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Welcome to the monthly MOBAFire Community Spotlight! Last time Vapora Dark shared some insights about him as a player, community member and person with us. This time we're interviewing Embracing, one of MOBAFire's well-known members and guide writer. Mostly recognized for his Ezreal and Nidalee guide we asked him questions not only about the game we all love, League of Legends, but also about him as a member and person like we did it in the last interview and in the interviews before.
Let's begin with the 'question-and-answer game'!

Let's start with talking about your roots. In your profile it says you have been a member of this website since 2011. Why did you initially join MOBAFire?

I first started playing League around that time, and as I was a beginner I started looking for guides on and (my first two “mains”). I started off lurking the site just for guide content, but eventually started to make my own content and become more active in the community. My first "guide" was on and I remember the guide having simple coding and not too much information. I was low silver at the time so that's understandable I guess. I also wrote four or five other guides throughout the years. However, I ended up archiving them all and just having the two that I have right now because they were frustrating to update.

Who was the first person you talked to on MOBAFire and how did they influence your thoughts of the site?

I don’t remember the specifics, but I was talking to the guide writer of the top rated guide at the time and had questions regarding / and some early game item choice. I didn't have many thoughts of the site at first. MOBAFire just seemed like a normal platform to explore builds and guides.

You've certainly experienced a lot of MOBAFire's 'faces' up to now and seen a lot of people come and go. What do you like and dislike most about the website?

I personally like that the community doesn’t run off of stereotypes and generalizations as much as Reddit does and is typically smarter compared to the general LoL community.
I dislike that a lot of flashy guides slapped with general information and every single viable item get voted to the top, which lowers the quality of the site. Writers of these guides also basically stop seeking for improvement in their guide because they’re top-rated.

If you could give one piece of advice to users looking to get more active in the community, what would it be?

Comment more! Get involved with threads / guides, voice out your opinions, and don’t be afraid to back them up. More importantly though, is to have an open mind and be willing to accept differences / shortcomings in your own opinions.

Short but straightforward question: Do you have any plans for MOBAFire you are willing to share?

I don’t have any plans as I don’t play League at a relatively competitive level anymore and that demotivates me from creating content.

Because MOBAFire is all about League of Legends we should talk about the game as well. How would you summarize your League career??

Well I first started playing League (NA) back in 2011 during the release. I remember playing the hell out of and in season one, ending up in silver, believing myself to be stuck in “elo hell.” I was also extremely toxic in game and would be very blunt towards mistakes I saw. In season two, back in the “inhouse glory days” where we had an active NA MOBAFire “culture,” I started playing with plats and diamonds in the inhouses, and that let me realize what sort of direction I should be aiming to improve in. I stopped playing ranked and literally let my elo stay at 1300 until the end, where I started trying to climb. I remember ending up at 1840, which was 10 elo under platinum at the time, getting really sad about the result. Note that this was all while I was in China, where I had 160 to 250 ping. As a result, with the eventual release of the Chinese servers and me getting sick of playing at a higher ping, I started playing over there (12 ping ftw). I levelled up an account with some other IRL friends who started playing, and started climbing in ranked as well. I got stuck in plat V for a long time in early season three, but eventually managed to hit a hot streak and shoot all the way to diamond V. As season 3 ended and pre-season four hit (this was pre-ladder reset), I kept climbing and managed to hit high D2. In the meantime I was also playing in a challenger ranked team with a few other foreigners playing in China. I also dabbled around in the KR ladder as well, which felt pretty similar to CN. However, I randomly decided to quit playing League when I was at 90 points or something to join a few buddies who were playing CS. At that point I lost my drive to play seriously and my team also became relatively inactive as well. At that point I was in my senior year in high school, and ended up taking a half year break from League to just hang out with my friends. After moving to the US I started climbing a bit because I was interested in how different NA was from CN, but still ended up just chilling and playing with friends for fun.

Many people focus on maining one role. Would you say that you've got a main role you prefer to play in? Furthermore, the banner has probably already spoiled which champion your favourite one is but let's just pretend people are still wondering about it.

Being the indecisive and spontaneous person I am, I’ve literally attempted to “main” every single role except support before. I think my best role would be mid lane though, because that was what I played to climb in mid diamond. Aside from that, my top lane, support, and jungle are probably second best, and my ADC is the worst because of how I have horrible game mechanics.

My favorite champion is . I’ve played her a lot in the assassin meta in season three in mid lane, before the rework, and she eventually ended up becoming fotm and permabanned in solo queue in pre-season four, which got me really upset. She had her ups and downs and currently she’s extremely strong as well, but she doesn’t fit too well into the meta in other lanes aside from mid. She’s always been an extremely fun champion to play.

You've already played on more than one server successfully. Do you still play on the Korean or Chinese server and how do you balance your time between the servers?

I don’t play on Korea or China anymore because of the ping. My friend in the West coast tried playing on a Chinese server and ended up getting 400 ping, which is unplayable. When I go back to China for holidays I do play on CN though.

Have you experienced any major differences between the NA server and the Asian ones?

Oh yeah. The regions are almost polar opposites. NA likes to be more meticulous in their calculations and plays a lot more passive, while CN / KR are extremely aggressive with their spell usage and do not hesitate at all. CN and KR do have a much better fundamental understanding of strategy, rotations, and teamfighting, while NA knows how to outplay opponents better. In terms of picks and bans as well, China and Korea understand the concept of a meta much better and are much more unforgiving to people who play off-meta picks. The servers are also much more toxic and flame-y because people tryhard a lot more. NA is a lot nicer and more lenient with their picks. One thing that really, really ticked me off when I started playing in NA again was how junglers felt entitled that the jungle was theirs. I remember playing mid and having to ask for blue buffs and jungle camps. Junglers also raged when I took wraith camps and wolf camps. Back in China and Korea, blue buff was the mid laner’s, and junglers didn’t have time to be farming the camps over and over again. Junglers were expected to countergank and gank lanes over and over to create pressure. If your jungler was farming while the enemy jungler was ganking, that was 100% on your jungler for not understanding game tempo.

