Before heading to Singapore for the Digital Youth Award Finals, Kyle “Swindlemelonzz” Freedman of Team ICE sits down for an interview.
Hello Swindlemelonzz! How have you been? For people who don’t know you, why don’t you introduce yourself to the community. What’s your background in gaming?
Ummm well I started off as a little kid playin SSB and donkey kong with my lil bros on the good ole n64, moved up to backyard baseball and then unfortunately found WoW. After playing that for 2ish years I stopped gaming for a little until I picked up HoN, and now I’m in Singapore 
ICE has some very interesting characters on the team, can you tell us how the team got started? Also, can you give a quick rundown of each player and their role?
Well, we started originally as me, ruffian, tehgosu, syk`, and jah, but obviously our roster has changed considerably since then. Really we were just inhousers who wanted to try our luck in the competitive scene, and we’ve enjoyed a lot of success from that. As far as roles go, jah is our main support player, tehgosu_, ensoe, joshp, and syk` take care of the solo/carry role, and I’m sort of our jack of all trades player, although I normally take the role of initiator.
Compared to teams like EG and OK, ICE hasn’t been around for a long time. However, since the team was established you guys have quickly turned a lot of heads in the community and many see you guys as a team to be on the look out for. Why do you think this is the case?
The main reason I think is that we’re a very inconsistent and volatile team. We can beat eG one day, and lose to jangbang the next, depending mostly on our attitude as a team. We try to mix up our laning strats/hero picks a lot, so I’m sure that has something to do with it.
While you guys might be playing well against some of these teams, it still remains true that these teams have been together far longer than ICE has. Do you think coming into the Digital Youth Awards Finals that this will play a huge role in your matches?
Of course it will. However, as a young team I think we have a small element of surprise compared to the big-name teams, since not many people have had a chance to study our strategies.
It’s been spreading around the community that you guys have been having trouble finding a fifth for Singapore with Ensoe being unable to attend. Can you tell us about the situation you guys found yourselves in?
It’s pretty out in the open now, but neither JoshP nor Ensoe was able to make it to DYA. Brized (ps.emperor) has flown out to be a definite fourth, and I’m sure we can find local singapore pro to be our fifth .
Going along with that, how have you guys been preparing for the event?
Ummm, we played the two days leading up to our flight, but we all took a hiatus from HoN once we recieved our flight information. We’ve been talking a lot about strategy and feel very confident that we’re ready for the event.
It seems like ICE has been going through some tough times as of late, losing to teams that you would normally stomp, what’s going on? Do you think that these losses have any impact on the teams moral?
It’s almost 100% to do with morale, however the players that normally cause our low morale will not be attending DYA, so who knows what’s going to happen 
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In Singapore, you’ll be facing off against some of the best teams in the world for Heroes of Newerth. How do you feel going into the event?
Very confident. The only thing that will beat us is ourselves.
Which teams are you guys more worried about? Why is that?
eG for sure. They’re pretty undisputably the best team in the world right now, with a fantastic roster and much more experience than us.
What do you think about the Asian teams? A lot of players have no idea what playing against these teams will be like. Have you guys been doing anything special to prepare against their surprise factor?
We’re very confident about how we’ll play against the Asian teams, and we plan on pulling out a few surprises of our own ^_^.
When you look around, you see that almost every single team that competes in a tournament is sponsored. Do you feel that a sponsorship at this stage in the game is necessary? Do you think that all these sponsor investing time into the game is really helping the community and game grow as a eSport?
To be honest, I don’t really think HoN is moving towards a bigger presence in the e-sport scene, especially with the announcement of DotA 2. Sponsorships are pretty necessary imo, but the real factor is whether or not organizations like the CPL will continue to host tournaments and grow within the HoN scene.
Thanks for the quick interview! Any last words or shout outs?
Shoutout to my family (love you guys), the inhouse crew, my teammates, the haters, and especially our #1 fan jangbang. And of course, a big shoutout to DRD for the free press and the easy victory in the CAL final.
MelonZz OUT!
