.
• 49:49
  Probably must sting, yeah, but then again, like it's.
• 49:53
  In his country. He can still go, he can still
• 49:55
  meet the players, he can make connections, he can still enjoy
• 49:59
  the event regardless, in my opinion, I do understand where.
• 50:04
  He's coming from though. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:06
  It must think for sure. Now, I also understand the hype
• 50:12
  of getting Viper there because a lot of people were extremely
• 50:19
  disappointed that he didn't make it.
• 50:20
  And I just realized that the way I said that getting Viper there
• 50:24
  doesn't make too much sense because no one got Viper there.
• 50:26
  He got himself in the replacement qualifier like he he
• 50:29
  was fair and square, you know, personally, I do think, however,
• 50:36
  that of course, it does suck that that's a situation with
• 50:40
  with Vinchester and he couldn't make it.
• 50:43
  Had Vinchester been able to make it, I think he would have
• 50:49
  provided a how do I put this delicately a closer match up to
• 50:57
  in Empire War. Settings.
• 50:59
  Especially against the other players like I, I, I didn't feel
• 51:05
  throughout the Red Bull Ladder qualifier, throughout the second
• 51:11
  chance qualifier that Viper was playing as the same level at
• 51:15
  Winchester. I, I, I thought Winchester was
• 51:18
  really sharp. I thought he'd really desert his
• 51:21
  place there. And I don't think Viper can play
• 51:24
  at that level, sadly for this event.
• 51:27
  Like maybe he has a lot of things going on in his life.
• 51:29
  Maybe he, he said it a lot of times that he's tired.
• 51:34
  Maybe it's going to be different.
• 51:35
  Maybe the boot camp helped him and now he's just going to be
• 51:40
  rested and he's going to be away from all the other distractions
• 51:45
  and he's going to be rested in London and he's just going to
• 51:50
  put his best show. But I do feel like Manchester
• 51:55
  would have probably played more competitive, if that makes any
• 51:59
  sense. Maybe I'm wrong.
• 52:01
  No, it it does make a lot. Of sense, I think you make great
• 52:04
  points just because of the results.
• 52:07
  In both the ladder qualifier and the Last Chance qualifier,
• 52:10
  Winchester did much better than Viper did, so you would expect
• 52:15
  Winchester to perform much better than Viper in the main
• 52:18
  event. However, there's one thing that
• 52:21
  you or everyone should always consider, and that is just
• 52:24
  Viper's experience at LAN events.
• 52:28
  So that might be something that he is going for him compared to
• 52:32
  some of the other players. He might get less nervous, he
• 52:35
  might be more professional when it comes to preparation on the
• 52:38
  live stage, but who knows? None of that helps him if he's
• 52:42
  not prepared for the maps and doesn't have the strategies
• 52:45
  ready. So I wonder whether since he
• 52:50
  thought he wasn't qualifying, whether he was still preparing
• 52:55
  for the chance that Winchester would not get his visa or
• 52:59
  whether he just started preparing for the the main event
• 53:04
  after he got his ticket now, which wouldn't give him much
• 53:09
  time to prepare. And if so, then you shouldn't
• 53:13
  expect too much from the Viper. It's.
• 53:17
  Also very important to say that I saw I don't have Twitter
• 53:20
  anymore but I saw someone sharing Viper's message on
• 53:25
  Twitter about all of this. His said something like OK, of
• 53:30
  course bittersweet victory because his teammate after all,
• 53:36
  now their teammates Inonimaru is not making it so he has to
• 53:39
  replace him. But he's of course excited to to
• 53:43
  be making it to London. And it's very funny how
• 53:48
  Vengeance's reaction was because he he wasn't his first reaction
• 53:54
  wasn't to be, you know, Oh, I'm so sad.
• 53:56
  I'm not making it. His first reaction was, do you
• 54:00
  need a teammate to prepare? Do you need someone to prepare
• 54:02
  with? Oh my God, for for the.
• 54:05
  Games and. I think that is so wholesome.
• 54:08
  I think so too. I think so too, but that is
• 54:10
  also. How team members should be with
• 54:14
  each other, but it is not something you should take for
• 54:18
  granted. And man, Vidchester just showing
• 54:20
  he's a good guy. Of course, yeah.
• 54:24
  Man. I feel so sorry for Niekov and
• 54:26
  TTLI, feel sorry for Winchester and and and Red Bull.
• 54:32
  I am still very happy that the Viper is there.
• 54:35
  I don't think he's going to win but I am hyped to see how he's
• 54:40
  performing and I hope he's taking this as a chance to prove
• 54:44
  himself once again and I hope so too.
• 54:47
  I'm looking forward. To to the event and starting.
• 54:50
  So do I, Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK so a couple of quick news to
• 54:56
  add this. Warlords 5 has been announced.
• 55:00
  So Warlords 5 is a $75,000 one one tournament hosted by MEM.
• 55:07
  It's basically what you expect when you hear Warlords.
• 55:09
  There will be 7 map categories with 2021 maps in total in the
• 55:14
  main event and in the qualifiers which will take place at the end
• 55:18
  of April and start of May. The main event will start with a
• 55:22
  group stage followed by the play offs which will be played from
• 55:24
  May 21st until the final of May 24th.
• 55:29
  So I think the fact that MEM would host a major tournament in
• 55:35
  that time period was always settled because it was already
• 55:39
  in the tournament calendar. It just wasn't announced what
• 55:41
  tournament it would be if I'm correct.
• 55:44
  So now that it is announced that it's wall odds 5, is that a
• 55:48
  surprise to anyone? I don't think so.
• 55:51
  I don't think so. Maybe.
• 55:53
  With all the the hype from nearly in the last year about
• 55:59
  team game tournaments, I maybe would have expected Battle of
• 56:03
  Africa maybe, but that's a bit of a stretch.
• 56:07
  No, no, no. I don't think it's a stretch.
• 56:10
  I would. I don't think I would have
• 56:11
  expected Battle of Africa. I would have always expected
• 56:14
  Wall OPS 5 just because it's much bigger and I think it's too
• 56:18
  soon for. I wouldn't know why A-Team game
• 56:20
  tournament now would be so crazy, but I would have liked to
• 56:26
  see a team game tournament, especially because Wall OPS 5
• 56:29
  being so close to TTL and kind of similar when it comes to
• 56:33
  maps. I was a little bit disappointed
• 56:38
  that it actually was what I was predicting it to be.
• 56:42
  I would have hoped for a Battle of Africa.
• 56:46
  I'm not very disappointed. I, I really like Warlords again,
• 56:51
  maybe maybe I'm pushing it too much, just like with TTL last
• 56:55
  time, but I kept saying that TTL and Warlords were my two
• 56:58
  favorite, you know, annually tournaments.
• 57:01
  And I, I'm actually very excited, looking forward to
• 57:05
  what's up to come. There's a lot of exciting things
• 57:07
  to, to cast, to, to see, I think, yeah, I think it's going
• 57:13
  to be great. Is there anything specific
• 57:15
  about? Warlords 5 that you think is
• 57:18
  distinctive great what you're looking for.
• 57:21
  I always like the. Different categories like a map
• 57:27
  from every category. So now I know for sure that I'm
• 57:30
  going to be watching a close map, an open map, whatever.
• 57:34
  I won't be watching Arabian slopes in a row.
• 57:39
  Maybe I'll be watching probably open and semi open, which could
• 57:42
  be very, very close to each other.
• 57:46
  But I know for sure that I I'm going to see there sneak in a
• 57:51
  close map or a hybrid map or a water map.
• 57:54
  So I don't know. I I do like that concept a lot.
• 57:59
  Yeah, me too. In theory, but if I remember
• 58:03
  correctly last time we had like a nomad category and those nomad
• 58:08
  maps turned out to be not so nomady because everyone just
• 58:12
  instantly placed their TCS and was a standard open map in the
• 58:15
  end. So I at first I was buying into
• 58:21
  that illusion of the seven different map categories, but I
• 58:25
  somehow have felt that that's not entirely true.
• 58:30
  In the end, it's still open, closed, hybrid and whatever,
• 58:38
  maybe water if you want to differentiate between those two.
• 58:42
  And it's and semi open is usually either closed or open
• 58:46
  and nothing else. And yeah, so maybe that's why I
• 58:52
  think that Wall OPS 5 is too similar to TTL or TTL is too
• 58:56
  similar to Wall OPS 5. Whichever you want to see.
• 58:59
  Do you have the? The map was published and I'm
• 59:02
  looking at I'm kind of hyped to be honest.
• 59:06
  Like I'm looking open the I see he got some maps from Empire
• 59:10
  Wars like open. He has a crown wood that's now
• 59:13
  in Red Bull as well. I love that map.
• 59:15
  Marshwood. I think that's new.
• 59:16
  I don't know what that is, Morass.
• 59:19
  That was always a Marshwood is a very old map, isn't?
• 59:23
  It maybe it's bringing it back. I I.
• 59:26
  Haven't. I don't know what that is
• 59:28
  because I don't see it linked here, so maybe it is.
• 59:30
  Oh, no, wait, wait, wait. That was a different.
• 59:32
  Map No. Maybe Marshwood is a new map.
• 59:35
  Yeah, because it's not linked to Wikipedia.
• 59:37
  OK, OK. That it must be a new.
• 59:39
  Map Yeah, yeah. So semi open cenotes
• 59:42
  Kilimanjaro. Lowland, I'm good with those
• 59:44
  cenotes. This is a it's so right,
• 59:48
  Kilimanjaro, I'm sick of it because of TTL lowland is that's
• 59:53
  usually OK semi open. I don't like, but closed last MO
• 59:57
  arena Black Forest. I love that he's he's always
• 1:00:00
  putting Black Forest there like he loves Black Forest and I love
• 1:00:04
  to watch games on Black Forest as well.
• 1:00:05
  And people are usually saying that one, if you want some Black
• 1:00:08
  Forest are crap. They're not.
• 1:00:10
  They're very, very entertaining. And there's yes, and there's
• 1:00:13
  fish boom and it's sneaks. And Oh my God.
• 1:00:16
  I love that. Yeah, Much better than Arena.
• 1:00:19
  Yeah, for hybrid this. Seasons.
• 1:00:22
  Isthmus and Crossroads I This isthmus rings a bell.
