Sbkzor: Hello Kindz, and nice to meet you! Before we start, I just wanted to thank you for offering your time. It’s a pleasure to meet new players, especially French ones, but also introduce great competitors like you to the community!
May I let you introduce yourself a bit to our audience? 

Kindz: My name is Cyril, I’m 28, and I’m from Marseille, in the South of France.
Ingame, I am Kindz, a rogue, obviously, and I’ve been a long-time player on World Of Warcraft. Basically, I’ve started playing during the beta US, and I discovered the rogue class a bit after the release of WoW Vanilla. …and I’ve kept playing it ever since. I actually got 4 rogues on retail and 3 on Classic.
I was playing during the original TBC in arenas and I was nothing but a 1600 rated player, that’s why going for the rank 1 on BC Classic was a big challenge for me since I had to learn a lot of things about the expansion which I didn’t know back then.
I achieved several gladiator titles on retail WoW, and I got my first one during Season 11 (Cataclysmic). I got my first R1 during Legion.

On a side note, I’m quite proud to tell you that I was lucky to be invited by Blizzard to cast the Blizzcon tourney in 2015 for the french audience.

Sbkzor: Wow, awesome! Thanks for this introduction! As I can see, you’re pretty much an ancient on World of Warcraft! And a very dedicated one if we consider that you kept playing rogue for so long! What actually pushed you to stick with the class for that many years?

Kindz: What made me stick to the class: that’s a complicated question. I think it’s the overall class design. It has this stealthy sneaky thing, alongside something really brutal in certain seasons, which brought variety from one expansion or season to another.
The fact that you can decide who plays or not in the arena and the whole toolkit as well are also things that made me stick to the class. Every fight is different but most of the time, the rogue decides. Oh, and it’s a great class for 1v1 as well. 😊

Sbkzor: Do you have a favorite expansion or season? Maybe the one during which you achieved your first rank 1 eventually? 

Kindz: Well, Wrath (of the LK) is the expansion during which I really started investing some effort and time in arenas. I reached 2.4K during that time. And by looking through the whole history of the game, I’d say this is the best era of WOW (arena wise)
Sure, the season during which I got my first R1 title is very special to me, especially if we consider that we were not really tryharding for it, but we did it and it was amazing! 

Sbkzor: Okay! Does that mean that you plan to be there for Classic WotLK as well?

Kindz: I think yes, but we’ll see in the future 😅

Sbkzor: Ok ok, so let’s move on to our topic and talk about season 1 on Burning Crusade Classic! So you achieved your rank 1 this season playing Mage Rogue with Albraik up to 2909 rating. That makes your team 3rd RM in EU (After Mir & Avizura teams) and 4th ex-aequo in the world if we count NA teams (after Swk’s, and ex-aequo with Floomatr’s). That’s a great performance!
Did you initially plan to play Rogue/Mage for season 1?

Kindz: So I came on TBC with two partners of mine: Blake (Lock) et Albraik (Mage)
I achieved all my R1 with Albraik as RMP or RMPala on retail. Our Priest was supposed to join us, but he’s lacking time for TBC. We had multiple team compositions in mind, especially in 3v3, but we knew that RM would be our best option since we’re used to playing the comp together, and knew its strengths and synergy.

Sbkzor: OK I see. I was actually about to ask how you met your teammates for season 1, but I understand that you guys are long-time partners.
That means that you can adapt quite easily because you’ve already built the teamplay part of your team, which allows you to focus on the game rather than communicating, finding synergies, etc.

Kindz: We’ve played together for around 7 years… so yeah!  😊

Sbkzor: Damn ! That’s so cool! And since your priest partner has not joined the party, does that mean that you’ll be trying some triple DPS Comps (Rogue Mage Lock) in 3v3? That was a killer team composition back in TBC times. I remember Curvne’s video, especially, which was showcasing it! Maybe you’ve seen that movie already? 

Kindz: No, we’ve not tested it, mainly due to the meta (belt, skull, filet)

Sbkzor: Curvne (mage) was playing with Dakkroth (a great warlock player who also got his R1 on BC Classic Season 1 as lock priest, if I remember correctly) and Agiruze, a rogue player who was also quite known back then. I think he did 2 videos, maybe three.

Kindz: Yeah, I know Dakkroth, but I don’t remember about Agiruze, I’ll check that for sure!

Sbkzor: Well it’s probably getting old for now, because we farmed TBC content for a decade and the gameplay has also stepped up a lot especially during and after WOTLK… So you mentioned the belt/skull/filet meta. Could you eventually share your opinion with us on this specific aspect of the game?

Kindz: Well, I think those items don’t belong to the arena at all. Mostly because they force players to be engineers, and every profession item should be banished from the arena (just like filet, rocket boots, etc.). Passive buffs from the profession items on the other hand are okayish, but items with on-use effects are really game-changing.
And about the skull, I really don’t understand why a level 60 item, from the previous expansion, can be used in arenas. The same with MQG (Mind quickening gem) which brings so much haste. Kind of a second Skull of Gul’dan. It became mandatory at high rates…

Sbkzor: Yes, I agree with you, and I think I can say that the majority of high-rated players that I know (mostly from the pserver scene) do agree with you.
I really wonder if Blizzard plans to give us some good #changes, but that’s something that we – the PVP community – really expect, by the read of classic subreddits, discords, and forums. 

