On the eve before the big day, we managed to briefly catch up with SQL members Mike "Apoc" Aliferis and Rory "Diggity" Bourke and asked them a few questions regarding their journey.

Given the extremely tough group you guys recieved, what are your expectations realistic or not for this years WCG Final?

Honestly, its going to be an ask for us to get out of groups. If we play our best I feel we have enough skill to topple some of the better teams! A realistic goal however is to at least cause a shake in the group, whether that means us going through(Obviously preferably) or just preventing someone else, so be it! I believe mTw should win our group, then probably Power Gaming (If they manage to topple us that is..)

We have all read the blogs regarding the practice sessions with various teams, are you satisfied with your preparation thus far?

Our only preparation has been verse the Hong Kong teams. We started off slow on the 1st day, losing 4 maps, but since have won upwards of around 90% of our games. Once we recieved word on what maps are being played, we've geeked it up a bit and watched a few demos of the teams in our group etc. We've never really been a team to play around other teams style, but knowing little idiosyncrasies cant hurt!

Why the stop over in Hong Kong?

The stop over in HK was WCG's choice. We just asked for a stop-over in anywhere but Chengdu. HK ended up being a great choice, as we all had alot of fun. Their nightlife turned out to be pretty amazing!

Its been a couple of years since you've all been overseas for CS, this time around is there anyone you'd like to meet/hang out with that you didnt get a chance to first time around?

I cant say any teams for sure who I'd love to meet, however i know Soren is REALLY excited on meeting his long time idols Zonic and even moreso Frod. Ever since ive known Soren he has been the biggest Frod groupie! He wasn't in Seattle so he was very upset he didnt get to meet him! I'll make sure to capture every moment when these two finally meet!

What are your thoughts on having 2 teams that the old Immunity team managed to beat (On 1 map for PowerGaming/Roccat) last time they went overseas, being PowerGaming and Vatos Locos?

iM did well enough last time they went overseas, but went downt to powergaming 1-2. Unfortunately there is no room for error with us as its in the group stages and its only bo1 vs each time. I feel inferno is probably our strongest map(same map which iM beat power gaming on), but we have them on train, so how well iM has played vs power/vatos doesnt really matter to us, we will just try to play our game and do our best!

How would you describe the shape your team is currently in? And has having some rather successful practice sessions vs some top teams played any part in your confidence leading upto the event?

I dont think we are prepared as we would like to have been. The practice before leaving for HK was little to none, and in HK the prac environment was bad. We got better prac online than we did on lan. We tried to get XcN to prac 2nite but we were unable to locate a internetcafe near by. The latter games vs RS definately helped with our confidence coming into the event, as we managed to mesh well as a team and find the chemistry that won us the Australian Finals.

Thanks for the interview! Any thoughts/comments you'd like to share before we let you get a decent nights sleep?

My personal thoughts(Rory) are that the Virtus game is our make or break. If we beat virtus i think we will fire up and get past power gaming aswell, where as if we lose to them, we know that we have almost no chance of getting through and will have a terrible game vs the remaining teams. We are a team that goes off momentum/intensity, if thats gone then we will struggle, hopes are high however and we are looking forward to causing an upset or two! Thanks to everyone back home following our trip and be sure to watch us vs mTw first up tomorrow afternoon!

Be sure to follow their progress here as we bring you all the coverage from this event!