• 1:00:27
  I don't know. Isthmus was the Empire's wars.
• 1:00:29
  Map that was so crappy bucked with a pirate pyramid in the
• 1:00:33
  middle, I believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:34
  Now I now I. Opened them in the PDSC and
• 1:00:37
  Crossroads didn't know what that is.
• 1:00:41
  So again, I'm happy Stranded is out because stranded was so
• 1:00:45
  praised by everyone to the point where it was abused in
• 1:00:49
  tournament and now everyone's sick of it.
• 1:00:51
  Really. I thought stranded.
• 1:00:52
  Was an amazing map it it is it is, but it's.
• 1:00:56
  Just every tournament in the last two years has stranded in
• 1:01:00
  it, OK. There's water.
• 1:01:04
  Shoreline specific allocity mark, Wood step ring, nomad for
• 1:01:08
  nomad maps and then chaos, Cliff bound border disputes and
• 1:01:12
  Skukuza. I remember liking Skukuza.
• 1:01:15
  Skukuza is great, yes. Skukuza.
• 1:01:17
  Is it's, it's basically like what's it called?
• 1:01:21
  Socotra, but you have much more map.
• 1:01:22
  Yeah, basically. I I like the maps.
• 1:01:26
  I like the maps. Yeah, well.
• 1:01:29
  I I'd. Like to be proven wrong.
• 1:01:34
  I to be honest, I don't think. It's a problem with the maps.
• 1:01:40
  I think it's more that the players are just so good at
• 1:01:45
  changing or optimizing their gameplay on specific maps that
• 1:01:50
  usually what makes a map very distinct from one another is
• 1:01:56
  they are, they are finding ways of giving up that distinction
• 1:02:01
  and making it either an Arabia map or an arena map or an
• 1:02:06
  typical hybrid map, you know what I mean?
• 1:02:08
  So after a while the map just gets figured out and then it
• 1:02:11
  becomes something that we already have a blueprint of.
• 1:02:17
  Well. OK, so that much for?
• 1:02:19
  Warlords 5. But Daniela, this wasn't the
• 1:02:22
  only announcement that has been made and I was so excited to
• 1:02:26
  hear that there is a completely unexpected tournament coming.
• 1:02:30
  It's called the league and. Even.
• 1:02:33
  More exciting, you are one of the three hosts of the
• 1:02:38
  tournament, so please tell us everything we need to know about
• 1:02:41
  the tournament, starting with why is it called the league?
• 1:02:46
  Well, here's what's. Tricky about this.
• 1:02:48
  I can't tell you everything you need to know and it's not much
• 1:02:54
  that you guys need to know for now.
• 1:02:58
  Basically this was supposed to be a soft announcement and it
• 1:03:03
  was a soft announcement to a bigger announcement that's going
• 1:03:07
  to come related to this tournament in the following
• 1:03:10
  month. The main thing that you you need
• 1:03:15
  to know right now is of course this was kind of softed soft
• 1:03:20
  announced for the Garrison 2026 because they are coming back
• 1:03:27
  with their one V1 tournaments is going to be bigger and even the
• 1:03:32
  venue capacity and everything is higher and it's very high
• 1:03:36
  vitalities getting involved you guys.
• 1:03:40
  Can read on. Their website about everything
• 1:03:42
  you need to know and it's it's all stated there and the very
• 1:03:49
  important thing is that they are going to host the final of our
• 1:03:55
  tournaments on the last day in November.
• 1:04:00
  So after the final of the Garrison 1V1, the next day is
• 1:04:05
  going to be the final of the three V3 league.
• 1:04:10
  So the league is a. 3V3 tournament.
• 1:04:12
  Yeah. So that's.
• 1:04:14
  As much as I. Can tell you.
• 1:04:17
  It's a 3V3 tournament, it's going to be a next year
• 1:04:19
  tournament and it is a league format.
• 1:04:26
  Yeah, just after I. Spent. 20 minutes complaining
• 1:04:29
  about league. But it's different I think.
• 1:04:35
  I think people were due for some team game content and people are
• 1:04:40
  going to receive their, you know, medicine.
• 1:04:44
  This year is going to be a couple of weeks full of team
• 1:04:51
  game. Yeah.
• 1:04:52
  So we we've got a bit more. Information.
• 1:04:54
  We know that there's going to be a qualifier which is going to
• 1:04:57
  start on July 20th and last until August the 2nd.
• 1:05:01
  And then there's the main event which is August 10th until
• 1:05:05
  September 20th. So more than a month, it's two
• 1:05:08
  months. It's exactly 2 months.
• 1:05:10
  For the. Qualifier plus main event, Yeah,
• 1:05:12
  so that is a long time, but. So what I'm confused about is
• 1:05:18
  I'm going to watch that main event because I'm so excited for
• 1:05:20
  a team game tournament and all and and then and then there's
• 1:05:24
  the end of the main event. But that is not the actual end
• 1:05:28
  of the main event because it looks like everything is going
• 1:05:31
  to be played except for the final and the final is going to
• 1:05:34
  take place 1 1/2 months later at the Garrison 2026.
• 1:05:41
  Isn't that a bit suboptimal? Isn't that going to kill all the
• 1:05:45
  hype? I don't I don't think so.
• 1:05:47
  I I. Think, well, it's going to leave
• 1:05:53
  the viewers on a bit of a cliffhanger, which I don't
• 1:05:55
  necessarily think it's a bad thing, I don't know, but I hate
• 1:05:59
  cliffhanger. I want to, I want to watch the
• 1:06:01
  next episode if I see a cliffhanger because I, I, I.
• 1:06:05
  Don't think this was. Done in the DE period, I don't
• 1:06:09
  think we've had an S tier team game, ultimate showdown final of
• 1:06:17
  a tournament with a lot of players at offline, basically at
• 1:06:26
  the land. So for them to face each other
• 1:06:30
  in a team game tournament in front of over 1000 people, I
• 1:06:35
  think it's amazing. It is.
• 1:06:37
  It absolutely is. I'm just, I don't know, I'm
• 1:06:40
  already looking forward to watching that team game
• 1:06:43
  tournament. The issue with it happening.
• 1:06:46
  Right after the our our main. Event.
• 1:06:52
  Would be that basically you need time for Garrison to happen as
• 1:06:57
  well and for the qualifiers for the one V1 for the whole whole
• 1:07:02
  thing, you need some time for the entire event to happen as
• 1:07:07
  well. And yeah, I'm not entirely.
• 1:07:11
  Sure, if there's. Going to be another event like I
• 1:07:13
  I think there's going to be the full calendar that's going to be
• 1:07:16
  released at around the end of the April, if I'm not mistaken.
• 1:07:20
  According to to Neely, that's basically around the same time
• 1:07:26
  where our big announcement with all the details about this
• 1:07:30
  tournament and what everyone should expect.
• 1:07:33
  What is this teasing since? When are we doing soft teasings
• 1:07:37
  like this? I'm not a big fan.
• 1:07:39
  I'm not a big fan. Like I hate as I I even when I
• 1:07:42
  used to have Twitter, I always posted I hate announcements of
• 1:07:46
  the announcement. But apparently it's the meta
• 1:07:49
  now, so you have to, I'm not a big fan of it.
• 1:07:53
  Like, I, I, I wish I could talk to you for the next 20 minutes
• 1:07:56
  about everything that's going to happen, but.
• 1:08:00
  I. I think it's cool and I think it
• 1:08:02
  deserves the, the hype that, you know, I'm preparing.
• 1:08:08
  And I also saw from the soft announcement that people are
• 1:08:12
  really excited for the team games to be back.
• 1:08:15
  So I'm I'm happy to see them like that.
• 1:08:19
  So am I. So just to clarify.
• 1:08:21
  One thing, because this is what's on my mind when I saw
• 1:08:25
  this, this information being posted and that there's more
• 1:08:31
  information to be announced at a later time, that usually tells
• 1:08:35
  me that the event is not finalized yet, that lots of
• 1:08:38
  things are uncertain and so on and so on.
• 1:08:40
  But you sound like everything is set in stone and this is just a
• 1:08:43
  very strategic way of promoting the event.
• 1:08:46
  Not everything, no. That's actually one of the main
• 1:08:49
  reason why we're not going full blast with the announcement is
• 1:08:53
  because we are settling some, some details still.
• 1:09:00
  For instance, like I, I can tell you the exact well, even if
• 1:09:06
  well, I don't know the exact price pool.
• 1:09:08
  For instance, I know that it's going to be STR tournament.
• 1:09:13
  I know the range that's going to be in, but I, I can tell you,
• 1:09:20
  but God damn it. But I, I don't know, for
• 1:09:23
  instance, the exact price pool. I don't know the exact number of
• 1:09:28
  teams, even per league or well, I guess this all this all.
• 1:09:34
  Interconnects I believe, And since Neely still has to
• 1:09:37
  allocate all the price pools for the next fiscal year, it does
• 1:09:40
  make sense that this is not decided yet.
• 1:09:41
  But I got to ask one last question before I hit the hook,
• 1:09:45
  and that is, if you're hosting the event, does that mean that
• 1:09:49
  you will also be casting the event at the venue at the final?
• 1:09:53
  It doesn't, no. It doesn't.
• 1:09:55
  I, I don't think, I don't know, but I, I don't think so.
• 1:10:02
  So don't get your hopes up. I'm not getting mine.
• 1:10:05
  And I think it's better to go forward that way.
• 1:10:08
  Like I'm, I'm not teasing anything about that because to
• 1:10:11
  be fair with you and quite honest, I, I, I don't know.
• 1:10:16
  But if you are watching this from Microsoft's perspective,
• 1:10:23
  it's still the finals of an STR tournament and it's going to be
• 1:10:31
  at a land event and they're probably have want to have Max
• 1:10:36
  viewership on that. And they're probably going to
• 1:10:40
  use the biggest casters or the casters that will provide that
• 1:10:45
  maximum viewership. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong,
• 1:10:48
  maybe I'm not, but I know from from what I was told or hinted
• 1:10:54
  at, I I shouldn't hope for it. So I no, I don't think so.
• 1:11:00
  OK, I didn't want to put you too.
• 1:11:01
  Much on the spot, I already did. I'm sorry about that.
