Interview: Get to know maniaX.eSports Girls!

When I was reading the information about the ESL Balkans, I noticed a participating team that I had never heard about before: maniaX.eSports Girls.

Curious as I am, I decided to look them up and get some info on these mystery ladies! Their teamleader, Ely, was kind enough to answer some of my questions.

FG: Could you please start by telling our readers a bit about yourself and your team?
Ely: Hello to all Female-gamers.com readers! My name is Ivan Elizabeth, I am 22 years old and I live in Bucharest, Romania.
In the gaming world I am also known as "Ely". I started playing CS for fun about 10 years ago. After a while I realized that I wanted more from this game and I started to play in mixed teams with boys and the first competition was WCG 2002 qualifiers.

Ely

My current team is a new lineup and we have some girls with experience in CS and also some new faces. A very important thing for us is that we understand each other very well both in-game and in real life; we play with pleasure and we hope we can have a good performance. In a brief presentation of my team beside me we have: aDa who is 22 years old and is a great player with a lot of experience, she is also our in-game leader. And then we have 3 young and very good girls who bring a new spirit to our team: eLenNa who is 18, AnthOnyA who is 17 and Nikko who is 16. Last but not least is our back-up player Diavolitza who is 19 years old.



How did the team start and how long have you been playing together?
Our current team was formed this year, although we’ve known each other for a long time; I also played with some of the girls in the past. Once I made this lineup we started training and we are glad that we had the opportunity to join the organization maniaX eSports.

What's the female Counter-Strike scene like in Romania, are there any other female teams?
I could say that it’s not a very active scene because not so many girls take this game seriously and now in Romania we have only 3 teams of girls: our team, cool-Girls and AirWalk.Babes, now even these 2 are not very active unfortunately.

What do the Romanian boys think of you girls?
Few years ago they could not believe that and joke about us. In time, me and the other girls have played in mixed teams with boys in various national competitions and so we made a name for ourselves. I think in all games and sports it’s not easy to get recognized in a discipline which is by default male.

Have you attended any leagues or events together before?
We never played in any competition with this line-up, the Balkans is our first official tournament. As a player me and some others girls have played online or offline in various national competitions in the past, so we are not beginners.

How do you think you'll do in the ESL Balkans female league? And who do you predict will be the number 1, 2 and 3?
What should I say, for us Balkans League is just the beginning, it’s the first competition in which we participate. We hope we will make a good impression and our work will be rewarded with some good results. It is difficult to give a top 3 , because I don’t really know the other teams very well. I think it will be a close competition and all teams have a chance to grab a place on the top3, where I hope to also see our team.

Are there any other leagues besides ESL Balkans we can expect to see you in any time soon?
We hope so, but unfortunately we don’t have too many competitions for female players. I hope we will also attend ESL Major Series V, as the representative of Romania.

How often do you girls practice and how do you prepare yourself for a match?
Besides what we play separately, we used to meet 1 or 2 times every week in Discovery Arena Café, where we usually train around 5-6 hours; talking tactics and playing practice wars. I'm glad because we get along very well as a team and I can say the teamwork goes well for us now. We’re now waiting for the first official matches to see results and performance so we can train our weak points and get more experience as a team.

What's your team's goal with Counter-Strike?
Our goal is to win all the competitions in which we play, we don’t play in a competition just to lose
Now seriously we just want to have fun and enjoy the game and why not hope that our work and efforts will give us some satisfaction and good results.

Thanks for your answers & time Ely! Any last words for our readers?
Congratulations for this website because I think the female community needs a good coverage. With this initiative I hope to also see more competitions dedicated for girls and why not also in other games, not just CS. I want to say thanks to all who helped us in our attempts to be better at gaming.




Posted by ZaZa  ::  comment: 3