Professional Call of Duty 4 player, Havax, has recently won the CEVO Finish the Fight Tournament with team Guardians and is currently playing in the first CEVO-P season for Call of Duty 4. Recently Havax took some time out of his schedule to answer some questions. During this two part series he talks about gaming lessons, Call of Duty 4’s potential, and his experiences playing with Team Guardians.

Do you think that Call of Duty 4 will overtake Counter Strike: Source as the premier competitive multiplayer first person shooter?
No, simply because of The CGS league on Direct TV. The CGS has a monopoly on the competitive scene right now with salaried players and CSS is their team FPS game. I think CoD4 is the number one alternative to that scene, however. I hope it takes off as one of, if not, the top competitive FPS game at major lans like WCG and CPL if they are still alive.

How do you feel about the mods that limit the accessories of Call of Duty 4?
They are necessary for competition. All mods that are in place are there to increase the skill gap so more skilled players can more commonly kill less skilled players. I think there are a few perks that are up for debate still, but on the whole, we’ve done a good job professionalizing this game.

I’ve heard in Europe they have eliminated a majority of the perks in COD4. Do you think they should do the same in North American competitions? Do you think that leaving the perks in has a dramatic effect on game play?
I think the Europeans are wrong on two things: their elimination of deep impact, and multibomb. Without deep impact on, they aren’t able to wall through a majority of the walls around all the maps. This makes the game less diverse and fun in my opinion. Also, they need to turn multibomb (everyone is allowed to plant) on. Other than that, the ruleset between us and the Euros are nearly the same. Most of the perks are overpowered so they must be turned off, and they are rightfully so.

How many hours per day do you practice with your team?
Our team practices Sunday, and Tuesday-Thursday for about 2-4 (normally about 3) hours a day.

What aspects of Call of Duty 4 are covered during a practice session with your team?
First of all we go over names for everything on the map. Once we know what everything is named, we will usually spend most of the time scrimming and getting used to how each other play our positions. After a few scrims we will go into the server and then spend time in the server finding nades to spots opponents usually are at off the start of the round and find good spam spots through walls. Finally, we will work on a variety of different setups that we name so we can call before each round.

What is the one thing that Guardians need to improve upon? Such as teamwork, strats, etc.
One of the main things I press upon my teamates is communication. I’m trying to get us all to the point where we communicate absolutely everything we are thinking and seeing at all times. We have improved in this area, but our current biggest problem is working together and rotating efficently on offense to open bombsites. This is more of a chemistry issue that develops over time with meshing and experience together. I am optimistic we will improve because we are all smart players that recognize our flaws and are dedicated to fixing them.

From a teacher’s prospective is there more to teach in cod4 rather than cod2? Does cod4 add another dimension to the call of duty series?
CoD4 is actually less individually skill based than CoD2, so in order to get an edge, you really need to capitalize on a team-level to be ahead of the competition. CoD4 does have some unique things that CoD2 didn’t with things like sprinting and flashes which diversify our game.

If someone offered you $50,000 to quit cod4, would you?
Yes, I’m a college student. However, I really enjoy CoD4 as a hobby in my free time and as a competitive outlet for me and would certainly miss it.

Click here to check out part 1 of this interview.

Head over to FPSTrainers.com to book a Call of Duty 4 lesson with Havex.

http://www.fpstrainers.com/index.php?c=profile&playerID=271