• 1:11:04
  I will. I will ask further questions
• 1:11:07
  when the major announcement has been made and then we can talk
• 1:11:10
  about this a bit more if you if you'd like, of course, I'll
• 1:11:13
  happily answer. More questions when I can tell
• 1:11:16
  you more. It must be so awkward.
• 1:11:20
  For you. Not necessarily awkward.
• 1:11:24
  OK, so. You've already mentioned there's
• 1:11:27
  also been the announcement of the Garrison 2.
• 1:11:29
  These two tournaments are interconnected because of the
• 1:11:31
  final. So just as a small info bit, the
• 1:11:36
  Garrison 2 will take place in what is it September, right?
• 1:11:42
  I believe so. No, October.
• 1:11:47
  October I'm. Sorry.
• 1:11:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, the finals is in
• 1:11:50
  November, so this is hosted by Being E Sports, but this time
• 1:11:55
  together with Team Vitality, which is interesting.
• 1:12:00
  And maybe you can tell me more about that because I have no
• 1:12:03
  idea how that came to be. But we do know from last time
• 1:12:07
  that the Garrison was pretty impressive when it comes to the
• 1:12:10
  experience at the venue. Last time we had the big LAN
• 1:12:14
  event as well. This will not happen again, but
• 1:12:17
  this time there will be a bigger venue for the finals that are
• 1:12:21
  being played there. So it's at a cinema, I believe
• 1:12:25
  in Hamburg, Germany. But since you are hosting part
• 1:12:31
  of a different tournament that is also taking place at that
• 1:12:35
  venue, do you know anything about how Team Vitality is mixed
• 1:12:39
  up with this tournament so. I do.
• 1:12:43
  Know some minimal info that I probably can share with you
• 1:12:47
  guys. If I can't, don't share it with
• 1:12:50
  anyone else. We don't know.
• 1:12:54
  If we, if we. Can't know.
• 1:12:55
  But if we can't know, we know. Yeah.
• 1:12:57
  So. Basically I, I.
• 1:13:00
  Know that Being E Sports wanted to take the Garrison a bit of a
• 1:13:05
  step forward and do a bigger event, an improved one.
• 1:13:11
  The first one was a success and this time they were looking for
• 1:13:15
  a bigger venue for more people to, to be able to see the games
• 1:13:21
  live, to be there to meet their favorite players.
• 1:13:24
  And Vitality is doing a good job of increasing it even further.
• 1:13:32
  From my from my understanding last year the venue was around
• 1:13:37
  300 people. They said they, they had the
• 1:13:39
  budget already to and the sponsors to increase it to
• 1:13:42
  somewhere to 500 to 600, something like that.
• 1:13:46
  But you know what? Vitality came with an offer they
• 1:13:50
  couldn't refuse. And they were like, OK, let's
• 1:13:53
  take things even further and let's find something for 1000.
• 1:13:57
  And they they did. So my understanding is that OK,
• 1:14:01
  Garrison is still the host of the event, but Vitality is doing
• 1:14:05
  a huge deal in joining their forces with them to to bring
• 1:14:13
  basically marketing like it's a vitality is one of the biggest E
• 1:14:18
  sports teams, not just in the A we've seen all the scenes all in
• 1:14:24
  the other games as well. They have crazy good reach.
• 1:14:31
  They have all of this nice things prepared.
• 1:14:34
  Again, if you guys go on the Bing E sports website, you'll
• 1:14:37
  see all the packages for the for the viewers, but they have like
• 1:14:41
  meet and greets with the players that all the players are going
• 1:14:44
  to be there regardless if they qualify or not.
• 1:14:47
  Vitality is going to be flying them.
• 1:14:50
  So if you want to meet Terra leer your heart, that's that's
• 1:14:54
  your chance. You can even book a private
• 1:14:58
  dinner with them and with a limo ride for, what the fuck, a
• 1:15:03
  couple extra bugs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:06
  And they're, you know, a private dinner with them is OK.
• 1:15:10
  But I think I wouldn't I, I think that limo ride is going to
• 1:15:13
  be so awkward. I don't want to book that.
• 1:15:16
  Well, it's included. So you're going to get.
• 1:15:18
  Into the limo regardless if you want it or not.
• 1:15:22
  And yeah, I think it's they have a lot of nice things prepared at
• 1:15:28
  the venue. They have like sign ups.
• 1:15:31
  Of merge. Of Vitality jerseys of all of
• 1:15:36
  these nice things that will just offer you the best, best
• 1:15:40
  experience at the land event in my opinion.
• 1:15:42
  I think I think it's going to be a nice collab with with them.
• 1:15:47
  It sounds very nice, yeah. I'm happy that they get involved
• 1:15:51
  in the scene. That's this much I I want to to
• 1:15:54
  say and to be. Very clear that they're doing,
• 1:15:58
  if not most of all the hosting and preparation for the 3V3
• 1:16:03
  final as well. So personally, yeah.
• 1:16:06
  They're they are. Sponsoring a a good chunk of
• 1:16:10
  making that final possible there.
• 1:16:13
  So they they did say that they will get involved into bringing
• 1:16:18
  back team games. With their involvement into the
• 1:16:22
  AOE scene and with them announcing the AOE team, I think
• 1:16:26
  it makes a lot of sense. But I also want to give full
• 1:16:30
  credit that they are a very big reason why this final is
• 1:16:38
  possible at a land event. Which?
• 1:16:40
  I do think that is incredibly hype for the scene.
• 1:16:43
  It is 100. Percent.
• 1:16:46
  And I must admit that their engagement in making this
• 1:16:51
  possible is actually way more than I would have expected them
• 1:16:55
  to invest into the scene. So this is already a very
• 1:16:59
  positive surprise for me. Yeah, great, great things to
• 1:17:04
  come. And I'm I'm very happy.
• 1:17:06
  For you to that. You get the chance to host an
• 1:17:08
  event like this especially this must be your first STR
• 1:17:12
  tournament, right? All right, so this.
• 1:17:16
  Is going to. Be it for the news.
• 1:17:18
  Next up, we've got our interview with Chuta Burger.
• 1:17:22
  I hope you'll enjoy that. Welcome back and we are back.
• 1:17:29
  With an interview, Danielle and I have invited a guest to this
• 1:17:33
  podcast and this guest is Chupta, or as he's also called,
• 1:17:38
  Chupta Burger. Welcome to the show.
• 1:17:41
  Thank you for having me. Welcome.
• 1:17:43
  Mr. G. Thank you.
• 1:17:45
  Yes. I'm.
• 1:17:46
  I'm Chupta or Chupta, or if you're Brazilian, Shupita.
• 1:17:53
  Yeah, but my students call me. That was Goku, by the way, but
• 1:17:56
  my my students call me Mr. Gaino or Mr. G My real name IRL is
• 1:18:00
  Matt Gaino. And I Yeah, I do stuff in the
• 1:18:04
  Age of Empires community and IRL I'm actually a teacher, middle
• 1:18:08
  school tech Ed teacher. All right, so before you get to
• 1:18:11
  the. Point where you can.
• 1:18:12
  Elaborate on what you're doing. I got to ask you, if I was to
• 1:18:16
  order a chupta burger, what would it taste like?
• 1:18:20
  Hard work. Oh, sweat.
• 1:18:23
  Oh no. So there might be chance of
• 1:18:27
  yeah, blood, sweat and tears being in it.
• 1:18:31
  It wouldn't taste good. I I wouldn't recommend.
• 1:18:35
  The name actually comes from. I don't know if you're familiar
• 1:18:38
  with what a chupacabra is. Isn't that a mythological?
• 1:18:42
  Weird creature. Yes it is.
• 1:18:45
  It's a lizard that the. Origin story is in Mexico.
• 1:18:49
  It's like a monster lizard thing that eats goats, but it doesn't
• 1:18:52
  just like eat them. It like sucks their blood.
• 1:18:54
  It's a horrifying creature, but I tried to get my She was three
• 1:18:59
  years old at the time. My daughter to say Chuck or to
• 1:19:02
  say Chupacabra, and my name is actually what she said.
• 1:19:05
  She went Chup the burger. And I was like, you know what,
• 1:19:09
  That's hilarious. Yeah, if you go.
• 1:19:10
  On Chuck to. Works.com/about and scroll all
• 1:19:13
  the way down to the bottom of the page.
• 1:19:14
  It's like a little hidden Easter egg.
• 1:19:15
  It's got an explanation of my name right there and that's how
• 1:19:18
  I got Chuck to Burger. It doesn't mean anything other
• 1:19:20
  than my daughter who's 8 now. So 5-6 years ago she said it and
• 1:19:26
  that kind of stuck. I was like, that is actually a
• 1:19:28
  really great gamertag. I'm going to go with that.
• 1:19:31
  That's that's an amazing story. OK, so go ahead and tell us
• 1:19:35
  about yourself. You are a person that is well
• 1:19:40
  known in the E sports community I would say because you are kind
• 1:19:43
  of a content creator, but not the way we are used to.
• 1:19:46
  You're not a caster, you're not streaming as far as I know, but
• 1:19:51
  you create content for other content creators and help them
• 1:19:55
  get more exposure and you have your own website and that's the
• 1:19:59
  things you do by night. There's also the things you do
• 1:20:03
  by daylight, which is you are a teacher.
• 1:20:06
  So tell us, where does your love for Age of Empires 2 come from
• 1:20:10
  and how did you connect to the E sports scene and how is that
• 1:20:13
  connected to you being a teacher?
• 1:20:15
  OK, well. I'm going to try to break it
• 1:20:18
  down into parts so that I can focus on one aspect of that at a
• 1:20:22
  time. Growing up, I played this game
• 1:20:25
  since it came out. My best friend growing up, guy
• 1:20:30
  by the name of Bert Stare, He and I would do our own little
• 1:20:33
  land team games. I would be upstairs in the
• 1:20:37
  office in his parents house and he would be in the basement on
• 1:20:41
  the PC down there. And we would just run like
• 1:20:44
  ridiculous Britain's Celts Black Forest.
• 1:20:47
  Just, you know, targeting specific spots on the map to
• 1:20:51
  make sure they can't swarm us, build up our army and then just
• 1:20:54
  pulverize them. Like, that was our fun in
• 1:20:56
  childhood. And then, you know, we ended up
• 1:20:58
  eventually moving on to the other video games.
