Araneae 1, my first movie

                                                VIDEO


With the start of a new year, it seemed the perfect opportunity to ask Alvar 'Araneae' Martín, the captain of the SK Gaming League of Legends team his thoughts on 2010 and what we can look forward to for 2011.

In addition Araneae has been hard at work on a 'frag' video, showing some of his game play from 2010.

Hey Araneae, as this is your first interview on the SK site, just give us a little insight into who you are, how long you have been playing LoL and what gaming background do you have?

"Hello everyone. I'm Araneae, the captain of the SK Gaming LOL Team. I played some years CS, then 2 years DOTA and after that I started playing LOL in the closed Beta just for fun."

As some may know, prior to SK you and a large portion of the SK team were playing for the Spanish organisation of Dimegio. Your strong performances and very consistent performances are no doubt what attracted the attention of SK. How were you approached and what was it like to be asked to join such a big name in eSports?

"Well, we knew that Dimegio is a small Spanish team, and we should leave it for become bigger! In the moment that SK wanted us to join their team, we were really happy! All our team wanted to join such a big team like SK. Also Ocelote knows many European teams, and he told me that SK would be our best choice."

As you state, SK are a large organisation with lots of history. What do you think they will be able to offer you as a team and what do you hope to bring to the SK-Gaming banner?

"For us, SK, is the best organisation. We said it before joining here, and we will continue saying that. They can offer us the opportunity to travel to important lans, big website with news, products from SteelSeries, voice program... We will also aim to bring SK name to the top of the LoL community."

2010 was a successful year for you as a gamer, LoL was in its first proper year also, do you think LoL has developed well over this past 12 months?

"Yep, Riot did a very good job in 2010. We also know that they will do a better job in 2011. They went to the WCG and also they created the Go4lol's. This year they will continue with the Go4lol and also they will go to other important lans. At the moment, all the league of legends community is waiting for more info of the "End of the Season Tournament". That will be a big world tournament."

Araneae, for those of you who aren't aware, is the SK teams support player. Did you start LoL with the intention to play support primarily or did it just happen? What do you like about playing support?

"I started playing tanks. Then I played carries for the solo queue, and in the end I started playing Supports. So I played with all the heroes and I know what they can do, and what they can't do. I like to play supports cause you are many times the minimap of your team, calling misses and revealing the map with the CV to prevent ganks, or to see where they are. I always said the same: the important rule of a support is the position!"

So as a support, what do you see as your main role, is it the map awareness you provide or is it to disrupt the enemy with say a Janna knock-up or a Taric stun? Or do you see it as making sure your carry has a Janna shield on at all times, or is always healed?

"I think is all at the same time. People always call the support work as boring and easy. But it is not always so easy. The role of all the supports is the map awareness, with wards and CV. And of course, to dont let your team to die. Not only carry, many times the focus is on tank and you should protect him before the carry. So there is not a main role, it is all your job."

Thanks for those few insights, next up we have your new video. Does it feature mainly team play or are they highlights from Solo Q?

"I wanted to wish a Happy New Year to everyone in Sk Gaming with this video.

So the video have some team clips, but most of them are just clips in solo queue or some normal game."

Thanks once again for the video and your time, I'm sure others like me, will want to see more of the SK team in action, so please keep them coming, do you have anything else you wish to say in closing?
"Yeah, I also wanted to thanks the SK Gaming team (Carlos 'ocelote' Rodríguez, Christoph 'nRated' Seitz, Adam 'rashaasii' Olofsson, Franzetti 'Alth0r' Romain, Benjamin 'SleazyWeazy' Hiller and Mike 'Wickd' Petersen), and some friends (Vinc3d, Drizxd, Goro, Laris) who helped me making this video. Thank you also for this interview, and... Happy 2011 to everyone!"