League has become one of the highly recognized games in the Esports scene. Do you follow the competitive scene and if so which team is your favourite?

Yeah, I’ve been following the competitive scene since the early CLG vs TSM days in late season one. I’ve kinda switched around between favorite teams. Back in season two I was a big WE fan, and their IPL5 dominance made me extremely happy. In season three, I started supporting SKT T1 ever since their inception because of how much I enjoyed Faker’s mid lane playstyle. They eventually ended up big and winning worlds, which I was extremely happy for. Ever since then though, I haven’t been as passionate about specific teams – I just wanted certain teams that I felt deserved victories to win.

As usual, the veterans are really curious what you think about them in particular. What is your opinion on some of the active veterans?

Bryun – He's the cool -guide guy that I share the name first name with. I chat with him every once in a while

emoriam, FalseoGod, Janitsu, Joxuu, Meiyjhe, Vynertje, Vapora – They're cool EU guys that I end up seeing in discussions and inhouses

Jhoijhoi – She's the “making a guide person” whose guide to guides ended up helping me with my first few guides

Nighthawk, OTG, Tehasian, Nameless, utopus – Some cool NA peeps that I play with every once in a while and see in discussions

Toshabi – One word: Troll

Searz – Searz brings up interesting points to argumentative discussions … do you even play this game anymore???

Luther3000, MissMaw, (Wayne if that counts) – They're my closest MOBAFire buds that I somehow ended up hanging out with the most with. Pretty chill people and I play in inhouses with them every once in a while

I guess you've certainly played with some of the veterans. Comparing your skill level in League to theirs who would you say has got the edge?

I honestly have no clue what my skill level is at anymore. My mechanics are extremely horrible but my knowledge is still relevant, which places me in a weird spot. I think most vets plat or up probably have better mechanics than I do, but macro game-wise I’m pretty confident : ^)

Let's get a bit more personal concering questions because people are wondering about you as a person. How old are and what you're doing in real life? What do you do for a living and is it what you imagined/hoped it be?

I’m currently 18 years old and I’m a college freshman at Penn State University, a college in the States. I’m intending to major in Computer Science. Can’t say I imagined to end up in this college since I’ve never lived in the East coast before, but this place has treated me pretty well.
I have an older sister who attends UC Berkeley at the moment. She's not too into anything and just studies and chills. We're pretty close I'd say.

Are there any of your aspirations and goals in life you would like to share with us?

I just hope to be able to influence the technological world in some way in the future. I'm intending to major in computer science at the moment and am pretty interested in programming, but I'm not too sure which specific fields I want to get into.
I also imagine myself living in Vienna or someplace in Japan. I really like both of the cultures and have been wanting to travel and experience the lives at both places for a few years already.

What about muuuuusic? Which genres are your favourite ones and which you listen to the most?

I actually like most music genres, ranging from EDM and pop to hard rock and heavy metal. I accept any type of music that is compositionally decent. As of late though I've been really into J-Pop and EDM

Do you have got any favourite booky you would like to share with us?

I don’t read too much but probably Orwell’s 1984 or Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore.

In your profile it says you're also into Anime. Can you tell us something about your personal favourite Animes?

I'm into most anime. I've already watched most of the good ones from the last few years so I'm just following the seasons watching the ones I'm interested in.

Here's a list I've worked on in the past week
http://myanimelist.net/animelist/Embracing

I guess Zankyou no Terror, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, and Steins;gate for my top 3 on the top of my head. I mostly enjoy watching anime with good artwork, so most of the older shows with better overall aspects don't interest me as much.
Zankyou no Terror because of how the show relates to a modern issue (the ***ushima Daiichi nuclear disaster) in a really subtle and well crafted way, although the show has its overly dramatic moments.
Shigatsu because I'm interested in classical music (piano & violin esp), the plot of the show is decent, and the music & screenplay is really well done, though the first twelve episodes kinda exaggerates the protag's issues and the ending was kinda predictable.
steins;gate because it's just great overall! Time travel always gets me interested, and I really love how the show takes a 180 degree turn halfway throughout.

Serious questions: Why does everyone think you're a girl and why did you change your ingame name?

I’m not too sure, but I’m guessing since I put girls on my DP people think I’m a girl. -_-

Embracing was one of my favorite songs at the time and I really like one-word names

Are there any embarrassing stories from any age of your choice you remember?

I’ve been a pretty careful guy – haven’t actually experienced any embarrassing moments before : ^)

Can you at least tell us a story of something that you did to make you feel like this?

At one point in season three when I was climbing in CN, a random guy added me. He didn't talk to me, so I asked him who he was. He told me he was recording plays and he wanted to spectate my nidalee games to record nidalee gameplay. That made my day.

Are you a part of any church/religion/religious cult?

I used to be pretty involved in a church near my high school when I was younger, but I started to shy away from it.

Lets say you have the opportunity to take 1 whole year off from work/school without repercussion. You have all costs of living (housing, food etc.) paid for, and you're given 20,000$ to pursue any interest you want. What would you do?

I’d probably try to go for music (classical or rock). For rock, I was a part of a high school band (drummer) and really enjoyed creating music and performing with friends, so I’d probably revisit that and try to become more active. For classical, I’ve regretted quitting piano when I was young, and I really admire great pianists, so I’d probably spend the year hiring a teacher and trying to get better.

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