• 1:21:00
  Like, we were big into Halo. We'd have like Halo slumber
• 1:21:03
  parties with our buddies, but it was mostly me and Bert and
• 1:21:07
  another buddy of ours that were just constantly gaming together.
• 1:21:11
  Age of Empires was probably the biggest one.
• 1:21:15
  And then right around right before when COVID hit, it was
• 1:21:19
  right before it got bad. I came back into the scene.
• 1:21:22
  I had been a fan, I had known like the big names and stuff,
• 1:21:26
  but I was just a casual viewer, just kind of like hanging out.
• 1:21:30
  And then COVID hit and my buddy Bert and I kind of got back into
• 1:21:33
  it. And sorry I'm I'm getting a
• 1:21:37
  little emotional about it. A friend of mine had a bad
• 1:21:41
  experience and the only thing that kept them from killing
• 1:21:44
  themselves was his community. Just the fact that there were
• 1:21:47
  other nerdy people out there that they could connect with and
• 1:21:50
  like have conversations with was so huge.
• 1:21:53
  And they told me about it. And so I, I jumped in and yeah,
• 1:21:59
  I just, I like supporting. This community.
• 1:22:01
  Because I think it's important and this individual is not the
• 1:22:04
  only person since that time about 5 or 6 years ago that I
• 1:22:08
  found out that they were having some really tough times.
• 1:22:11
  COVID kind of messed up a lot of people, and the Age of Empires
• 1:22:15
  community was sort of there for people without even them
• 1:22:18
  realizing it. And it kind of kept people
• 1:22:21
  grounded. Yeah.
• 1:22:24
  So I support this community personally because I think it's
• 1:22:29
  important and it, you know, it saves lives.
• 1:22:32
  That's just why I'm here. I've wanted to be a teacher
• 1:22:35
  since I was a little kid. My mother was a teacher, and I
• 1:22:39
  got to go on college campus with her when she was actually
• 1:22:41
  getting, like, all her credits and stuff.
• 1:22:43
  And and then I was kind of the problem kid in school.
• 1:22:48
  So I had a teacher in 7th grade by the name of Mr. Stump.
• 1:22:52
  I'm more, I'm, I'm more composed now, by the way, I'm good.
• 1:22:54
  I got it back. That's a tough topic for me.
• 1:22:57
  I apologize to both of you. Sorry about that.
• 1:23:00
  No need to apologize. I.
• 1:23:02
  Think. Everyone's got emotional topics
• 1:23:04
  in their lives and what you described as super emotional
• 1:23:08
  and, and important. And I, I think what's most
• 1:23:11
  important about that is not to act as if those kind of things
• 1:23:16
  aren't happening. It's important to talk about
• 1:23:19
  them. And I'm not embarrassed if like.
• 1:23:22
  I don't like you. Don't have to cut any of that.
• 1:23:24
  Out I don't care people know this is something that our
• 1:23:27
  people already know I'm not the only person that feels like this
• 1:23:30
  I know that I've had conversations with many people I
• 1:23:33
  know Daniella feels very strongly about this community
• 1:23:36
  and she also. I don't want to speak for you,
• 1:23:38
  Danny. I'm sorry, but I've spoken with
• 1:23:41
  her on occasion too, about how important this community is to
• 1:23:44
  her, to me, to everybody we know.
• 1:23:46
  And yeah, so, but I'm, I got sidetracked.
• 1:23:50
  I apologize. So I had a teacher in 7th grade
• 1:23:52
  by the name of Mr. Stump. This dude played Age of Empires
• 1:23:55
  with us. It was awesome.
• 1:23:56
  And from there I was like, I don't understand why any, why
• 1:24:00
  everybody doesn't want to be a teacher because, yeah, there's
• 1:24:03
  certain things you got to teach, but if you get a subject you
• 1:24:05
  love, you just have fun every day.
• 1:24:08
  And so I went to college and got a couple, you know, bachelor's
• 1:24:12
  degrees in in teaching. And I've been teaching for 16
• 1:24:16
  years now because I'm like 37 years old.
• 1:24:19
  But I've been a tech Ed teacher for two or three years now.
• 1:24:24
  I moved from teaching social studies or like history.
• 1:24:28
  So like all the nerdy stuff from the game, I know a lot about it.
• 1:24:31
  I'm not saying I'm an expert, but because I taught middle and
• 1:24:33
  high school history and a lot of the ancient stuff for up to
• 1:24:37
  like, you know, 16th, 17th century, that's kind of like my
• 1:24:42
  favorite topics. So this game was awesome,
• 1:24:46
  teaching kids I could use it in my lessons.
• 1:24:48
  I had a couple kids get pretty good, like 1600 or so.
• 1:24:52
  And then like I said, around the time when COVID hit, I got back
• 1:24:55
  into the scene and I'd always been a woodworker since I was a
• 1:24:58
  little kid. I just like to make things.
• 1:25:01
  So woodworking, plumbing, carpentry, masonry, 3D modeling
• 1:25:05
  and design, graphic art, digital art, all that stuff.
• 1:25:09
  I kind of picked it up as I went and just sort of like practiced
• 1:25:13
  a lot. So any time that I have free, if
• 1:25:15
  I get an idea in my head, I'd grab out a sketchbook real quick
• 1:25:18
  and I just throw it down on paper.
• 1:25:20
  And that creative spark is why I'm still teaching, I guess I
• 1:25:24
  could say, because it gives me the opportunity to let students
• 1:25:29
  find their creative spark. Whatever it is, I don't care.
• 1:25:34
  I'm a tech Ed teacher, so if I can relate it to technology, I
• 1:25:38
  can teach about it. Yes, in real life, I am a tech
• 1:25:41
  Ed teacher. It stands for technology
• 1:25:43
  Education, and if it has to do with technology, my classroom is
• 1:25:49
  the space for you to learn more about it.
• 1:25:51
  As far as my expertise levels, I don't consider myself an expert
• 1:25:56
  in very many things. Woodworking is one thing I've
• 1:25:59
  been doing for a very long time. I can use hand tools, power
• 1:26:02
  tools, I can build a building, I can build a chess board, table,
• 1:26:06
  anything in between. But you know, the art and all
• 1:26:09
  that stuff, the drawing and turning things into digital art
• 1:26:13
  and then 3D models, that's that's something that I had to
• 1:26:16
  pick up. I had to learn Blender.
• 1:26:17
  So over the past like six years or so, every time there was a
• 1:26:20
  need for something in the community, I was like, wait,
• 1:26:23
  there's nobody around that can do that or there's nobody around
• 1:26:26
  that can help newer streamers and content creators, even some
• 1:26:29
  of our pro players. I was shocked that it was Viper.
• 1:26:34
  And I think that was it that had a merch store.
• 1:26:37
  And I was kind of upset because I was like, I want AI want a
• 1:26:40
  Viper T-shirt or I want a Jordan T-shirt.
• 1:26:42
  So one day I just kind of made the offer, Hey, what if I set up
• 1:26:45
  a website and like talk to the pros?
• 1:26:48
  Do you think they'd be interested in letting me design
• 1:26:50
  merch for them? And I've just been getting, I
• 1:26:52
  hope at least better since that moment 5 or 6 years ago when I
• 1:26:58
  decided that I wanted to take my free time and, you know, use it
• 1:27:01
  to support the Age of Empires community.
• 1:27:03
  And then the money that is earned from that, half of it
• 1:27:07
  goes to that player whose item is sold and the other half goes
• 1:27:11
  to a fund that I call the education fund.
• 1:27:13
  And all of that money is what funds the stuff in my classroom.
• 1:27:17
  Wow, that's I don't remember. The original question that's,
• 1:27:22
  that's really, that's really impressive.
• 1:27:25
  First of all, I'd like to start with saying that I'm not going
• 1:27:28
  to directly address what you said in the first part right
• 1:27:33
  now. I don't mind that you you
• 1:27:36
  mentioned that I feel strongly about it.
• 1:27:38
  I actually feel so strongly about it.
• 1:27:40
  I would kindly ask Chris to just allow me for 5 minutes straight
• 1:27:44
  to state my opinion at at the end of the magazine.
• 1:27:47
  Because like I, I think I have a couple of things to say to the
• 1:27:52
  listeners as well and a couple of things that I am sure at
• 1:27:56
  least a couple of them relate with and will like hearing.
• 1:28:02
  But yeah, going past that, I'll just like to say, you know my
• 1:28:11
  opinion, how I feel about what you do, Trip, that you've been
• 1:28:14
  in my community for a long while.
• 1:28:17
  And from day number one, I was actually very much impressed
• 1:28:23
  with what you do, what you do for the scene, what you do for
• 1:28:26
  the for your students. You're passionate about the game
• 1:28:29
  itself and you're passionate about the things that you're
• 1:28:32
  doing. I I, I think it's very easy to
• 1:28:37
  realize from just listening. To you for 2 minutes talking.
• 1:28:41
  About the things that that you love and that you put passion
• 1:28:44
  and work into how important these things are to you.
• 1:28:48
  And honestly, I, I wish, I don't know I, I wish all the teachers
• 1:28:53
  would feel the same about their students.
• 1:28:55
  Probably most of them do, but it's also there, there's also
• 1:29:01
  some downsizes, right? We all know about the education
• 1:29:05
  systems, how poorly sometimes they're paid, how all of these
• 1:29:10
  things kind of can pile up, I guess.
• 1:29:18
  But I don't know, I guess. At the end of the day, if you
• 1:29:23
  really have that passion of, you know, just helping people, I, I,
• 1:29:28
  I guess that's enough to overcome all the downsizes to
• 1:29:33
  reward you at the end of the day.
• 1:29:34
  And that's something very special in my opinion.
• 1:29:37
  I appreciate that. Thank you.
• 1:29:40
  So Chupta maybe? You can.
• 1:29:42
  Tell us a bit more about how exactly your students are
• 1:29:46
  involved in creating these merge articles and the kind of things
• 1:29:53
  that we can buy to support both the students and the the pro
• 1:29:57
  players and content creators. So for example, me myself, I am
• 1:30:02
  somebody, I work at a university as a teacher, so I am also in
• 1:30:06
  the educational sector if you want, and I love picking up some
• 1:30:12
  real world experiences and putting my students to the text
• 1:30:18
  so they can experience things first hand.