Kindz: Yeah no announcement yet for now…
Well, it requires some adaptations, which brings new things and different playstyle in arenas, but it turned into a big disadvantage for players who were not able to use them.

Sbkzor: Yeah, and I’m part of them. haha 😀
So, should I deduce that you both farmed to use these items as well? 

Kindz: Yeah we had both to go for engineering with such meta because losing as double DPS to belt players was actually really tilting. With the belt, it was allowing us to buy time for another setup or just avoid dying in 1v2 situations especially against Druid/Warlock comps.

Sbkzor: Yeah, and it almost never backfired as well, right? At least until the very end of the season but maybe it changed a few weeks ago? What do you think? 

Kindz: It happened, but the win-loss ratio was really worth it. It’s an item that you want to use when you’re extremely close to death, which means that seeing it backfiring doesn’t change much the fact that you were losing, and if it works, then it’s a great way to come back. There are also few situations where you want to use it to prevent damage even when you’re not dying, and survive with a vanish or ice block if it fails. 

Sbkzor: So… if we were to take some hot feedback from this season-ending… Did you try it hard at the end? Like, did you face some very sweaty teams or situations? Any players or teams in mind ? I know that Speank’s WD was pretty tough to deal with for a lot of teams.

Kindz: Well. I’m not gonna lie, we were not sharing the same opinion during the whole last week of the season with my partner Albraik, until the last eve around 8:00 PM haha. We were at 2894 and I was quite sure that we were safe, but Albraik wasn’t convinced. As we can see now, I was right but nobody can know it until the end.
So we did one more game and we faced a double rogue which naturally gave us a very sweaty arena match. Albraik won his 1v1 but got killed by the second rogue during a long CC chain applied on me. Nonetheless, I had the advantage for the 1v1 part because I had saved my trinket for this duel. We won +15 on this game which didn’t really give more confidence to Albraik, until the last day during which the cut-off did not move much.
About the matchups, I’d say that the most difficult for horde RM was human rogue comps because openers matter a lot in rogue versus rogue. I think Disc rogue was the hardest one, especially the one played by Mir and Uzb, of course. Both are insane players.

Sbkzor: Yea I see. Indeed, securing your R1 requires a lot of effort, or “presence” may I say, to stay up to date about the cut-off, etc., so I definitely can relate.
Well done to you guys!

Kindz: Yeah it’s very demanding, and we didn’t want to mess it up because the title is quite unique and we didn’t want to lose it on a bad session, you know. We’ll try to make it more comfortable for season S2 to make it as safe as possible without caring for the ladder until the very last minute 😇

Sbkzor: Yeah! Speaking of Mir and Uzb, who I want to salute right here, did you take some time to check on the “existing” community from Burning Crusade? To see who’s known, and check their content, and such? I think about players like Uzb, Tazar, Rivah, etc.

Kindz: Well, it didn’t take too long before we knew who the private server players were, thanks to Asmongold’s tourney during the beta. But honestly, I wasn’t expecting to meet that many private server players on such a high level because the meta was obviously going to be different (confirmed by the belt for example) and a lot more tryhard (Classic mentality).
For me, it was about seeing retail R1s at the top because they’re used to adapt to different expansions and metas and I was convinced that it wouldn’t be too problematic, may I say. But I’m glad to see new names as well, and I am honestly really surprised – in a good way – by the level of some TBC veterans.

Sbkzor: Except Mir and Uzb that you already mentioned, do you have specific players in mind? 

Kindz: I faced Lumxo and Himeyo a lot, and it was actually the first WD that impressed us because they were actually not easy to beat. (editor’s note: they ended the season over 3k rating, making them the world #4 rated team in 2v2)
We also faced Ecliptic’s Lock/Rogue (around 2.9K) which was also very tough because we didn’t face that much RL past 2.5K rating, and if the rogue had a Sap on me, the game was over. Actually, even with a proper opener, it was very hard because every mistake was impactful. I could probably bring more names on the table, such as Tazar, Mir, Minpojke, Rivah, Mirok, Speank, and so on.
But, let’s say that after that much arena season played, we do not really focus on the names because we kind of face the same ones, over and over. 

Sbkzor: That’s for sure. But that’s also cool to meet new players and to discover new names finally. Even if meeting the same rivals, patch after patch is also quite stimulating as well. 

Kindz: Yes, I agree. It’s refreshing to face new names, new players, and especially to discover new playstyles which are, sometimes, really making difference if you get surprised.

Sbkzor: To end this interview, may I ask you about your future plans for S2?
More rogue mage? What about 3v3? any comps in mind? 

Kindz: For the next season, we’ll have to invest some time and effort in raids, to get optimized, which doesn’t really appeal to me that much.
I’ve got three rogues now so I’ll be able to play a lot more different comps. I’ll be focused on the ladder with my main one, and we’ll experiment things with the other twos, but nothing planned so far, Season 2 might be quite long, so I’ll have time to chill.

Exactly. CHILL.
Well, my man, this was a very pleasant interview! I‘m really happy to meet a new Frenchy rogue with a lot of experience, and dedication for PVP.
I am really looking forward to seeing you in arenas, be it in-game, or on your Twitch.
I’ll make sure to follow you on Twitter as well, and I wish you the best for this season 2.
Again, congratulations on your R1 Kindz! 👏

kindzx profile

You can follow Kindz on:

– Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/kindztv
– Twitter: https://twitter.com/KindzTV