2008 Post-Draft: Catching Up with Ben Woodward

Posted by: LD^Mike

How was the first draft for you as a GM?

It was awesome. The moment I came outside after I just finished, I said “yeah, I want to do it again.” I wanted to draft again because that was awesome fun. It was great.

Did you get every player you wanted?

Yeah, pretty much. It went according to plan, really, so yeah.

ODEE told me he was trying to play some mind games with you before the draft. Do you feel like you fell for anything?

Did he? No. He was trying. I’m guessing when he played NT101 with Daveyskills he was trying to make it look like he wanted NT101, which I don’t think he ever intended on doing. So I just did the same with WilzOO and the Mint. Two can play at that game. It didn’t scare me, put me off, or anything.

Do you feel you have any big weaknesses?

A big weakness? No. If the guys start practicing when we get back and stick to a practice schedule we’ll be fine, for sure.

Is there a UK championship in your future?

Yeah, I’d like to think we can win. Losing isn’t an option of us. I want to be UK #1 again and retain our title so yeah, we’re going to win.

Is five weeks enough time to prepare?

Well let’s just say the Americans have a bit more time than us, which happened last year as well. But it’s enough time; it’s quite a few days so we should be alright.

You picked George “HudgZ” Hoskins first. Did you think there was a chance of him going to Salvo?

No. Well, there was a little doubt in my mind. It wasn’t a serious concern, but it was in the back of my mind.

What did you see in George?

He’s just a mad player. He’s just awesome at the game, and that’s one of the reasons we got him onto the Mint [for this event]. I wanted to be able to see him, so I watched him in practices and he just came together with the team perfectly. And seriously I thought he was an awesome pick for me – he was just the person that we needed in the Mint.

Is there any player coming into the Combine that you didn’t think they played well, but they ended up playing well?

That’s a good question. I came into the Combine with an open mind, I didn’t really think about how people would actually perform at the event. The only person I could probably say would be Gruntdude, who I expected to play well after being the European champion of DoA. To come here and fall like he did, I wasn’t expecting that. You get your chance and if you can’t take it …

What game had the deepest field?

That’s a good question, actually. Hmmm. It could have potentially been Dead or Alive. There are a lot of players that could have beaten each other, but at the end of the day a lot of people were just better than the other ones, like Paddaman was outperforming everyone, and Messy was doing the same. There’s a lot of talent in the DoA community in the UK.

Ricochet and Snuggles were definitely outclassed by the two sisters – do you think they’re really a class above them?

It appears that way. Time will tell if they are or not. But it was quite refreshing to see because I had never heard of them before the event. And I didn’t hear much about them until the event actually started. They just dominated everyone in their game, and it was amazing to see. Time will tell if they’re good enough on stage and they can perform for the franchise, but we’ll see.

Beta, on the taxi team, how’s that work?

It was actually a request from the guys standing behind me that were protected. They wanted to have Beta on the team. I guess you’re going to have to ask them why. I chose crazycat. I must admit, I didn’t actually get told that I had to do taxi players before the draft, so it got to a point where I was actually standing on stage and I had to look through my list and pick people as soon as possible … so some of the picks might appear a bit dodgy. Hopefully we won’t have to use them. Even if we do, there is a pool of 12 players total to choose from.