• 1:30:22
  If the Viper says he wants merge for his for his store or
• 1:30:27
  whatever, does that mean you have complete creative freedom
• 1:30:32
  and your students and you get together and start
• 1:30:35
  brainstorming? Or does he have specific ideas
• 1:30:39
  of what he wants and then you start pitching ideas to him?
• 1:30:44
  And what exactly are your students doing in all this?
• 1:30:48
  That's a really good question, so.
• 1:30:50
  My students are involved in every part of the process with
• 1:30:54
  the exception of personal and financial information, and that
• 1:30:58
  goes both ways. So you'll never know my students
• 1:31:02
  real names and my students don't know who these things are going
• 1:31:06
  to like the the real names of the people.
• 1:31:09
  Excuse me, I'm sorry. I can give you a pretty good
• 1:31:12
  example. We have these tumblers.
• 1:31:15
  That was actually the idea of a 12 or 13 year old kid because I
• 1:31:21
  have a koozie. That's what they're called.
• 1:31:23
  It's like a wrap you can put your soda can into to keep it
• 1:31:26
  cold. And they know how clumsy I am
• 1:31:29
  and I'm always trying to go for it and I'm always reaching for
• 1:31:32
  it like it's a mug. I guess it's a teacher thing and
• 1:31:35
  I knock it over sometimes. So the area of my desk where I
• 1:31:38
  keep it, I don't keep anything electronic near it because I
• 1:31:41
  will knock it over. So he came up with the idea.
• 1:31:44
  He said why don't you make one with like a handle and since you
• 1:31:48
  like medieval like stuff, make it look like an old school like
• 1:31:51
  wooden tankard. So he and I together got on
• 1:31:55
  blender and I started with like the dimensions that we needed.
• 1:31:59
  We measured a soda can and we just we spent about a week and
• 1:32:03
  1/2 on it. Just test print.
• 1:32:05
  OK, is this good? How does that feel good?
• 1:32:08
  Now it feels great, but we still have to seal it with like UV
• 1:32:11
  resin and paint it to make it look realistic.
• 1:32:14
  And you know, we want them to look cool.
• 1:32:16
  So the first one, the one that I'm using currently right now in
• 1:32:19
  my hand, the Mayans one, that was me and four other students
• 1:32:25
  involved in the design, creation, painting and finishing
• 1:32:30
  to the point where it's I can use it in my hand right now to
• 1:32:33
  drink my soda. So they're involved in every
• 1:32:36
  aspect. When I am doing content creation
• 1:32:40
  for my own personal channels, I'm doing that so that the Age
• 1:32:46
  of Empires community specifically, but anybody
• 1:32:48
  really, including my students, parents and like Co workers,
• 1:32:53
  you'll never see my students faces in them.
• 1:32:55
  You'll see like their arms or something or their hands while
• 1:32:58
  they're at work. You'll hear their voices.
• 1:33:00
  Sometimes they'll have like masks or something on like when
• 1:33:02
  we're doing welding, they have welding helmets on so you can't
• 1:33:05
  see their faces anyways. But I give that footage to kids
• 1:33:10
  again, ages 1114. And I've set up a workstation
• 1:33:13
  with a Windows computer and a couple of really big monitors so
• 1:33:17
  you can see like your your timeline and stuff.
• 1:33:21
  And they are learning how to edit.
• 1:33:22
  They can learn with cap cut, which is free.
• 1:33:26
  There's a one that I think Divx makes that I have installed on
• 1:33:29
  there. And then I also pay for a
• 1:33:31
  subscription every month for the Adobe Premiere suite.
• 1:33:34
  It's like 30 bucks a month for teachers, but Adobe Premiere,
• 1:33:38
  Photoshop, all that software that you have to pay for and it
• 1:33:42
  costs a lot of money. I get a discount because I'm a
• 1:33:45
  teacher and I have it available to the students.
• 1:33:47
  I have either created my own tutorial videos or found really
• 1:33:52
  good ones on YouTube. And I set up modules on our
• 1:33:55
  class page in a system we use called Canvas that let's say
• 1:33:59
  somebody wants to learn how to make one of these tumblers, or
• 1:34:02
  they want to make a video about something with some footage that
• 1:34:05
  they have. They can go in and use those
• 1:34:07
  modules. I'm here to answer questions if
• 1:34:09
  they need me. But keep in mind that on any
• 1:34:12
  given day, I usually have up to 24 kids in this room.
• 1:34:16
  And it is very possible to have 12 to 24 different projects
• 1:34:21
  going on at once. So I can't be everywhere at
• 1:34:23
  once. I do all the work ahead of time,
• 1:34:26
  have all those lessons and stuff set up that way when we get a
• 1:34:29
  really cool idea for something and it can come from me, it can
• 1:34:31
  come from the Viper, it can come from Danielle, it come from
• 1:34:33
  anybody. As long as it's, you know, PG
• 1:34:35
  and everything. I'll, I'd literally just say,
• 1:34:38
  hey guys, real quick and we'll start riffing about it.
• 1:34:41
  And my favorite shirt that I wear all the time, it's red, and
• 1:34:45
  it's got the original 13 sieves in a circle around it.
• 1:34:48
  I was talking about Pokémon Go with my students and one of the
• 1:34:51
  kids that plays Goes. Have you seen that one shirt?
• 1:34:54
  And I said, yeah, I actually have it.
• 1:34:55
  I showed him my character. He goes, how cool would it be if
• 1:34:57
  you took some of those Age of Empires badges that you're
• 1:35:01
  always doing stuff with and you circled those around the Age of
• 1:35:04
  Empires symbol in the middle? And I was like, oh, dude.
• 1:35:09
  So we did it. Like he.
• 1:35:10
  And I worked on it in Canva and I've sold a few of those shirts
• 1:35:16
  and it would never have it. It wouldn't exist because it
• 1:35:20
  would not exist if not for me just randomly saying it.
• 1:35:23
  So I turn in lesson plans as a teacher, but they're very loose.
• 1:35:26
  I don't really stick to what's on them specifically.
• 1:35:29
  I go back and I add notes later about like what changed and
• 1:35:32
  everything. Because yes, the main lesson
• 1:35:35
  right now is students are learning how to do virtual
• 1:35:37
  welding because rear welding machines are too dangerous and
• 1:35:40
  they could explode and we don't need that or they can do
• 1:35:43
  robotics. And those are the main 2 topics
• 1:35:45
  that I'm focusing on right now. But that does not mean that I
• 1:35:48
  don't have, I'm not surrounded by students doing all kinds of
• 1:35:51
  other things, whether they're learning a 3D model, 3D print,
• 1:35:55
  prop making. I have kids making like costumes
• 1:35:58
  for cosplay events that they want to go to.
• 1:36:01
  Like there's no limit to what as long as it's creative and it's
• 1:36:04
  technology based. I mean, I have even kids that
• 1:36:07
  are learning how to do like Python And coding, coding their
• 1:36:10
  robots to like do stuff on their own.
• 1:36:14
  So there's always a lot of different things going on in
• 1:36:17
  here. It's not just, you know, I want
• 1:36:18
  to be honest, it's not specifically always Age of
• 1:36:20
  Empires. But when we get an idea for
• 1:36:23
  something, we use Age of Empires as an inspiration.
• 1:36:27
  And the reason that we do that is because I'm so passionate
• 1:36:30
  about it. It kind of is infectious and I
• 1:36:33
  end up having students that want to play the game.
• 1:36:36
  Last year I had a kid get up to 1600 and he absolutely slaps me
• 1:36:39
  on every map except Arabia. I can still get him on Arabia,
• 1:36:44
  but you put water in the mix. I'm done So.
• 1:36:49
  It, you know, could. Be me.
• 1:36:50
  It's kind of hard to specifically.
• 1:36:52
  Put. Down, like pin down what they're
• 1:36:55
  involved in everything and they like it, they enjoy it.
• 1:36:58
  I've cleared it with my bosses. I keep them confidential.
• 1:37:01
  Safety's number one. It's number one in everything I
• 1:37:04
  do in this room because there's so many things that can hurt you
• 1:37:06
  in here, like band saws and table saw to drill presses and
• 1:37:10
  3D printers and lasers. But the kids have an
• 1:37:15
  understanding from day one, you cannot mess around in this room.
• 1:37:18
  Your safety is #1 whether it's physically or on the Internet,
• 1:37:22
  and, you know, otherwise, they're pretty much involved in.
• 1:37:24
  The only difference between online Chuckteburger and IRL Mr.
• 1:37:29
  Yano is the type of language that I use.
• 1:37:32
  That's the big difference. Otherwise, they're pretty much
• 1:37:34
  the same. Yeah, it it sounds very.
• 1:37:37
  Inspirational and also very holistic.
• 1:37:39
  I'm kind of curious about one thing before we get to the last
• 1:37:42
  topic of this interview, and that's you're currently
• 1:37:45
  collecting money on your page for a section called Help Chupta
• 1:37:50
  Cook. And as far as I know, you want
• 1:37:53
  to make the trophy trophy for the Brazilian dynasty land event
• 1:37:57
  in in Brazil. So can you give us a little bit
• 1:38:00
  more context about that? Are you already working on it or
• 1:38:03
  is that something you only do if you get the $5000?
• 1:38:07
  So the. 5000 that I'm going for and I'm already at 3000, which
• 1:38:14
  is absolutely insane and if you don't mind, I just want to say
• 1:38:17
  thank you to all the people that donated because holy crap like
• 1:38:21
  who does that? But anyways, the the five grand
• 1:38:26
  is to cover the costs to make the trophy, to cover the costs
• 1:38:30
  to get a passport and visa, and to cover the time lost that I'm
• 1:38:34
  not working because I work like 3 jobs.
• 1:38:37
  I'm a teacher. I do stuff for the Age of
• 1:38:40
  Empires community and if I make any money off of that, that goes
• 1:38:44
  back into my classroom. And then I also am a woodworker
• 1:38:47
  part time on nights and weekends.
