By Blaze

[Ogr]Shrek is Love is one of the more memorable new teams out there. Not just because of their lovely name, but also because they have been showing constant high level play and progress. That momentum has led them to quickly become a name to remember during Carnage in Caldavar and even more so in the beginnings of HoN Tour Season 3, where they directly qualified for the Diamond Division. Ever since those glory days, they have been in Gold Division, ‘shreking’ opponent after opponent and two times in a row they barely missed getting back into Diamond, until they finally got in again in Cycle 4. And in Cycle 5 they did nothing less than kick [BMG]BadMonkeyGaming out of the Winners Bracket in the first round and then continue to playing Diamond Division after a close match against [KNX]REXXARS, which was a miracle that they lost it. To get to know these Ogres a bit more, [Ogr]Kluckmuck, was nice enough to talk about his team, which happened last Sunday, before the close match against the REXXARS.


Blaze: Hello Kluckmuck. Please introduce yourself and your team, who is who and who does what.

Hello! My name is Kluckmuck, usually called just Kluck. My real name is Viktor, and I play as support and captain for team Shrek is Love [Ogr]. The team started up in CiC, and right now our rooster consist of MightyMarcus, S`taaf, Horspel, Massera:
MightyMarcus, he is #1 Chipper in the world and wrecks every lane.
S`taaf, our great jungler that has learned a lot from Zlapped’s stream. Can't play a game without getting a godhole as Tempest.
Horspel, recently joined our team in Cycle 4. He plays carry for Shrek. Watch out for when Klanx is released, he is going to farm more creeps then ever before.
Massera joined our team when we entered Diamond, and plays suicide. He's OP as #@&!, and his only weakness is that he has the same IRL name as MightyMarcus.

Can you tell us a bit about your teams history? You seem to have appeared out of nowhere in the Carnage in Caldavar Event.

We started playing in the start of CiC. After joining the team I quickly became the captain. Back then, we had a completely different rooster. All in all, I think we've had about 11+ members in the team. This was one of our weaknesses before, that we couldn't manage to find a stable roster. Now we finally have a stable lineup, and I believe that we can go a long way together.

Getting into the Diamond Division in Cycle 1 right away must have felt really good, but then you dropped out of it fairly quickly. Was it too far too fast or what happened?

Most people expected tree and Moe (old w0p) to play in Cycle 2 of Pro League, but we managed to steal their spot after three long games. This was our greatest victory yet, as it mean we would go straight into Pro League as KNX and xCet dropped out. Even though we didn't do that great, we learned so much as players and as a team.

At that time we just weren't on the same level as other top teams. We had spent all our time scrimming and preparing for the teams in the amateur division, so when we entered the Pro League we felt a bit out of place. After getting crushed by old BMG, we accepted that we might not make it that far in Pro League, but that we should still try our best and just learn from our mistakes. One of our strengths is that we can look at a loss and learn from our mistakes. A big problem for us in CiC was that we actually only had 4 players in the team, so we had to use a ringer for every game. In the end though, they were just the better teams than us.

It felt amazing to get into Diamond directly, especially when we saw how much money eSports Plinko was adding to the prizepool. The only issue was that most of our players took a month break between CiC and HT, which made it a lot harder to beat Dawn and prevent us from going down to Gold. Once again we had to play with a ringer, and after a huge Kongor steal by Labyrinth we lost the series.

You had 2 Cycles in a row that saw you almost back in Diamond but you were defeated one step before that. Now you finally made it again, what do you think were the reasons for that?

I think it had to do a lot with us underperforming, and making a few small mistakes that cost us a trip to Diamond. Cycle 2 TwFu swapped drafter which caught us off guard, and Cycle 3 we lost with mega creeps.

You changed your lineup several times in the last few weeks. Are you now satisfied with your lineup?

Yes! I finally have a solid team, where everyone has the same level of ambition and contribution to our team. It's important that a team has the same goal, and that everyone feels comfortable with each others as players, and I feel we have reached that point.

What are your thoughts on the current meta?
I love the meta, I don't think we've ever been in a meta were so many strategies and heroes were viable. I hope that they continue to try to make the pool of viable larger, right now there are many supports and initiators that aren't on the same level as their top tier equivalent, so I hope they buff them in the upcoming patch.

We see more and more unusual heroes entering the lineup of top teams. Does your team also have a special hero or two or maybe a secret strategy you are willing to tell us about?

As the meta is varied at the moment, you are able to fit most heroes into at least one strategy. If the opportunity appears, we'll definitely pick up heroes like Thunderbringer, Moira and Defiler.

All in all, how was HoN Tour Season 3 for you so far and how does it hold up compared to earlier Seasons and the Carnage in Caldavar? The organization, the coverage, the prize money, are there things you want to see improved?

I didn't like how CiC was constructed at all. The worst thing was the qualifier, that mostly consisted of Bo1's. If you had one weak game, you were forced to play in Amateur League for 4 weeks. This season of HoN Tour is the best one yet if you look at the design, in my opinion. Making all the divisions half the size was a good move and promotes more competition and better matches. Along with an increased prize pool from eSports Plinko I think S2 has done a good job to "revive" the scene.

Thanks to quincy we've had loads of interesting stats for the games, which I think is great and just makes it more fun to watch. I think the organization is doing a fine job, but I wouldn't mind if they helped us competitors faster during HT and updated the Hontour page a bit more often. Not updating the site often looks unprofessional in my opinion. The main page is still informing you the results from CiC cycle 1...

Looking into the future, where do you see your team go, will you end up in the Grand Finals and who do you think will become the Champions of Season 3?

I don't see us going back to Gold. We hope to keep working us up the ranks in Diamond, finally ending up in the Grand Finals and winning the whole thing.

Any shoutouts?

Shoutout to our #1 Manager xyolotrainxx, CC, Rocky, Insania, our fans, and everyone who supports us. Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life


Well then, thanks to Kluckmuck for the interview and his patience and congrats on being right and staying in Diamond Division after the big bang that they caused in round 1. You can see more of the Ogres again in Cycle 6, until then they will very likely be scrimming as much as possible to allow us to see more of them for the rest of the Season and beyond.

About the author: Blaze