• 1:38:49
  I make furniture and stuff and sell it to sort of pad my
• 1:38:52
  teacher salary. So if I'm not here during the
• 1:38:55
  summer to do that work, that's money I'm not making to pad my
• 1:38:59
  teacher salary, which I don't know if you guys are aware of
• 1:39:01
  this. I don't want to spend a lot of
• 1:39:02
  time talking about it, but teachers in the United States,
• 1:39:04
  we don't make that much. We make like 40% less than
• 1:39:10
  people with equal schooling. So a lot of us have two or three
• 1:39:14
  jobs, but we do it because we like teaching, we like what we
• 1:39:17
  do, and we wouldn't want to do anything else.
• 1:39:20
  So that is to cover lost work time that I will be in Brazil.
• 1:39:24
  If I'm able to go, it's to cover a passport that I've never had
• 1:39:27
  and a visa, which I've never gotten, and the materials for
• 1:39:31
  the trophy. We already have a design or two
• 1:39:34
  that we're kind of stuck on right now.
• 1:39:36
  And if everything goes well and I'm able to get the amount of
• 1:39:41
  money that I'm trying to get, then I will be taking it
• 1:39:44
  personally to Brazil and handing it over to Niko Trauma and Tom,
• 1:39:50
  the boss of Timonomaru, who is hosting the event, the Brazilian
• 1:39:55
  Land, Brazilian Dynasty. I believe it's July 1st through
• 1:39:58
  5th. And that's the plan.
• 1:40:01
  Nigo asked me if my students and I would be interested in doing
• 1:40:04
  it. And fun fact, since I like came
• 1:40:08
  back to the community, this has been my dream.
• 1:40:11
  Like I want to be, I want to go to a nest here and make the
• 1:40:14
  trophy, but like I've been building towards this, this
• 1:40:17
  moment right here, so. It's, it's a big deal for me and
• 1:40:22
  it's kind of a big deal for my students too, because they're, I
• 1:40:26
  mean, I've got one of the, you can't see me because I'm not on
• 1:40:29
  camera, but if I was on camera, I could show you.
• 1:40:31
  I have a sketch of what the one idea, we've got two different
• 1:40:34
  ideas we're trying to decide on. We're actually making miniatures
• 1:40:36
  of them right now. One of them is running on the 3D
• 1:40:38
  printer and it's going to be made of different materials than
• 1:40:42
  just like, you know, we're not going to say 3D print the thing,
• 1:40:44
  but we're printing a model of it.
• 1:40:46
  And if I'm able to get the 5K total for my fundraiser, I will
• 1:40:50
  be taking it personally. If not, I'm hoping that there's
• 1:40:53
  enough there that I can at least, you know, ship it.
• 1:40:55
  They want me to come. They've invited me to me and I'm
• 1:40:59
  assuming I'm bringing my wife. I asked her and it took some
• 1:41:02
  convincing, but I think she's going to go to Brazil, you know,
• 1:41:06
  get there right before the event.
• 1:41:08
  They want me to hang out during the event.
• 1:41:09
  I can get to meet all the pro players that I've known for
• 1:41:12
  years. It's a really exciting
• 1:41:15
  opportunity. I just don't know if it's going
• 1:41:16
  to happen, but if it does, that would be amazing and if it
• 1:41:20
  doesn't, it's still amazing to think that there are 1112
• 1:41:23
  thirteen 14 year old kids that they put time and effort into
• 1:41:27
  this item that you know, thousands upon thousands of
• 1:41:30
  people are going to look at and that that right there, that's
• 1:41:33
  what it is. You know what if you?
• 1:41:36
  Want you can send me? Those sketches later after this
• 1:41:39
  interview, I would love to take a look and I'm already excited
• 1:41:42
  to see the the full trophy when it'll be handed over at the
• 1:41:47
  dynasty land. Let's move on to our last topic
• 1:41:50
  with you. I want I would like you to have
• 1:41:54
  a chance to talk about your nomination for America's
• 1:41:59
  favorite teacher. How did that come to be and
• 1:42:03
  what's that all about? That's a fantastic question and
• 1:42:06
  as soon. As I figure that out, I will let
• 1:42:08
  you know. I still don't know who nominated
• 1:42:10
  me or how I got nominated. When I actually look at the
• 1:42:13
  rules, it turns out you're supposed to nominate yourself.
• 1:42:16
  So this is like the ultimate sell out for teachers because
• 1:42:20
  we're Bill Nye thinks we're underappreciated.
• 1:42:23
  I suppose he's like hosting it with Reader's Digest.
• 1:42:26
  It's a contest here in the United States that I wasn't even
• 1:42:30
  aware of that the winning teacher, Bill Nye, will come to
• 1:42:36
  your school and do an assembly for your students.
• 1:42:39
  And when I read that, I was actually in Dave's channel when
• 1:42:44
  I got a text message from supposedly Bill Nye.
• 1:42:46
  Now, I cannot confirm that it's actually Bill Nye.
• 1:42:48
  It said it's, hey, it's Bill Nye.
• 1:42:49
  But you know, it's one of those robot messages.
• 1:42:52
  I thought it was a scam. I even said it in his chat or
• 1:42:55
  Dave said it, Nigerian Prince scam, don't respond.
• 1:42:59
  Then I looked it up and it was real.
• 1:43:01
  And then I said something about it to a couple of my friends in
• 1:43:04
  the community and they were like, dude, you should just go
• 1:43:06
  for it. And I didn't really take it
• 1:43:07
  seriously until like this past weekend when I I made the top 20
• 1:43:12
  in the like country. I'm in like third right now.
• 1:43:16
  And I'm like, what is happening? People in the Age of Empires
• 1:43:19
  community are really getting behind it and it's kind of
• 1:43:23
  becoming more public. Exactly what it is I do because
• 1:43:27
  you'll see me from time to time in random streams, they'll say,
• 1:43:29
  you know, oh man, I need new logos or emotes Ioffer to help
• 1:43:33
  because that's what I'm there for.
• 1:43:34
  I don't care if you're Viper or you have two people watching you
• 1:43:37
  and one of them is your mom and the other one is your stream
• 1:43:39
  labs or whatever. If you need something, you all
• 1:43:41
  you have to do is ask. And I don't know, somebody out
• 1:43:45
  there feels like what I'm doing is America's favorite teacher
• 1:43:49
  worthy material. And my my main, my main goal.
• 1:43:54
  If I do like win this thing, which I'm not saying that I
• 1:43:59
  will, I have no ideas of grandeur here and I don't have
• 1:44:04
  any chance in my opinion, but other people disagree.
• 1:44:06
  So I'm doing the work. If I win, I want to talk about
• 1:44:09
  the Age of Empires community and the kind of things that my
• 1:44:12
  students are doing in this room that I know they're not doing in
• 1:44:15
  other schools because I've checked, I've looked where they
• 1:44:18
  get to take the math and the science and all that stuff
• 1:44:20
  they're learning in their core classes that they just dread
• 1:44:22
  going to in here. It has a purpose and that's what
• 1:44:26
  we do. We take all the core subjects
• 1:44:28
  that they're learning about, including history, and we apply
• 1:44:32
  it in a hands on and what I use the term now didactic way.
• 1:44:37
  I just learned that word about two weeks ago, but really as a
• 1:44:41
  teacher. I was.
• 1:44:44
  Not kidding when I tell you that I just I.
• 1:44:46
  Learn. I don't.
• 1:44:46
  I never stop learning things. I don't get upset when somebody
• 1:44:49
  is better than me at something because I learned something from
• 1:44:52
  it. And I had to tell my students
• 1:44:53
  the same thing when they started clapping me in the virtual
• 1:44:56
  welding simulator. I'm a certified welder.
• 1:44:58
  I got a 90 my first run and I was like, all right, I'm done.
• 1:45:01
  They're coming out. Hey, Mr. Gannon, I got a 99.
• 1:45:04
  Guess what? I got a 94.
• 1:45:05
  Like talking so much snack. And I'm like guys.
• 1:45:08
  I'm not mad, you realize I could go down the road right now, get
• 1:45:11
  a job as a welder and make $200,000 easily.
• 1:45:14
  That's like 4 times what a starting teacher's salary is.
• 1:45:18
  But I'm here, and this is important because while one of
• 1:45:22
  me is useful to a lot of people, imagine what a lot more people
• 1:45:26
  like me who know how to do a lot of stuff, imagine the impact
• 1:45:30
  that they could have. And in this country
• 1:45:32
  specifically, I know for a fact we are really hurting for
• 1:45:35
  skilled workers, for people that know how to do things.
• 1:45:39
  Everybody's relying so much on AI that they're forgetting how
• 1:45:43
  we got there in the 1st place. And that really, really worries
• 1:45:48
  me. I'm not saying that AI is a bad
• 1:45:50
  thing. It's just another tool in the
• 1:45:52
  tool kit, but it shouldn't be used for creativity.
• 1:45:55
  It shouldn't be used in schools. It should be used for menial
• 1:46:00
  things that we just don't really feel like doing because it's
• 1:46:03
  tedious. Like if you're going to use it
• 1:46:05
  in art, you can use AI for like background removers and stuff,
• 1:46:08
  but don't show somebody a piece of art that and say, look what I
• 1:46:12
  made. Unless you made it, you didn't
• 1:46:15
  make that. A bunch of other people made
• 1:46:17
  that. And I don't want my students to
• 1:46:19
  rely on AII want them to rely on themselves.
• 1:46:24
  And if we have enough kids out there that can maybe grow up to
• 1:46:28
  with enough self esteem and confidence, especially now that
• 1:46:32
  people are seeing their work and they're saying such nice things
• 1:46:35
  about it and I'm passing that and those messages on.
• 1:46:37
  It's, it resonates with me and it, I feel like it resonates
• 1:46:40
  with a lot of people. So I somewhere in there is a
• 1:46:44
  reason for why somebody nominated me.
• 1:46:45
  I don't know what it is. I just could do I, I get to hang
• 1:46:49
  out and make stuff all day. Like I enjoy it, it's fun,
• 1:46:53
  great. And dear.
• 1:46:55
  Desner, if you are inspired by this and if you want to help
• 1:46:58
  Chupta become America's favorite teacher, then just head over to
• 1:47:02
  chuptaworks.com. That's his site where you can
• 1:47:05
  see all the merch he's selling and learn more about the work
• 1:47:09
  he's doing with his students. And there's also the the link
• 1:47:12
  for the vote, because everyone has a free vote.
• 1:47:16
  So if you want to cast your vote for his project because you
• 1:47:19
  think he's doing good work, then you can do so.
• 1:47:21
  And if I could say something just super fast.
• 1:47:24
  Please don't buy votes. I understand that that is an
• 1:47:27
  option. I'm asking people not to do
• 1:47:30
  that. If I can win on clicks alone, I
• 1:47:33
  want to be able to say, look, this community right here is
• 1:47:37
  why. You know, people like Daniela,
• 1:47:40
  people like Dave, people like Chris and everybody else that
• 1:47:44
  has been telling their fans, their community, hey, this guy's
• 1:47:48
  worth your support. It it's it's huge.
• 1:47:52
  And that's just one tiny aspect of the community.
• 1:47:54
  So if I win, it's going to be because of the Age of Empires
• 1:47:57
  community and it's going to be based on clicks, not money.
• 1:48:00
  Sorry, don't worry about it, I think.
• 1:48:03
  It's important. To say Chupta again, thank you
• 1:48:06
  so much for being on the show. I wish you the best of luck with
• 1:48:08
  your nomination and I'm so curious to see the trophy well
• 1:48:14
  if you ever want to see anything.
• 1:48:16
  That the students are working on.
• 1:48:17
  I, I took a break from posting about a week ago because I was
• 1:48:21
  just drained. I was posting like shorts and
• 1:48:24
  clips and stuff every day for like two or three weeks just to
• 1:48:27
  try to build up a good base foundation of stuff.
• 1:48:30
  Me and the students were grinding stuff out.
• 1:48:32
  You can check out our YouTube channel.
• 1:48:33
  You can check out our Instagram. It's terrifying, but I'm on
• 1:48:38
  Reddit right now. I posted a picture of some stuff
• 1:48:41
  that the students had done and it got almost like 40,000 views
• 1:48:45
  over a weekend's worth of time. I was shocked.
• 1:48:48
  I didn't I just a random picture I took.
• 1:48:50
  So I know that people are interested in this stuff and I
• 1:48:53
  know that people care because I've got a lot of votes from
• 1:48:57
  people that I don't even know who they are because it's all
• 1:48:59
  real names from like your Facebook account.
• 1:49:02
  So if you want to see what these kids are doing, go on shop the
• 1:49:06
  works. Check out our socials, Scroll
• 1:49:09
  down my Instagram, the last like 30 things is on there.
• 1:49:12
  You can click on whatever you want to watch, click on the
• 1:49:14
  about page, there's videos already on there.
• 1:49:16
  Or check out the YouTube channel.
• 1:49:18
  The kids, they love showing people what they can do.
• 1:49:21
  And I don't know, I just, I really like it.
• 1:49:25
  I know there's a lot going on and it kind of scatters my
• 1:49:28
  brain. But at the end of the day, these
• 1:49:30
  kids are really good at stuff and they're really impressive
• 1:49:33
  and we just got to give them the chance to in the like the space
• 1:49:36
  and the tools to do it. That's why I'm doing it.
• 1:49:38
  It's what all this is about. Jump to works.
• 1:49:40
  All the work that I do for people, if it makes money, it
• 1:49:43
  all goes into this room so that they have the opportunity to use
• 1:49:46
  industry standard tools, tech and equipment to find what
• 1:49:49
  they're passionate about. Thank you again for being on the
• 1:49:52
  show. Thank you so much for having me,
• 1:49:54
  both of you, Seriously. It was it was our pleasure.
• 1:49:57
  To and now we've got the tournament outlook.
• 1:50:02
  For April 2026, So before we get to our actual tournament
• 1:50:09
  outlook, I would like to give you a chance to say the things
• 1:50:15
  that are on your heart because in the interview just before you
• 1:50:19
  mentioned that you would also like a few minutes to talk about
• 1:50:24
  your view on the community. So here's your stage.
• 1:50:28
  Oh, true. Oh.
• 1:50:30
  That caught. Me.
• 1:50:32
  Of course I forgot about it. Yeah.
• 1:50:36
  But basically I'm going to keep it short because like I said
• 1:50:43
  earlier, we want to keep this whole episode short.
• 1:50:46
  But I really want to put an emphasis on what Chupta said
• 1:50:50
  earlier because I think generally a lot of the listeners
• 1:50:55
  and a lot of the AOE community members can can relate to that.
• 1:51:02
  I don't know if everyone knows, but that's basically how I
• 1:51:07
  joined the scene as well. I was going through a very rough
• 1:51:09
  path through like I, I had suffered family loss and I was
• 1:51:18
  struggling with the PhD studies as well.
• 1:51:21
  And it was a very harsh period of time for me.
• 1:51:26
  The only thing that would get me through my day was watching AOE,
• 1:51:31
  and I was watching AOE an unhealthy amount of time.
• 1:51:34
  But I prefer to do that unhealthy thing rather than do
• 1:51:40
  other unhealthy things, if that makes any sense.
• 1:51:41
  Like it wasn't healthy for me, but that was my coping mechanism
• 1:51:44
  to deal with my grieving, to deal with my losses, with my
• 1:51:48
  difficult times. And the reason why I started to
• 1:51:53
  stream what the reason why I started to be 24/7 on other
• 1:52:01
  channels offering my help, just like Chupta is saying that he's,
• 1:52:05
  he's offering to help people that need emotes or merch or
• 1:52:08
  whatever. That's how I started to get a
• 1:52:10
  custom with the AOV scene. I would mod for people or like
• 1:52:14
  if someone needed something, if a streamer needed something and
• 1:52:17
  I, I would, I could help them. I, I, I would want to do it
• 1:52:21
  because a part of me wanted to give back just a tiny bit of the
• 1:52:28
  amount of support that watching AOE and watching those streams
• 1:52:34
  provided me. So yeah, basically when, when he
• 1:52:40
  he said that earlier, he just hit a chord for me.
• 1:52:45
  And I just want to say a huge thank you today.
• 1:52:50
  OA community. I just want to say that if you
• 1:52:53
  are going through a tough time, you are not alone.
• 1:52:57
  I promise you at least a couple of people from another stream
• 1:53:02
  that you're a community for, for a specific streamer or even a
• 1:53:08
  streamer themselves. I, I, I know for sure T-90
• 1:53:11
  talked about the mental struggles he's had when he
• 1:53:14
  started to stream and and such. This community is, is here for
• 1:53:20
  you. And yeah, there, there is a
• 1:53:23
  light at the end of the tunnel. You just need to.
• 1:53:27
  You just need. To be patient it it.
• 1:53:29
  Will pop out eventually but yeah, it just the other day I
• 1:53:35
  received a message from one of my viewer that if you don't mind
• 1:53:39
  I'll read it out loud. He was saying I, I was.
• 1:53:43
  Having a very. Bad time with depression and my
• 1:53:45
  life going sideways and your streams were a lot of help as
• 1:53:49
  they were always so wholesome and you were always uplifting to
• 1:53:52
  people in chat. So thank you for helping me when
• 1:53:54
  I needed it even though you didn't know you were helping.
• 1:53:57
  This immediately brought tears into my eyes because that's how
• 1:54:03
  I felt at some point in my life watching the stream and it to me
• 1:54:08
  being able to bring a smile on on someone's face that was
• 1:54:12
  having a hard time was the best thing that I could have done
• 1:54:17
  that day. And I went to sleep.
• 1:54:20
  I went to sleep OK with myself and pleased with myself that I,
• 1:54:25
  I, I did bring that smile on someone's face and that's
• 1:54:29
  incredibly rewarding. It was longer than 5 minutes.
• 1:54:31
  I'm sorry, no, this is. We're not under time pressure.
• 1:54:36
  And I think I'm so happy to hear that you get this positive
• 1:54:42
  feedback. And I'm so happy that there's a
• 1:54:46
  person who feels better because of your streams.
• 1:54:48
  And there's probably lots more people who just don't write in,
• 1:54:51
  you know, but your commute, I've always perceived your community
• 1:54:57
  as being particularly wholesome and supportive.
• 1:55:00
  Of course there's, you know, from time to time the average
• 1:55:05
  guy who thinks he needs to backseat or give you unasked
• 1:55:09
  advice. That's fine, I guess.
• 1:55:12
  Listen, I I do get a fairly amount of toxic messages as
• 1:55:16
  well, like I've had when I after I cast it with T-90.
• 1:55:19
  There was a a dude that posting really awful stuff about me in
• 1:55:24
  every chat I go. I'm so glad you're casting this.
• 1:55:27
  That awful person is casting with T-90.
• 1:55:30
  I can't listen to that. So there, there are negative
• 1:55:33
  ones as well, but I'm trying at least to not pay too much
• 1:55:39
  attention. And as I used to like those were
• 1:55:41
  affecting me big time a while ago.
• 1:55:43
  But I I'm trying to focus more on the positives, you know, as
• 1:55:50
  we should and there is a lot of positivity.
• 1:55:52
  Out there and especially in our community, I mean, we've always
• 1:55:56
  prided ourselves with being the grown-ups in all the E sports
• 1:56:00
  scene and laughed about the, you know, 12 year old toxic children
• 1:56:05
  from League of Legends. And yeah, I was going to say
• 1:56:08
  we're we're wholesome because. We're literally older than
• 1:56:11
  everyone else, so imagine if. We act like those. 12 years old,
• 1:56:17
  yes, but there are enough. Grown-ups who are acting very
• 1:56:20
  childish and who are immature despite being grown up.
• 1:56:27
  I think it always takes two sides.
• 1:56:29
  It takes a community who is willing to be nice and helpful
• 1:56:32
  to one another, but it also takes a streamer or content
• 1:56:35
  creator who is. This is going to sound really
• 1:56:39
  weird from a 30, oh wait 38 year old person.
• 1:56:42
  But you know, you and all the other content creators in our
• 1:56:46
  scene are creating the right wipes for this to come up.
• 1:56:51
  So that is something that is solely your work and your effect
• 1:56:56
  on the scene. So you should be proud of that.
• 1:56:58
  Yes, thank you. That's very nice.
• 1:57:01
  OK, so with. That we move on to finish up the
• 1:57:04
  episode with the tournament outlook for April 2026.
• 1:57:08
  And of course, April will be all about Empire Wars and Red Bull
• 1:57:13
  Wollolo Londinium. We're only a couple of days away
• 1:57:17
  from the main event, which will start on April 1st.
• 1:57:20
  There's $170,000 of prize pool to be won, of which the winner
• 1:57:26
  gets 50K and the runner up 30K alone.
• 1:57:29
  The tournament is played in Empire wall settings, so you'll
• 1:57:32
  see games starting in the Feudal age and get right into action.
• 1:57:35
  There will be 4 days of group stage, another two days of
• 1:57:38
  playoffs and on April 6th, the Grand Final at 17 GMT.
• 1:57:44
  The 8 participants are ACCM, Hart, Hera, Leery, MBL,
• 1:57:49
  Sebastian, Yo and finally the Viper.
• 1:57:53
  Expect high production quality and fast-paced games.
• 1:57:57
  Official casters at London are Dave, MEMP, Nilly and T-90.
• 1:58:02
  There's also two official Spanish casters with Nacho and
• 1:58:06
  Mario Ovaya. The groups are already
• 1:58:09
  determined. We have Hard, Hera, MBL and Yo
• 1:58:11
  in Group A and the other four players ACCM, Niri, Sebastian
• 1:58:15
  and Viper in Group B. So with that being said, the
• 1:58:20
  official casters are of course casting from London.
• 1:58:24
  Will you and maybe some other casters also cover the event or
• 1:58:28
  will you just be a viewer? No, I will.
• 1:58:31
  I will 100%. Cover the entire event on my
• 1:58:34
  channel. Nice.
• 1:58:35
  I think previously there were there was a main feed to to be
• 1:58:43
  shown, I think in between the games.
• 1:58:46
  I will probably show it on my stream, talk with my community
• 1:58:50
  about what's going on there. They usually have all of these
• 1:58:53
  really fun drafting methods and I don't know, it's nice to see
• 1:58:58
  the vibe of a land event. But when it comes to casting, I
• 1:59:01
  kind of prefer doing it my own way and controlling the the
• 1:59:05
  camera myself is is like if I can, of course, having an
• 1:59:08
  observer is is also nice. But yeah, I, I do think that if
• 1:59:15
  you are going to stream and castle matches, the quality in
• 1:59:18
  terms of the stream is going to fade out a bit.
• 1:59:21
  So I'm I'm going to to castle games myself.
• 1:59:26
  OK, hearing that. Can I offer you some premium
• 1:59:29
  advice? Yes, so.
• 1:59:33
  If. Possible do not stream the day
• 1:59:37
  before the the first day of the main event and brace yourselves
• 1:59:42
  for about 40,000 viewers because the first day of the group stage
• 1:59:47
  will probably not work on the main feed as it always doesn't
• 1:59:51
  work. So they will desperately look
• 1:59:53
  for some casters who are able to actually consistently.
• 1:59:58
  Streamed the. Event it was like this last
• 2:00:01
  year. Prepare well for.
• 2:00:02
  That and I remember Orlu got so many viewers and of course I was
• 2:00:10
  happy for him. It was sad for me because I was
• 2:00:12
  casting on the GL channel and the GL channel is not
• 2:00:16
  necessarily or was not necessarily only casting AOE was
• 2:00:21
  casting like Rocket League. And so it's not like, you know,
• 2:00:23
  top channel recommended. It's not the most active in AOE,
• 2:00:27
  so it's not going to be the top channel recommended for you.
• 2:00:30
  If I would have been casting on my channel, I would have
• 2:00:33
  probably gotten way more viewers.
• 2:00:34
  But even like that, I was so averaging it for the first day,
• 2:00:37
  like 500 viewers. Like they had so many technical
• 2:00:40
  difficulties. Yeah.
• 2:00:42
  And it's been like. That in every single event,
• 2:00:44
  yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe so. They.
• 2:00:47
  Have a track record of, you know, first day is always a bit
• 2:00:52
  weird. They're not sure about how it
• 2:00:54
  will be in London though, because that stage is different.
• 2:00:58
  It's neither on a castle in Spain nor in a castle in
• 2:01:02
  Germany. And German Internet is usually
• 2:01:04
  very not trustworthy. So this time their settings
• 2:01:09
  should be as good as it gets. But still, if I were you, I
• 2:01:13
  would brace myself for maybe some technical difficulties and
• 2:01:17
  then I for one am counting on you to cover the event.
• 2:01:20
  And thank you. Appreciate it.
• 2:01:25
  All right, so. You want to.
• 2:01:27
  Make a bold prediction. Who's going to win?
• 2:01:31
  I'll say Hera. But I think it.
• 2:01:36
  Would be close. I I think it would because I, I
• 2:01:39
  think it's going to be Herald Leary in the final and anything
• 2:01:42
  could happen. OK, I'm going to go and.
• 2:01:46
  Say Leary is going to win this tournament 16 No. 16 tournament
• 2:01:52
  streak Max. I don't know how many Hera has.
• 2:01:55
  Won, but there's got to be a point where Hera is not winning
• 2:01:58
  and it's got to be against his own teammates, which is now
• 2:02:03
  possible with Leary being in the same team as him.
• 2:02:06
  And I don't know, I'm just, I'm just really hoping for Leary to
• 2:02:11
  win this one against Terror. I don't think anyone else has
• 2:02:13
  even a slight chance. So it must be Leary.
• 2:02:17
  Yeah. That I, I need a if I am
• 2:02:20
  convinced that Hera is going to win this as well, then this
• 2:02:23
  tournament is going to be very boring for me.
• 2:02:25
  So I need the storyline and that's going to excite me.
• 2:02:28
  Yeah, I, I, I can. I can.
• 2:02:30
  Understand that. OK, I'm looking forward.
• 2:02:33
  To see which. One's right, probably.
• 2:02:38
  Not me, but. Yeah.
• 2:02:41
  So. Just to finish.
• 2:02:43
  The start of Red Bull. There's also the $40,000 on the
• 2:02:47
  line for the Age of Empires four players who are also playing
• 2:02:50
  their playoffs in London. The winner gets half of the
• 2:02:53
  prize pool and the four contestants are Marine Lord and
• 2:02:57
  Puppy Paul, who will face off in the first semifinal and the
• 2:03:00
  other semifinal will be Ram against Vortex.
• 2:03:03
  This final will also take place the same day as the AOE 2 finals
• 2:03:07
  on April 6th, I'm guessing at 15 GMT so that the finals can start
• 2:03:12
  at 17 GMT in the Age of Empires 2.
• 2:03:16
  Then of course, since this is a tournament outlook, I need to
• 2:03:19
  mention Wallets 5. We've talked about that in the
• 2:03:23
  news already, but this tournament will take place in
• 2:03:26
  May, but the qualifiers will begin in the last week of April,
• 2:03:29
  so keep an eye out for that. Then we've got a tournament in
• 2:03:33
  Age of Empires One. The AOE League Spring Cup 2026
• 2:03:37
  has started with League One in the middle of March and it will
• 2:03:41
  continue until May the 2nd. The games are being played every
• 2:03:44
  Saturday and Sunday. Can you watch?
• 2:03:46
  And if if you're crazy like me and you want to try to watch
• 2:03:49
  them, you can watch them on some Vietnamese YouTube channels or
• 2:03:53
  on Facebook. And then there's in the the Age
• 2:03:57
  of Empires Three tournament, the ESOC Spring Championship 2026.
• 2:04:02
  I've mentioned this in the last episode as well, but now it's
• 2:04:06
  slowly getting into the final phase with the finals being
• 2:04:08
  played between April 6th and 12th.
• 2:04:14
  That's it. We've probably.
• 2:04:16
  Reached a record in our recording time under 2 hours.
• 2:04:23
  I have to. Say with everything all together
• 2:04:26
  thank you once again very much Danielle for being on the show.
• 2:04:30
  It was a blast talking to you and I feel very ready now after
• 2:04:33
  this talk with you to enjoy some Age of Empires 20.
• 2:04:36
  I thought you were saying I'm. Very ready to go to sleep?
• 2:04:43
  That's too. But no, I'm.
• 2:04:46
  Actually more excited about Age of Empires 2 now than I am
• 2:04:49
  excited about sleep. Nice, nice.
• 2:04:51
  I'm happy to hear that. Thank you so much for.
• 2:04:53
  Having me, it was a really good episode.
• 2:04:55
  I I like this Sir. We kept it relatively.
• 2:04:58
  Short compared. To other podcasts, but also
• 2:05:02
  there was. There weren't too many things to
• 2:05:04
  talk about. But inside those topics there
• 2:05:07
  were a lot of things to talk about.
• 2:05:09
  So yeah. Yeah, it was a.
• 2:05:13
  Nice episode. Thanks for having me once again.
• 2:05:16
  All right, so guys, if you. Want to know where you can watch
• 2:05:20
  the first day of Red Bull after everything crashes over on their
• 2:05:23
  side? Head over to twitch.tv/daniela
• 2:05:27
  under score AOE. That's twitch.tv/daniela under
• 2:05:32
  score AOE, But we'll also link your channel in the show notes
• 2:05:35
  of this episode. And if you want to write in an
• 2:05:38
  e-mail and have us discuss some topics next time or answer some
• 2:05:42
  questions, then right at age of cast@gmail.com.
• 2:05:48
  Thanks everyone for listening to the show and we will hear each
• 2:05:51
  other in the next episode. And thank you for having me once
• 2:05:55
  again, Kristen. I I would like to ask really
• 2:05:57
  quick that also thank you for the amount of messages that I
• 2:06:01
  receive in a Twitch chat or I saw someone mentioning or
• 2:06:05
  replying to me on Reddit the other day to a comment that
• 2:06:08
  everyone offering super nice messages about me being on this
• 2:06:13
  podcast, they appreciate having me here.
• 2:06:17
  And I don't know, it feels really, really nice every time
• 2:06:21
  when someone so nice. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:06:23
  So I'm so happy that happened. OK, It has.
• 2:06:26
  Been a blast, yeah. Man, I'm so glad.
• 2:06:29
  I love having. You on the show and I, I'm so
• 2:06:31
  happy that people are also responding.
• 2:06:34
  Yeah, me too. It's a heartwarming way.
• 2:06:36
  It's great. Now I'm so happy I don't.
• 2:06:40
  Know where to put my? Feelings.
• 2:06:41
  Maybe I should go to sleep now so.
• 2:06:45
  Have a great one. Yeah, you.
• 2:06:46
  Too, Chris, bye bye.